[Quick Transmigration] I Cried After Scumming the Little Puppy - Chapter 14

After a brief nap in Ocean Mode, the exhaustion from the previous world was swept away, leaving her spirit fully recharged. Fang Yu stretched luxuriously and called out to the system: 018, I’m ready. Send me to the next world!

[Constructing transmission link. Beginning teleportation.]

Before Fang Yu could even react, a powerful suction engulfed her, pulling her into a void where space seemed to shatter and reform in a chaotic blur. The transition was brief, but it felt as though her internal organs had been tossed around a hundred times over.

Cough, cough 018, could you try being a little gentler next time?

[You want speed, yet you demand a smooth ride? Host, you really are quite high-maintenance.]

Fang Yu: “…” Was that a hint of disdain I just heard?

The moment her feet hit the ground, the cacophony of a noisy crowd rushed into her ears, making her head throb. The weightlessness of the teleportation hadn’t fully subsided, and it took a moment before she could focus on her surroundings.

She immediately felt someone tugging at her calf. Fang Yu looked down to see a young woman, perhaps seventeen or eighteen, collapsed on the ground in a fit of sobbing. Her hair was disheveled, and she wore a flimsy, light-blue gauze dress that had slipped at the collar, revealing a broad expanse of pale skin.

Fang Yu looked away instinctively, but the woman grew more desperate. She grabbed Fang Yu’s hem with one hand while clutching her face with the other. Through the gaps in the woman’s fingers, Fang Yu could see a high, angry red swelling on her cheek. Looking closer, the woman’s mouth was slightly twisted. Fang Yu sucked in a sharp breath, who could have laid such a heavy hand on such a delicate flower?

“Lord, you must seek justice for Lian Rui!” the woman wailed, casting a venomous glance toward Ren Xingxian, who stood a short distance away. In her mind, there was no doubt: Fang Yu would surely take her side. That woman who had humiliated her would certainly pay the price.

Fang Yu shifted away slightly, letting the woman cling to her skirt, but a strange sense of unease gnawed at her.

Crackle.

Fang Yu stepped on something hard. She looked back to find a snapped zither string and various fragments of the instrument scattered across the floor. Connecting the dots with the woman’s sobbing, Fang Yu deduced the scene: the girl had been playing the zither when she was slapped and her instrument smashed.

Suddenly, a cold, piercing gaze swept over her, like being watched by a predatory beast. Fang Yu shuddered.

Directly in front of her stood a woman of elegant, refined beauty. Her face was twisted in pain as she clutched her stomach, cold sweat dripping from her brow. Below her, blood began to seep out, staining the floor.

Fang Yu gasped and moved to help her, but Lian Rui tightened her grip on her leg.

018, which one is my target?

[The one you just kicked into a miscarriage. That’s her.]

Fang Yu: !!

This is my fault?! Fang Yu felt her head spinning.

Forcing herself to remain calm, she brushed Lian Rui off and reached out with trembling hands to help the wounded woman. But Ren Xingxian didn’t appreciate the gesture. Groaning in pain, she turned away, leaving an even more terrifying trail of blood on the floor.

[Heartless, Ungrateful Scholar.] The system suddenly spat out her character setting.

“Miss!”

“Heavens. Miss, why is there so much blood?”

Suddenly, a gust of wind seemed to rush past as Fang Yu was shoved aside. She stumbled, but her body instinctively balanced itself after two wobbles. Two young servant girls in uniform rushed to the woman’s side. Their faces were youthful and full of spirit, and both glared at Fang Yu as if she were the devil incarnate.

Fang Yu could only manage a bitter smile. Talk about a hostile reception.

The two maids, Bi He and Lan Xiang, had never liked their “Lord’s” spouse. They had always felt their young mistress had lowered herself by marrying Fang Yu. In the past, if they showed even a hint of disrespect, Ren Xingxian would scold them immediately. But this time, she remained silent. The two girls exchanged a look, seeing the same spark of grim satisfaction in each other’s eyes.

Ren Xingxian’s face grew paler by the second. She gently pushed Bi He aside, her voice faint as a thread. “Let Fang Yu support me.”

Bi He moved aside begrudgingly, shouting at Fang Yu, “Well? Hurry up and help our Miss!”

Fang Yu’s expression turned cold. She glanced at the maid sharply. “Is this how you speak to your Master?”

Startled by the sudden shift in Fang Yu’s aura, Bi He’s legs went weak, and she didn’t dare utter another word.

Fang Yu reached under Ren Xingxian’s arms to lift her. But suddenly, her vision blurred. A sharp object flashed in Ren Xingxian’s hand, flying straight toward Fang Yu’s head.

She hadn’t expected the weakened woman to have such a move. Fang Yu wanted to dodge, but at such close range, there was no time. However, the moment the thought crossed her mind, her body moved on instinct—an elegant, fluid flip that narrowly evaded the strike.

Ren Xingxian’s eyes flickered. She hadn’t expected Fang Yu to possess such martial skill.

Without giving Fang Yu a chance to escape, Ren Xingxian flicked her sleeve. A surge of Martial Qi pulsed from her wrist, and a cloud of white powder was sent straight into Fang Yu’s nose.

Ren Xingxian watched silently as Fang Yu staggered and collapsed unconscious onto the ground. Only then, unable to hold on any longer, did she close her own eyes.

When Fang Yu finally drifted awake, she was greeted by total darkness. She inhaled softly, only to breathe in the damp, putrid scent of rot. She pushed herself up from the floor, her hands landing on rough, prickly straw.

