LHBP | Chapter 1

Zhuyuan Town, Taohua Village.

At this time, it was the spring plowing season, yet the Gu family’s small courtyard was packed with villagers, three layers deep inside and three layers deep outside, all there to watch the commotion.

“Head of the household, do we really have to spend money on medicine for this money-losing wretch?” Cui Guizhi said hatefully, shooting a vicious glare at the little ge'er lying in the inner room on the bed. He had fallen into the water and been seen naked by a man, and now he was running a high fever. He might as well just die. It was all that He family’s eldest son’s fault, not only for pulling him out of the water, but for even insisting that it was their Zhenxing who had pushed him, and telling them to find a doctor for Yun ge'er.

“If we don’t see a doctor, will that do? Look outside, all those people are waiting to see the show,”

Gu Yuanshan glanced outside and said, “Besides, He Jing, the He family’s eldest son, is the only tongsheng in our village. The village chief will definitely believe what he says. You go and boil some hot water for Yun ge'er to drink first, I’ll go invite a doctor.”

Since Gu Yuanshan had said as much, Cui Guizhi had no choice but to go to the kitchen unwillingly.

Gu Yuanshan had only just stepped out of the main room when he saw the village chief and He Jing, the He family’s eldest son, walking into the courtyard together, followed by an elderly man. This person was precisely Doctor Wang, the herbal doctor from Mingde Village.

Gu Yuanshan hurried forward a few steps and led the group into the main room. He said to Doctor Wang, “Doctor Wang, you came just in time. I was just about to go to Mingde Village to ask you to come take a look at our Yun ge'er. You tell me, this child really is something else. It’s the very season when the fields are busy with sowing, and he’s already eighteen, yet he’s still so playful. He insisted on bringing Zhenxing to the riverbank to catch fish, but ended up accidentally falling into the river himself. Luckily, He family’s eldest son passed by and saved Yun ge'er.”

After hearing Gu Yuanshan’s anxious attempt to clear himself and twist right and wrong, He Jing gave him a cold look. “Uncle Gu, children still need to be properly taught. After all, indulging a son is like killing him.”

Cui Guizhi had just carried in a bowl of hot water when she heard He Jing’s words. Gu Zhenxing was her precious darling, and she could not stand it when anyone said anything bad about him.

She immediately set the bowl on the table, put her hands on her hips, and shouted loudly, “He family’s eldest son, what are you saying? What do you mean killing or not killing? My Zhenxing is only ten, he’s still a child, and he’s very sensible. As for this Yun ge'er, he was the one craving meat, so he incited my Zhenxing to go to the riverbank to catch fish. Falling into the river himself was his own fault. Poor my Zhenxing, so young and already frightened, and now he’s being falsely accused by outsiders.”

The more Cui Guizhi spoke, the louder her voice became. Then she thought of the money-losing wretch Gu Yun still lying on the bed at this moment, and of how she would have to spend money to hire a doctor. Her anger rose even higher.

“Poor my Yun ge'er, having his body seen by a man, now his innocence is ruined. He Jing, for all that you’re a scholar, you must take responsibility for this. You have to marry our Yun ge'er!”

Cui Guizhi had her own little scheme. Who did not know that He Jing’s father, He Daqing, was a butcher?

These days, cooks and butchers were the most sought-after. If Gu Yun married over there, their family could eat meat every day. Besides, the He family also lived in one of the village’s best blue-brick, large-tiled houses, and they had even supported He Jing, the scholar, so their family background must be quite substantial. This Yun ge'er ate for nothing at home every day, so by then she would be sure to demand a hefty bride price. At the very least, it had to be ten taels of silver.

Seeing Cui Guizhi getting more and more outrageous, Village Chief Xu Linxiang could not stand it anymore. “The Gu family’s, the more you speak, the more excessive it gets. The He family’s eldest son is Yun ge'er’s life-saving benefactor. Instead of properly thanking him, you’re spouting nonsense here. Yun ge'er is still running a high fever. Hurry up and take the doctor inside to look at the child.”

Then he turned to Doctor Wang with an apologetic expression and said, “Sorry to trouble Doctor Wang to go into the inner room and take a look at Yun ge'er.”

Doctor Wang nodded and followed Cui Guizhi into the inner room.

Hot, so hot.

Gu Yun felt as if he were inside a huge furnace, his whole body burning hot. He wanted to open his eyes and look, but his head hurt terribly. Before he could even draw a breath, he immediately felt a searing pain in his lungs and could not help coughing hard.

