Chapter 1 Awakening

Qu Weiwei felt as if her head was being hammered, with each blow causing her excruciating pain.

She opened her eyes despite the pain and found herself not in her dormitory. Yesterday was her 23rd birthday, and her friends were celebrating with her in the dormitory.

Because it was in the dormitory, they didn't dare to do anything big, but they did a lot of small things. After eating the cake, everyone danced. Since the dormitory supervisor didn't allow alcohol to be brought in, they could only drink beverages. Can you get drunk from drinking beverages?

Qu Weiwei reached out and rubbed her still throbbing head, only to find that her hands had shrunk. Her originally slender fingers had become short and chubby, like the little hands of a toddler.

This discovery startled Qu Weiwei. She looked around and made sure she wasn't in her dorm room.

This is an elegantly decorated room with a touch of antiquity. They are not lying on the bed, but at the table. It seems they fainted while eating.

The table is a small mahogany table. The room is quite spacious, over fifty square meters. Next to the dining table, separated by a screen, is a small living room with a set of classic retro sofas.

The material looked like genuine leather, so it must be quite valuable. Opposite her was a woman whose head was the only part of her body that was visible, with two gold hairpins stuck in her hair.

The hairstyle looked somewhat like the hair buns of ancient ladies. Behind the screen was a large bed and a dressing table that matched the sofa and bed. The whole room was kept very clean.

Suddenly, a flood of memories rushed into her mind, turning her already throbbing headache into a sharp pain that nearly made her collapse to the ground.

Fortunately, the child is still young and doesn't have many memories, otherwise her head would have been crushed.

The woman lying opposite her is her mother, He Youyou, but here she can only call her Auntie. Her philandering father has five concubines, and her mother is the third concubine. Her maternal grandfather used to be the head accountant of the Qu family.

Her father was the richest man in Pingcheng. It was July 1949. Last month, her father went to Haicheng and came back. He then started having his wife pack her things.

The servants were talking about going to Hong Kong or going abroad. Of course, these things wouldn't be told to the children, so the little girl had no memory of them. She only knew that they were going to run away.

Her father's first wife, Zhang Sumei, was a very jealous woman with an average appearance, but she would hire people to dress her up so that she looked decent. However, her family was very powerful; I heard they were some kind of officials? Apparently, they were quite influential, and even her father had to be somewhat wary of them.

This time, Zhang Sumei did not intend to take the concubines and illegitimate children with her. All she wanted to take were the family property and her three children. So she poisoned their food.

Wait, Zhang Sumei, He Youyou, Qu Weiwei, Third Concubine?

Isn't this a character from the Republican-era romance novel "The Flower of the Factory"?

The heroine's mother is named Zhang Sumei, and the heroine is Qu Qingqing. She was once the eldest daughter of the richest family in Pingcheng. However, before the liberation, their family's wealth was embezzled by the fourth concubine and the steward.

My original plan to go abroad was put on hold. I could only pack up my personal belongings, find someone to change their information, and return to live in a small town.

The story takes place in a textile factory in this small town. The name Qu Weiwei appears in the book because the female protagonist repeatedly mentions it to curry favor with a younger sister in the male protagonist's family who is the same age as Qu Weiwei. However, she's not mentioned as Qu Weiwei's half-sister, but rather as her cousin.

In the story, the cousin and her mother died at this time. They were drugged by the first wife, who then set the entire house on fire, burning them to death inside.

This was all to cover up their escape from here and their family's property. Little did they know that the property had already been transferred away by the fourth concubine and her lover, the head housekeeper.

Qu Weiwei finally managed to sort out her emotions and wanted to wake up her mother, who was slumped over the table. She felt that she was just a 5-year-old child who had left this house and couldn't survive on her own outside. She could only rely on her mother.

Just as Qu Weiwei was about to stand up and push her mother to wake her up, she suddenly found herself in an unfamiliar place. It was a small courtyard surrounded by a simple fence. Inside the courtyard was a stone table and a well. In the left corner of the courtyard was a grape trellis, which was covered with dense grapes. In the right corner was a large mango tree, which was also laden with fruit.

The house inside was a two-story wooden cabin with white walls and a light-colored wooden door. Qu Weiwei walked in, pushed open the door, and the first thing that caught her eye was a modern, trendy floor-to-ceiling shoe cabinet, next to which was a light-colored wooden shoe-changing stool.

Continuing inside, there is a living room of about 40 square meters, with a set of beige European-style sofas, a TV, a computer, and a home theater.

To the left is an open kitchen with a steam oven, rice cooker, induction cooker, refrigerator, dishwasher, display case, soy milk maker, and a door leading to the warehouse.

Don't ask her how she knew that was a warehouse; it's written on the door.

Qu Weiwei was very curious about what was inside the warehouse, so she pushed open the warehouse door and went inside. It wasn't a spacious warehouse as she had imagined, but rather a series of small rooms.

The door to the room was covered with a list of the items inside: rice, flour, cooking oil, meat, eggs, vegetables, fruits, and medicinal herbs.

Qu Weiwei pushed open the first door, which was labeled "Rice Room," with great curiosity. Inside, she found neatly stacked bags of rice.

There's polished rice, green rice, pearl rice, and a type of long-grained wild rice. This bag weighs at least 100 jin (50 catties). There's also brown rice and black rice. In short, the whole room is filled with bags and bags of rice, all kinds of rice.

Qu Weiwei came out of the room and went to the next room, which had the same layout as the first one she had opened.

The entire room was neatly arranged with all kinds of flour: white flour, black flour, corn flour, whole wheat flour, high-gluten flour, medium-gluten flour, low-gluten flour, all clearly labeled, as well as cornstarch, potato starch, and sweet potato starch. Qu Weiwei was a little dazzled by the sight.

After looking at two rooms related to staple foods, she decided to check out the meat room, since she was a carnivore who ate meat every day.

Walking into the room labeled "Meat," I pushed open the door. It was filled with shelves overflowing with fresh meat: pork, chicken, duck, goose, beef, mutton, rabbit, venison, and even roe deer. Next to them were piles of wild boar and wolf meat. All the meat looked as if it had just been slaughtered and placed there; it was incredibly fresh, still bearing traces of blood.

On the shelves next to her were dried meat, cured meat, ham, sausages and bacon. Suddenly, Qu Weiwei smelled braised pork. Following the smell, she found that there were pots and pots of cooked meat.

Qu Weiwei's mouth watered at the sight.