"If heaven could grant me a healthy body, I would pay any price."
Fu Yurou was born with a congenital heart defect. Even though her family was wealthy, her rare blood type made it impossible to find a matching heart. At twenty, she passed away in regret. Just before she died, she made a silent, helpless wish, and then she closed her eyes.
To her surprise, when she regained consciousness, she heard someone weeping beside her.
"Yurou, it's all Mom’s fault. I’m so sorry I drove you to this. If you die, how could I ever face your real mother in the afterlife?"
What was going on? Wasn't she already dead?
"Host, you are indeed dead, but not entirely."
An electronic voice rang out. What the hell was that?
"Host, I am not a 'what-the-hell.' I am the System."
The System? When she was lying in her hospital bed, bored, she had read stories about systems. She had always assumed such things were mere inventions, yet here it was.
"Host, the System does indeed exist, though it is not something of this current civilization. It won't be invented by humanity for several thousand years."
*You can read my mind?*
Fu Yurou hadn’t been able to speak, she had only thought the words in her mind, yet the System had heard her. Damn it! It was reading her private thoughts.
"Host, I am not reading your privacy; you are communicating with me through your thoughts."
*Thoughts? What is happening right now?*
"Host, please wait a moment. I am loading data for you. Please be patient."
Loading?
*Loading: 1%... 99%... Load complete.*
Fu Yurou felt a boom in her brain as a massive amount of information was shoved into her head. After scanning through it, she finally understood her situation.
She had transmigrated. She was in the 1970s.
The country was currently calling for educated youth to go up to the mountains and down to the countryside. To escape this fate and frame her stepmother, the original host had staged a hanging. She hadn't expected it to turn real, and she had accidentally kicked the bucket. That was what allowed Fu Yurou to take over.
She thought to herself: *How stupid can you be? If you wanted to fake a suicide, why pick hanging? Was faking a jump from a building too difficult? Or was cutting your wrists and losing a little blood not effective enough?*
*Look at that—you died, and your body just became my gain.*
But having survived again was a win for her!
After sorting out the events, Fu Yurou pretended to have a headache and opened her eyes.
"I... what happened to me?"
The woman sitting by the bed had streaks of gray in her hair. She was nearly forty, with a kind and gentle face that made her look like an honest person. At this moment, her eyes were red-rimmed from crying, and her grief seemed genuine. Seeing her wake up, she was overcome with emotion.
"Yurou, you’re finally awake."
Fu Yurou didn't speak. Although she had taken over the body, she couldn't bring herself to call a stranger "Mom."
Medical resources in this era were scarce. Once a patient was awake and stable, they were discharged without even being prescribed medicine. It was different from the future, where a trip to the hospital for a minor ailment resulted in a dozen boxes of pills. Drugs were precious now and were not easily wasted on those who were not truly ill.
Fu Yurou followed her stepmother, Huang Meifeng, home.
The Fu family lived in a communal apartment building assigned by the furniture factory. Her father, Fu Aiguo, was an ordinary clerk at the factory, and her stepmother, Huang Meifeng, was a temporary worker at the local textile mill. Besides Yurou, the family included Zhang Pan—Huang Meifeng's daughter from a previous marriage—and a pair of twins, Fu Jianye and Fu Yuqing, whom Huang Meifeng and Fu Aiguo had together.
Since she was a child, Fu Yurou had despised the "cheap sister" her stepmother had brought into the house. Later, after her younger brother and sister were born, she found all sorts of faults with them and had bullied the twins constantly. Unlike her, Zhang Pan was very kind to her younger half-siblings. This led to the Fu household isolating Fu Yurou.
The current chaos had started because the neighborhood office for educated youth notified the Fu family that someone had to go to the countryside. Since Zhang Pan had a job as a temporary worker, they decided Fu Yurou should be the one to go. Naturally, the original host refused, making a scene every day until she resorted to the suicide attempt.
"Yurou, go back to your room and rest. Mom is going to cook for you."
As soon as they entered the house, Huang Meifeng told Yurou to rest. The apartment was small—two bedrooms and a living room. One bedroom belonged to the parents, and the other was partitioned into a larger and a smaller room; the larger one housed the three sisters, while the smaller one was for the son, Fu Jianye.
Fu Yurou entered her side of the room and found her bed according to her memories. In this cramped space, she occupied more than half of the area, while Zhang Pan and Fu Yuqing shared a bunk bed on the other side. It made Fu Yurou look particularly arrogant and overbearing.
Once she sat on her bed, she began to bargain with the System.
"System, you said you were going to let me transmigrate, but couldn't you have picked a better life? Why choose such a miserable persona?"
"Host, according to the Star Domain System’s calculations, this body is the best match for you," the System replied in a monotone voice.
Fu Yurou: "No, no. I’m getting the short end of the stick. You have to compensate me."
System: "Allowing the host to live another life is the greatest compensation."
Fu Yurou: "..."
*When you put it that way, it sounds like I’m the one being shameless. I was already dead, after all.*
But in this world, who cares about being shameless? Can you eat an extra bowl of rice with dignity? Does it make you rich?
"You didn't let me live another life for nothing. You must have an agenda. What is it?"
System: "..."
Hearing the System go silent, Fu Yurou knew she was right.
"So there really is an agenda! What do you want me to do?"
System: "Host, what is it that you want?"
*Dodging the question? Changing the subject?*
Fu Yurou: "What can you offer me?"
Even though she was the inferior party, she still had to haggle. The System thought: *This host is a bit difficult to deal with.*
After a standoff, the System took half a step back.
"Host, I can provide a ten-cubic-meter storage space."
"Does it have that spirit-spring water? The kind where one sip cures all illnesses?"
"No."
"Can I farm in it? Where one day inside equals a year outside for crops to mature?"
"No."
"You don't have anything? What kind of system are you?"
She had read enough system novels to know that every heroine had a space with farms and spirit springs. How did she end up with nothing? It was infuriating.
The System remained silent for a while, acting as if it were offended, before adding, "I can include a stasis feature."
"What’s a stasis feature?" Fu Yurou perked up.
System: "A stasis space means that time does not pass within the storage."
"So, if I put a cup of hot water in, it’ll still be hot when I take it out?"
System: "Exactly."
"Don't tell me you didn't even have that function before?"
System: "Do you want it or not?"
Fu Yurou: "Yes, yes, yes."
*If I can get it for free, why wouldn't I take it?*
Apart from the ten-cubic-meter space with the time-stasis feature, the System refused to budge on any of her other demands. She had to give up. After checking the space and finding it empty, she lay back down to rest, as her body still hadn't fully recovered from the suicide attempt.
As she drifted into a hazy sleep, she suddenly heard voices whispering nearby.
"She really is lucky. I intentionally delayed calling for help, and she still didn't die."
"Yuqing, how could you do that? She is your sister, after all."
"What sister? You are my sister."
"Yuqing!"
"Fine, fine, I’ll stop. But if she didn't die, she’ll have to go to the countryside. Just seeing her makes me sick."