Death

Liu Xiaolan sighed. Looking around once more, she moved her tired body to the pack of straw lying on the ground.

'Guess that's going to be my bed for now…'

She lied down and started thinking about what happened today. Aside from the fact that she somehow reincarnated, the way the original soul died was sad as well.

Liu Xiaolan for most of her life didn't get much food, so her body was used to not having any food. But even then, she still needed to eat something from time to time. With no food grown by herself, and with the villagers scared away by her biological family, all she could do was to look for something eatable on the mountains.

Today, Liu Xiaolan was a little lucky. The season for chestnuts has just started, so she managed to pick some of them. While she didn't know how to cook them, she did know they were edible. Thinking that perhaps she could ask some villagers how to eat them, she picked as much of them as she could.

When she went down the mountain, she thought about who to ask and decided to go and ask Ren Lanfeng, the village head. Of all the villagers, he would probably be one of the few that would help her.

Unfortunately, when she was coming towards the center of the village, she had to pass the fields belonging to the Liu family.

Today, Grandma Liu took Liu Xueyue with her to the fields to look around and spend some time

Liu Xueyue is the daughter of Grandma Liu's youngest son, Liu Weixin.

When they were walking around, Liu Weixin noticed Liu Xiaolan and called her. Grandma Liu as always was unhappy seeing Liu Xiaolan, even more so when she saw that she had some chestnuts with her.

Even through chestnuts aren't priceless, Grandma Liu, in order to spike Liu Xiaolan, forced the little girl to pass her chestnuts in the name of filial piety to herself.

Liu Xiaolan hasn't eaten for some time now. When she finally found something today, she was asked to give it up for no reason. Of course she was unhappy, and didn't agree.

When Grandma Liu saw that the girl didn't listen to her, she rushed towards Liu Xiaolan and started kicking her. After that, together with Liu Xueyue, she picked up the chestnuts and was ready to go home.

However, seeing that Liu Xiaolan wasn't standing up, Grandma Liu got mad and started kicking some more. In the end, Liu Xiaolan who was already weak and hungry couldn't handle the abuse and died in pain.

Later on, her body was taken over by the current Liu Xiaolan.

'She could even kill her own family just because she didn't get a few chestnuts…', Liu Xiaolan found that hard to believe. 'Perhaps for her, Liu Xiaolan wasn't a part of the family for a long time now… That Taoist was sketchy as well…'

Slowly, Liu Xiaolan drifted away into the world of dreams.

The next day, when the sun was already up in the sky, Liu Xiaolan slowly woke up. When she opened her eyes, she looked around and muttered to herself, "It turned out I wasn't dreaming… I've really passed to another world…"

"At least my body doesn't hurt as much anymore. But I still need to get some food or I'll starve to death soon…"

Liu Xiaolan's body was bruised, but it wasn't fatal. Although it would be good to rest for some time and let it heal, but she didn't have that time.

"What should I do now… Even with my knowledge, without any money, I won't be able to survive…" After thinking a bit and looking over the memories from the original soul, Liu Xiaolan finally thought of a way to make some money.

"I'll do that, then. No other choice for now."

Liu Xiaolan sat down next to her straw bed, picked up some straw and tried to make a simple basket out of it. After a few tries, with her weak strength she finally managed to make a small straw basket. However, it took her some time and the sun was already high in the sky by now. If she didn't move soon, she could get lost in the mountains during the night.

With no other choice, all she could do was to pick herself up and slowly walk towards the mountains. The only good thing was that in the ancient times, a lot of good things lying on the ground were simply ignored by the people, because they had no knowledge of what that was.

One of the things she could immediately find from her memory, were the chestnuts that the original Liu Xiaolan found before. She even knew how to cook them, but the issue was she had nothing to cook them with!

"I don't even have a pan, what do I cook them with…"

Even through raw chestnuts could be eaten, they might cause gastrointestinal distress, and that wouldn't help her in her current condition. And even if she was to ignore that fact, it would be too hard for her to open up the shell of chestnuts without cooking them before. With her current strength, she would probably die before she managed to open it. She could only leave them for now, perhaps coming back in the future to pick them up.

Liu Xiaolan looked at them and sighed, 'I'm really poor, to not be able to eat food even if I found it…'

Leaving them aside, Liu Xiaolan started going deeper inside the mountains, where usually only hunters from the near villages dare to go, since there is a possibility of finding dangerous animals here.

However, all Liu Xiaolan could do now was to hope for the best. It was either going forward, or just straight up starving to death.

While passing by some trees and bushes, Liu Xiaolan finally saw something that made her smile. Looking around, she finally found something that she could safely eat.