She sat in a daze for a moment. This environment was wretched—a far cry from the opulent lifestyle of her previous world. She couldn’t help but feel a sense of loss.

Hearing her thoughts, the System offered its own version of comfort: [You might be poor, but your wife isn’t. Her money is your money.]

As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she realized she was in a woodshed, filled with stacks of firewood, wooden buckets, and piles of straw.

018, give me the original owner’s memories.

[Memories loading.]

The original Fang Yu was the eldest child of a family of four in Kangping County. She had a ten-year-old brother, Jiashu, who was frail and perpetually ill, spending most of his time bedridden. The two siblings were very close.

Fang Yu was naturally gifted and had been sent to a private school since childhood, her parents working day and night to fund her education. She did not disappoint, earning the title of Xiucai (Licentiate). But just as she prepared to continue her studies, Jiashu contracted a severe case of consumption (tuberculosis).

The illness nearly took his life instantly. The Fang family spent every penny they had, but it was only enough for medicine to keep him hanging on by a thread. There was no money left for a cure.

A decade of hard study is required to earn high office, and even with her talent, Fang Yu couldn’t wait that long. Jiashu was running out of time. So, she abandoned her studies to join her father as a hunter. On good days, they would catch foxes or bears, selling the meat to restaurants and the furs to traders to scrape together enough for Jiashu’s medicine.

But it was a drop in the bucket. Despite their desperate efforts, every doctor they brought in simply shook their head. Only one person—a wandering divine physician who happened to pass through the county offered a solution: “The illness can be cured, but it requires a petal of the Snow Lotus from the peak of the Kunlun Mountains.”

The parents asked where such a thing could be found; Kunlun was thousands of miles away. The physician smiled mysteriously. “Simple. It can be bought for one thousand taels of silver.”

The parents nearly fainted. One thousand taels? They could never earn that much in a lifetime. No wonder the other doctors were helpless; knowing the family’s poverty, telling them the cure was the same as watching Jiashu walk into the gates of death.

That’s a touching story, Fang Yu noted, but what does it have to do with the female lead?

[Don’t interrupt!]

When the original owner was a student, she had a girl she admired deeply. She had planned to confess her feelings after passing the Xiucai exam, but after the tragedy with her brother, she buried those feelings deep in her heart. She knew she was no longer worthy of her.

That girl was the female lead, Ren Xingxian, the daughter of the County Vice-Magistrate. Though the rank wasn’t high, in Kangping County, they were a family of great wealth and power.

Ren Xingxian had practiced martial arts since childhood under the master of the Yulian Escort Agency. Her father, feeling that his only child needed some education to inherit the family estate, forced her to attend the local school against her will, decreeing she couldn’t continue her martial arts training unless she maintained certain grades.

Ren Xingxian hated the scholarly life, so she naturally gravitated toward the top student—Fang Yu. She would often ask for help with her studies, and the original owner, who wasn’t the selfish type, taught her earnestly. Over time, the female lead became utterly infatuated with Fang Yu’s scholarly, melancholy, and elegant aura. In her ten-plus years of martial training, she had never met a woman as charismatic as Fang Yu!

Her heart was stirred, and once the fire was lit, it became uncontrollable. Yet, the original owner saw her as nothing more than a friend.

When the female lead heard that Fang Yu’s brother was gravely ill and that she had even withdrawn from her studies at the private school, she realized her opportunity had arrived. She pleaded bitterly with her father to betroth her to Fang Yu. The County Vice-Magistrate naturally refused at first—she was his only daughter, more precious to him than his own heart. But she threatened to take her own life, and under such desperate pressure, he was forced to relent.

Taking advantage of Fang Yu’s absence from home, the female lead sought out Fang Yu’s parents. She promised that if they agreed to a betrothal between her and Fang Yu, she would personally cover all of Jiashu’s medical expenses. Her only condition: from that day forward, Fang Yu was forbidden from taking any concubines.

Fang Yu’s parents looked at their youngest son, who lay in the inner room moaning in agony. He should have been at the prime age to explore the world, yet because of their poverty, he was a burden. He was forced to spend his days in a dim, cramped hut, looking like a haggard old man at death’s door. The mere thought of it brought his parents to tears.

Without the consent of either the brother or Fang Yu, the two families finalized the betrothal. Not long after, the Vice-Magistrate sent men to deliver the Snow Lotus. Jiashu’s condition improved dramatically; not only did he no longer require medicine, but he could even get out of bed and walk occasionally.

Fang Yu found the recovery suspicious, but her parents merely claimed they had encountered a “benevolent benefactor.” Though she harbored doubts, she never imagined such a scheme was hidden behind the scenes.

By the time she discovered the truth, there was only one month left until the wedding. Her parents explained cautiously: “Ren Xingxian is a good match. She is the daughter of the County Vice-Magistrate; your life will be comfortable if you marry her. Besides, did you really want to stand by and watch Jiashu die?”

Of course, she didn’t. But no matter how much her parents explained, she felt she had been deceived and traded away. It was an undeniable fact that her brother had recovered thanks to the Ren family’s medicine.

She harbored a desire to resist, but she had no legal standing. The laws of the current dynasty were strict: the word of a matchmaker and the command of one’s parents were absolute. A child had no choice but to obey. Furthermore, the terms of this “transaction” had been made crystal clear from the start.

Though the original owner ultimately accepted her fate, she did not harbor a shred of affection for the female lead. Aside from mandatory social occasions, she treated Ren Xingxian like a total stranger, never once gracing her with a kind word or look.