Chapter 4: The Spatial Farm

Meng Jia took the opportunity to comfort the disappointed Lu Liqin. Gradually, their feelings grew, and they became husband and wife. Together, they returned to the city to start a business and achieved remarkable success. Especially Lu Liqin, whose career flourished and who became a prominent figure, yet he never abandoned his wife from humble beginnings. Their marriage was loving and their family harmonious, with the protagonists enjoying happiness throughout their lives.

Truth be told, when Tang Xin first read this novel, she paid special attention to the original character because they shared the same name. Yet she couldn't help but feel frustrated—this original character was simply too foolish. Couldn't she see through Meng Jia's manipulative intentions, all those subtle schemes merely designed to break her apart from Lu Liqin?

Up until now, Tang Xin still didn’t understand why she had transmigrated into a novel. But she had a sense—an intuition—that some irresistible connection linked her to the soul that once inhabited this body. How else could she have ended up in such a place, suddenly becoming this unlucky supporting female?

Now that she was here, Tang Xin resolved to live well—to live as a true person. The original character genuinely liked Lu Liqin and believed she would marry him, but Tang Xin felt there were so many inexplicable things in the story. The reborn female lead didn’t care about self-reliance or career, focusing solely on snatching a man, and in the end could still live happily ever after? Wasn’t that absurd?

And Lu Liqin—after all the original character’s affection for him, how did he behave? He claimed he only went to the countryside for her, yet why did he so quickly accept Meng Jia, becoming her loving husband for life? Tang Xin couldn’t respect such a duplicitous man; even the core of this body, she suspected, now harbored more resentment than affection for Lu Liqin.

Was it possible he had no faith in his childhood sweetheart? After that accident, he never investigated, just accepted everything as it was? He even got involved with his sweetheart’s best friend. Such a man was the novel’s male lead. Tang Xin found him disgusting, far inferior to the seemingly fierce but genuinely decent Li Sheng.

Thinking of Li Sheng, she remembered the plot of the novel and suddenly grew nervous. According to the story, she would soon marry Li Sheng. But not long after the wedding, Li Sheng would die, leaving her branded as a woman who brought ruin to her husband.

Now that she had taken over, Tang Xin thought, she was not the timid original. If she worked hard, she could change the storyline and would never let herself end up so miserable, forced to drown herself in the river. The plot was not entirely irreversible. As for the supposedly harsh mother-in-law and the spoiled, willful sister-in-law described in the novel—Li Xiyue, whom Tang Xin had met tonight, was just a young girl with a bit of a temper. The original character must have been blind to believe there was anything improper between Lu Liqin and her.

And the old lady of the Li family—could she truly be a mean mother-in-law? All these things swirled in Tang Xin’s mind, but she hadn't yet untangled the relationships. At this moment, her stomach suddenly growled violently. She was hungry—so hungry that it woke her from sleep.

Forget the matter of protagonists and supporting roles. Tang Xin now realized something far more terrifying: it was the year 1970 in China, which in her own time would be the sixties or seventies. Aside from the educated youth sent to the countryside, the most vivid memory of this era was hunger and cold: never enough food, never enough warmth.

She craved the fragrant rice, all kinds of meat and cakes and desserts. The more she thought, the hungrier she felt, almost drooling. Forget it—thinking about it was useless. She began to observe the room: familiar yet strange. It was small, the walls made entirely of mud, covered with old newspapers. The furnishings were sparse: a bed, a battered cabinet, and a single table—no chairs at all. On the table lay a red-covered book.

Tang Xin knew that in this era, being able to recite a few phrases from its quotations was very useful. Apart from that, there was nothing else—certainly nothing edible. Only then did she recall, having been preoccupied with the evening’s plans, she had given her dinner to Meng Jia. A miscalculation, and now she was so hungry she couldn’t sleep.

She tried to distract herself by thinking about other things. Why had she transmigrated here? Was it merely to arrive without any advantage, unlike those novels or TV dramas where the protagonist receives a golden finger? For example, a portable space, supernatural abilities, or a system—Tang Xin was simply daydreaming. Still, if such a fantastic thing as transmigrating into a book could happen, then a little something extra didn’t seem impossible.

Heaven wouldn’t have sent her here just to starve, surely? As she was thinking this, suddenly, the scene before her eyes changed. Tang Xin’s eyes widened in disbelief. Before her appeared Happy Farm, the game she used to play in her previous life, and she saw the screen that only appeared at level zero for new players.

There was a patch of farmland, and beside it a line of instructions—a beginner’s guide. Happy Farm teaches you how to start your journey:

“Congratulations on becoming a farm owner! Start planting vegetables and fruit now. Head to the ‘Store’ to buy seeds, then open your ‘Bag’ and plant the seeds in your ‘Field.’ That’s all you need to do.”

Tang Xin was amazed because she was so familiar with this farm—she had often played it in her previous life. Although she had been a busy student, surely she couldn’t spend every moment studying; everyone needed a bit of recreation. By chance, Tang Xin had grown fond of a cultivation game called Happy Farm. This was the exact initial screen, with a toolbar showing options for Store and Bag.

Was she dreaming, seeing her own farm again? At that moment, a button appeared before her eyes, clearly labeled “Beginner’s Gift Pack.” Tang Xin instinctively clicked it, finding inside not only vegetable seeds but also some fruit. Instantly, a message appeared in her mind, informing her that these fruits came with the beginner’s pack. If she wanted fruit in the future, she would need to keep upgrading the farm until she could grow fruit herself.