Inheriting a Farm Made Me an Internet Sensation - Chapter 1

The summer in Jincheng was like a furnace. The greenery lining the roads and the students’ graduation theses both wilted listlessly, their leaves curling in the heat. Even the breeze that blew through was scorching.

Tan Xiao, having just woken from a nap, plucked up the courage to leave her air-conditioned room. She walked toward her graduation thesis—tomatoes. Once heavy with fruit and perfectly round, the green tomatoes had not only failed to turn red but were now riddled with holes.

This was her sixth year at the Agricultural University. Her classmates had graduated two years ago, yet she was still laboring away at school.

That’s right—she had failed her courses for two consecutive years.

In the first year, her graduation project was corn. A gale blew it all down, and despite her efforts to save it, the crop died.

In the second year, the corn actually managed to ripen successfully, only to be utterly devoured by a younger student’s sheep.

Natural disasters are unavoidable, but man-made ones can be prevented. To ensure she graduated this year, she hadn’t just shamelessly begged her professor to let her change her thesis topic; she had patrolled her tomatoes every single day since the fruiting stage. Just as graduation was finally in sight, they had been ruined again.

She clenched her fists at her side and demanded angrily, “Who did this?”

Before the words had even fully left her mouth, a plump rooster fluttered its wings and burst out from the field. Perhaps sensing danger, it took off running.

She wasn’t about to let this culprit escape. Today, she was going to make that chicken pay, no matter what.

And so, across the vast campus, a scene unfolded: a bare-faced girl with bare feet chasing a rooster halfway across the school grounds with everything she had.

Gasping for breath, she stared at the rooster as it stopped in a patch of bushes. Taking a deep breath, she intentionally lightened her steps and slowly crept toward it. To her surprise, her foot hit a small mound of dirt. The next second, her body pitched forward uncontrollably.

No, I haven’t caught that rooster yet.

With that thought, she hurriedly looked up.

Forget the rooster—not even a single feather remained.

Wait, since when did the school have an ocean?

Realizing something was wrong, she tried to roll over to survey her surroundings, but her body wouldn’t move an inch. She could only see what was directly in front of her: a vast, boundless sea. The turquoise water sparkled under the sunlight like diamonds. A breeze blew in, carrying air that was fishy, salty, and damp—a world away from the air in Jincheng.

Lowering her gaze slightly, she saw one of her legs hanging out over a cliff. Below the cliff, reefs of various sizes were scattered throughout the water.

If she fell, there was only one outcome: death.

Was the universe playing a joke on her? It was bad enough being brought to this place for no reason, but to be thrown into such a precarious situation was too much.

In her panic, she vaguely heard the sound of voices arguing behind her. She pricked up her ears to listen, but couldn’t make them out clearly.

Just as she was about to call out for help, her head felt as if it were being forcibly pried open. Within a few blinks, pea-sized beads of sweat broke out on her forehead, and her shirt was soaked through with perspiration.

Just when she thought she might actually die from the pain, the agony subsided. A flood of memories that didn’t belong to her surfaced in her mind.

She had transmigrated into a book. The story followed an 18th-tier starlet who used her exceptional acting skills to shine in the entertainment industry, achieving success in both her career and love life. Unfortunately, the person with her same name whose body she now inhabited wasn’t the heroine, but a “cannon fodder” character who had offended the heroine.

When she was six, the original Tan Xiao’s mother couldn’t stand their poverty and ran away with someone, leaving her and her father to depend on each other. Her father worked himself to the bone to raise her through high school, but he died in an accident while working.

Her mother, who had run away, somehow heard the news and showed up to take most of the compensation money, leaving only 30,000 yuan for her education.

That 30,000 was nowhere near enough to get her through university, so the original Tan Xiao worked part-time jobs whenever she could. Later, because of her good looks, she was scouted and signed with a management company.

She thought this would be the major turning point of her life, but she didn’t expect the company to push her toward a “black-label” route—gaining fame through controversy. For the sake of money and attention, she agreed. To maintain her popularity, she managed to offend half the entertainment industry within just two years of entering the circle.

Three months ago, she offended a popular young actress, Sun Xin—the heroine of the book—on a reality show. At the time, Sun Xin was already a top-tier celebrity with countless fans. Her actions infuriated Sun Xin’s fanbase, and for the following month, she repeatedly received threatening packages, causing her mental state to deteriorate.

The matter didn’t end there. Sun Xin’s girlfriend returned from abroad, heard about the incident, and dug up all of the original Tan Xiao’s past scandals. Other celebrities she had offended stepped forward to air their grievances. Finally, she became the target of nationwide condemnation. Not only were her endorsement deals canceled, but she also faced massive breach-of-contract fines. Her agency, unwilling to take responsibility, ignored her pleas and terminated her contract early.

Facing debt-collector phone calls and internet-wide abuse, the original Tan Xiao suffered a mental breakdown. This led her to stage a live-streamed suicide at the filming location of Sun Xin’s new drama.