After he finally calmed down for a while, and his head no longer hurt so badly, he opened his eyes and barely took in his surroundings.

The moment Gu Yun saw what was around him, he was completely stunned. The four walls were all made of earth, and the whole room was empty except for a few crude wooden pieces of furniture. Gu Yun had never seen such a shabby house before.

His last memory was of being in a car accident. So why, upon waking again, was he not in a hospital, but instead in some strange place? And recalling how horrific that car accident had been, he felt that there was no way he should still be alive.

While Gu Yun was lost in thought, the room door was opened. Two people walked in one after the other, the one in front a woman in her thirties or forties, with a sharp and刻薄 expression, dressed in coarse cloth clothes, her hair all pinned up. Behind her was an old man in his fifties or sixties. Both were dressed in ancient-style clothing.

Gu Yun glanced sideways at the long hair scattered beside his pillow, thinking when had his hair become this long?

A guess surfaced in his mind, this was not the world he had been living in, and perhaps even this body was not his own.

As he was thinking about his situation, a flood of unfamiliar memories surged into his mind.

This was a country that did not exist in history, the Great Yan Kingdom.

The original Gu Yun’s life before the age of five had been fairly decent, but in the year he turned five, his birth mother Guan Yuping suffered massive blood loss in childbirth. Because the original owner’s father, Gu Yuanshan, could not bear to spend the money to hire a doctor, the child was never delivered and she died in the end.

Less than a month after Guan Yuping died, Gu Yuanshan married his current stepmother, Cui Guizhi, into the family.

Cui Guizhi was also a remarried woman, bringing with her a ge'er who was the same age as Gu Yun, and he was renamed Gu An.

Gu Yun had still been young at the time. Although he was sad that his father had found him a stepmother so quickly, he still wanted to get close to Cui Guizhi and Gu An.

Who would have thought that Cui Guizhi was not easy to get along with either. In order to establish herself in the new home and not let her own ge'er suffer, she often spoke ill of Gu Yun in front of Gu Yuanshan.

Gu Yuanshan already disliked this ge'er, always feeling that Guan Yuping had been incapable of giving him a son to carry on the family line. And with Gu Yun being introverted and not fond of speaking, compared with Gu An’s lively, cheerful, and sweet-tongued personality, Gu Yuanshan became even more annoyed with Gu Yun.

Less than a year after coming to the Gu family, Cui Guizhi gave birth to a big fat son for Gu Yuanshan.

Gu Yun became even less welcome at home. At such a young age, he could only live in the drafty woodshed. Cui Guizhi had always been lazy, so all the household chores fell on Gu Yun. During the busy farming season, he also had to work in the fields.

For all three meals a day, he could only drink porridge that was practically no different from water. If he occasionally ate two extra bites, or if his work was a little slow, he would still get a beating from Cui Guizhi. Gu An and Gu Zhenxing even followed her example, and toward Gu Yun, they were even more apt to beat and curse him at every turn.

If Taohua Village had not been backed by mountains, Gu Yun could still occasionally go up the mountain to pick some wild fruits and wild vegetables to fill his stomach, and with the occasional help from kind people in the village, he would probably have starved to death long ago. By now, at eighteen years old, he was so thin that even a gust of wind could almost blow him away.

This time, he fell into the water because Gu Zhenxing wanted to eat fish, so Cui Guizhi had Gu Yun go catch some.

Gu Zhenxing thought it was fun, so he followed him to the riverbank. Since the river was close to the village, many people came to catch fish, and the fish in the river had long since learned to be clever. The moment they saw someone approaching, they all swam away.

Gu Yun was busy for half the day and did not catch a single fish. He had gone to the fields before dawn without eating breakfast, and when he came back at noon, he had only just drunk a couple of mouthfuls of porridge before Cui Guizhi called him to catch fish, so after being busy for half the day, he was exhausted.

Gu Zhenxing had been spoiled rotten by Gu Yuanshan and Cui Guizhi, and had been lawless since childhood. Anything he wanted, all the good things in the Gu family were given to him first. So even though he was only ten, he was already sturdier than Gu Yun.

Seeing that Gu Yun had worked for half the day and still had not caught a single fish, he got furious. On top of that, Cui Guizhi often droned on to him that Gu Yun was a money-losing wretch who might as well be dead, so he simply used both hands to shove Gu Yun hard and push him into the water.

The original owner did not know how to swim. After falling into the river, he was frightened, and after being rescued, he developed a high fever and died just like that. And the one now inhabiting this body was an otherworldly soul.