NFBE Chapter 1: Transmigrated and Abused
Chapter 1: Transmigrated and Abused
"You dare disobey your father? Marrying you off to a good family is so you can live a good life, and you don't know what's good for you!"
The man's heavy breathing, mixed with the smell of alcohol, was accompanied by kicks and stomps that landed heavily on the girl's emaciated body, curled up in a ball.
Curses, the terrified cries and pleas of children pounded against Meng Fuqing's eardrums.
She struggled to open her eyes, but the black mist before her eyes had not yet dissipated. A person covered her, shielding her from most of the punches and kicks.
The moment her vision returned, she finally understood her current predicament—
She transmigrated, from a post-apocalyptic world besieged by zombies to the Great Yan Kingdom.
The original owner of this body is also named Meng Fuqing, nicknamed Qingqing. She is fourteen years old, and her parents are still alive. She also has a younger brother and sister.
The woman who stood in her way was the original owner's mother, Shan Qiyu.
The one who punched and kicked the mother and daughter while cursing them was Meng Shaoyuan, the original owner's father who liked to vent his anger by drinking.
Meng Fuqing felt a dull ache in his head.
Because the original owner refused to marry a sixty-year-old wealthy man in town as a concubine, Meng Shaoyuan took action. When he suddenly pushed the original owner down, her head hit a rock, and then she was transported into this world.
Accompanied by sobs, the woman's tears slid down her neck, some of them hot.
Meng Fuqing shifted her gaze, finally settling on the man's ferocious face after he got drunk, a cold glint flashing in her eyes.
Perhaps he was tired, the man gradually lessened his strength. He was panting heavily when he finally kicked the person under his feet hard.
"You wretched woman, all you do is cry and cry! You've ruined the family with your tears! Not a single one of you is sensible!"
He shoved the little girl who was biting his hand away, kicked away his youngest son who was clinging to his leg and crying, let out a burp, turned around and staggered back into the house, still cursing under his breath.
"Damn it, you'll all be crying later, anyway..."
He swallowed the rest of his words, so they were inaudible.
Dan Qiyu removed the weight from Meng Fuqing, carefully helped her up, and tore open the hem of her clothes to press strips of burlap onto Meng Fuqing's wounds. "Qingqing, don't sleep, Mother will go and call the doctor back, Mother will go right now..."
The two children whimpered like little animals and came over, calling out "sister" repeatedly.
The noise is making my head hurt even more.
Meng Fuqing closed her eyes. Things had happened too suddenly; she needed to sort them out properly.
With the help of her two children, Shan Qiyu gritted her teeth and carried Meng Fuqing into the house.
Meng Shaoyuan had already fallen asleep, and his snoring could be heard throughout the entire room.
Shan Qiyu knew this meant that things would be quiet at home for a while.
After settling her eldest daughter in, she whispered a few words of advice to her second daughter and youngest son before hurriedly leaving home.
It was already evening, and Meng Fuqing's stomach was burning from hunger, which kept her from falling asleep.
In her previous life, she struggled for eight years in the apocalypse. In the end, she did not die at the hands of zombies. Instead, she was exhausted from being chased and surrounded by zombies. She finally found a place to hide and rest, and when she opened her eyes, she found herself here.
Based on the unfamiliar memories in his mind, the original owner's father was not so terrible from the beginning.
My maternal grandfather's family were merchants in town. They weren't particularly wealthy, but they always had enough to eat and drink. When I was still a young lady, my mother, Shan Qiyu, was not only literate but also famously good at needlework.
When their daughter reached marriageable age, the two elders of the Shan family intended to find her a family with good character.
After looking around, they decided to go with the Meng family.
For generations, the Meng family had been farmers toiling in the fields, but Meng Shaoyuan alone displayed an extraordinary photographic memory from a young age. This astonished everyone in Mengjia Village, who all believed that the eldest son of the Meng family was destined to be a top scholar.
The two elders of the Shan family valued the Meng family's simplicity and also saw potential in Meng Shaoyuan's future. So they married their daughter off to the Meng family and often provided financial assistance, hoping that Meng Shaoyuan could pass the imperial examinations as soon as possible.