Sorting through the plot and the original owner’s memories, the current Tan Xiao concluded two things. First: The entertainment industry is terrifying; the original owner was hounded and doxed just for taking one wrong step. Second: The original owner didn’t actually want to kill herself; she wanted to use the gesture to find a way out for herself. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have chosen a cliff only three or four meters high when she knew she was afraid of heights.

If the original owner had just been a bit slower, she might not have needed to attempt suicide at all. According to the book, shortly after the suicide, a cousin she had never heard of would have arrived with a massive inheritance.

Half the reason the original owner entered the industry was to make money. With that inheritance, she could have paid off the fines and started a brand-new life.

The moment the headache vanished completely; Tan Xiao felt her body go limp. With her mind and body reacting simultaneously, she steadied herself just in time and took a safe, narrow step back.

Thud…

A dull sound from behind made her stop. Looking back, she saw a phone tripod and a phone with a cracked screen lying on the rocks.

She bent down to pick it up. To her surprise, it wasn’t broken, and the live stream was still running.

She glanced at the comments. They were all telling her to hurry up and die. If that wasn’t enough, the people scattered on the reefs and the golden sand below were also filled with malice.

“Someone like her living is just a waste of oxygen. Just die already!”

“Our Xin-xin is so pitiful. It was bad enough being intentionally stepped on during that reality show; now her big-budget production is being interrupted by this shameless woman. It’s only because Xin-xin is kind-hearted that she didn’t have her thrown out and even tried to talk her down at first.”

“Xin-xin is truly too kind. If I could marry someone like her, my life would be complete.”

“Forget it. Even if same-sex marriage is legal, she’s already taken.”

“I said it long ago—she’s just using suicide to grab attention and dodge those fines. But she doesn’t realize she’s rotten to the core. Look, the whole internet is disgusted by her behavior.”

“Tan Xiao, if you’re going to jump, do it already! Don’t linger here and delay our Xin-xin’s filming.”

“Stopping halfway through a live-streamed suicide… only someone like her in the entire industry would do something so pathetic.”

“I don’t know how her parents raised her to be such an embarrassment.”

Hearing this, Tan Xiao couldn’t take it anymore. She turned to face the group talking heatedly: “Inciting or coercing someone into suicide carries legal responsibility.” She raised her voice and asked back, “Shouldn’t you be feeling lucky that I’m like this right now?”

“You… don’t you try to bluff us.”

Tan Xiao shrugged. As she walked toward the beach, she said, “Reading more books wouldn’t hurt you.”

“You…!”

Ignoring their glares, she jumped down from the reef. She moved at a leisurely pace, avoiding the crowd and bypassing the two-meter camera tracks and equipment, eventually reaching a small slope. Seeing that the ground was relatively clean, she sat down. She took the sunglasses hanging from her collar, put them on, and finally fixed her gaze on the sea.

She didn’t know why she was here, but since she had arrived, she had to take things as they came.

If this body didn’t carry a staggering debt of 5 million yuan, she might have considered leaving right away. The reality was that not only did she have this debt, but her balance was also less than four digits. She only had one choice: wait for that unknown cousin to pick her up and help the original owner inherit that massive fortune. If the original owner ever came back, this could serve as the “rent” for using her body.

If the original owner never returned and she couldn’t go back to her own world, she would live on for both of them.

At that thought, the image of her beer-bellied father and her mother who loved to dress up flashed through her mind. If they knew she was gone, they would be devastated.

She pursed her lips tightly. A firm believer in materialism, she prayed for the first time that the heavens would open their eyes and send her back, so she could—

“Where is Tan Xiao?”

A sudden voice interrupted her thoughts. She turned to see a girl in a red dress, wearing sunglasses, with cherry-red lips and waist-length wavy hair, carrying a briefcase as she walked down the slope.

After a moment of thought, she responded, “I’m here.”

The girl stopped, turned back to look at her, and seemed unable to see clearly. she reached up and slid her sunglasses down her nose, revealing a pair of “fox eyes.” Combined with her bright face, it wasn’t an exaggeration to describe her as incredibly charming.

The girl took one look at her and walked over, stopping right in front of her.

“I am Lin Muhan, a lawyer from Huangtian International. My purpose for being here is simple.” Lin Muhan took a document out of her briefcase. “This is the will left by the elder Mr. Su. Take a look.”

Tan Xiao took the will and began to read it carefully.

While she looked down, Lin Muhan’s gaze occasionally fell upon her.

Before coming, she had looked at Tan Xiao’s files and seen the video of her live-streamed suicide. Her first impression was that Tan Xiao was both tragic and foolish.

What surprised her was Tan Xiao’s current reaction. A normal person facing a sudden inheritance would at least doubt its authenticity. Furthermore, Tan Xiao was at a dead end; seeing the “ten-thousand-acre farm” in the will should have felt like a miracle from heaven. She shouldn’t be as calm as she was now.

She was so calm it was as if she had expected Lin Muhan to come and already knew the contents of the will.

Lin Muhan didn’t think much more about it, because she was certain that Tan Xiao wouldn’t be able to get her hands on this inheritance anyway.