However, what they didn't expect was that Meng Shaoyuan, because he had shown his talent since childhood, was pampered from a young age and became very arrogant, and developed a habit of being lazy and gluttonous.
He thought that with his talent, he could pass the imperial examinations and become a scholar or a provincial graduate in a year or two. Therefore, he used most of the money saved by his family or the subsidies from his wife's family to drink with his classmates, and gradually developed a drinking problem.
Once, when the original owner's uncle's family was on their way to visit her maternal home in a neighboring county, they were robbed and the entire family perished.
Upon hearing the devastating news, Mrs. Shan suffered a sudden heart attack and passed away. Mr. Shan, overwhelmed with grief, remained bedridden, exhausting his savings on medical treatments. He too passed away after two years.
After losing her maternal family, Shan Qiyu frequently returned to her parents' home during the two years her father was bedridden, which annoyed Meng Shaoyuan.
During a drunken argument, Meng Shaoyuan hit Shan Qiyu to vent his frustrations, and from then on, beating and scolding his wife and children became a daily occurrence.
Before the age of six, the original owner's name was Meng Qingqing. However, because she was somewhat weak in her childhood, her maternal grandmother was very worried about her. Once, her mother met a fortune teller and had him calculate the original owner's birth date and time. The fortune teller said that the original owner's five elements were dominated by wood and fire, and if they were not restrained, she might die young. If she wanted to keep her life, she should change her name to 'Fuqing'.
Strangely enough, after the name change, the original owner's health gradually improved, which also benefited Meng Fuqing, who came from another world.
Meng Fuqing always believed in the principle of an eye for an eye, and now that she had become the original owner of this body, she had to avenge this grudge.
Having finally arrived in a relatively peaceful ancient world without zombies, she didn't want any unstable factors to disrupt this peace.
The snoring had stopped sometime earlier, and heavy footsteps, the sound of shoes scraping the ground, and yawns could be heard outside.
Meng Fuqing opened his eyes.
The house was dimly lit and desolate. The younger brother, Meng Ali, had cried himself to sleep.
She looked at her sister who was wiping her cheeks, and licked her dry lips. "Is there anything to eat?"
Meng Ranran was eight years old, but small in stature. Her eyes and mouth were swollen at the moment. She was happy to see her older sister wake up, but frowned when she heard the news.
From last winter to this autumn, it hasn't rained at all, resulting in a poor harvest. The Meng family's better-quality grain was snatched away by the father to sell for money, and now that it's late autumn, the grain is almost gone.
For the past few days, her family has been surviving on wild vegetables and a little sorghum flour given to them by their neighbor's aunt.
"Sister, wait here for me. I'll go borrow some food and be right back!"
After saying that, Meng Ranran ran out.
After everyone left, Meng Fuqing propped herself up on the bed with her hands and got out of bed, enduring waves of dizziness.
She casually ripped off the burlap used to stop the bleeding from her head. The wound had stopped bleeding sometime earlier. After taking a couple of steps on the ground to get used to it, she went out into the yard.
Meng Shaoyuan had not yet come out of the dry toilet.
Meng Fuqing picked up the stone that had caused the original owner's death, weighed it in his hand, pointed the sharp end outwards, and quickly walked to the pile of firewood. He squatted in the shadows, silently gathering his strength.
This body was badly injured, perhaps because it had a different internal organ; she was not as weak as she appeared.
The moon had quietly peeked out from the horizon, silently watching everything in the courtyard.
As Meng Shaoyuan fastened his belt, he hummed a tune he'd heard somewhere as he walked out of the outhouse.
As he passed by the woodpile, a figure suddenly appeared behind him, a thin, slender arm raised high, and the sharp end of a stone slammed into the back of his head.
The tune stopped abruptly, and blood gushed out. Meng Shaoyuan stared wide-eyed, seemingly trying to turn around to see who had hurt him, but was pulled back and fell to the ground.
The sun had long since set, and it was the time when day and night were transitioning. With his eyes wide open, he could vaguely make out a figure that he knew very well but had never paid any attention to.
But he was already convulsing and unable to speak.