Chapter Two: The Cold Wind Shatters the Spirit

“Sister-in-law, please, I beg you…”
Chu Qingsong watched helplessly as he was dragged outside like a dead pig, and finally began to feel fear.
He had merely wanted to steal a few kisses from his sister-in-law, with no other intentions at all.
“I’ll go back to my room right now, and never come again, sister-in-law, please let me go…”
Of course, Gu Xiaoyao didn’t believe a word of his nonsense. Dragging him out of the house, she glanced at the leafless, gnarled tree outside, and casually tore off a sturdy vine.
“Mother…” Save me!!
Before Chu Qingsong could finish his cry, Gu Xiaoyao stuffed his mouth shut.
With the vine, she swiftly bound him up and, expression cold, hung him from the withered tree.
Watching him swing back and forth on the trunk, cocooned like a silkworm, Gu Xiaoyao sensed something amiss and suddenly realized.
“So that’s what’s wrong—it’s that Second Brother looks too warm.”
Chu Qingsong stared at her, eyes wide with terror as she approached. Soon, his upper body was bare, and the cold wind brushed his skin, sending a chill straight to his loins.

“Mm… mm…”
If he spent the night hanging here, he’d surely freeze stiff by morning.
Gu Xiaoyao paid him no mind, turned back into the house, and sat on the edge of the icy bed to collect her thoughts.
To have escaped a hopeless apocalypse and come here—she had truly lucked out. Gu Xiaoyao touched her chest, feeling for the first time that she was truly alive.
Outside, the human cocoon swung in the wind; inside, Gu Xiaoyao lay peacefully in bed and closed her eyes to sleep.
On her first day in this body, she had been forced off a mountain, for the groom had left a month before she arrived.
Gu Xiaoyao reckoned the marriage had been arranged by the man’s mother, who brought her home but soon began plotting other plans.
This place lay deep in the wilderness. Though the village was named Lotus Village, it wasn’t famous for lilies, but for the way the mountains gathered in the shape of a lotus.
Lotus Village had only twenty households, with neither fields nor land. To survive, one had to clear wasteland by hand.
The Chu family she married into—she knew little of the eldest son Chu Chengjin, but the second son Chu Qingsong and the third son Chu Qingbai were notorious for their laziness and greed.
They’d dig a few spadefuls and cry exhaustion, but at mealtime, they’d rush faster than anyone. Their mother, Madam Liu, doted on them, believing their clever minds were best used for shirking work.

Madam Liu had spent money to marry a wife for her eldest son, but after much deliberation, felt it wasn’t worthwhile. Had her husband not insisted before leaving, she would never have wasted the silver.
But since the marriage was done, she couldn’t send the bride back. With both her second and third sons still unmarried, she hit upon a cunning plan.
One wife for three sons—a shrewd deal, the thought of which made Madam Yang beam in her sleep.
Lying in bed, Gu Xiaoyao sorted through the memories in her mind, and soon drifted off.
The next morning, the mountain was shrouded in white mist. Birds hopped on branches and sang. Madam Liu pushed open her door, rubbing her swollen eyes.
Last night she had dreamed her second son succeeded, then dreamed of giving birth to a chubby baby. The joy woke her, and after tossing and turning, she couldn’t fall back asleep.
“Sigh, if only last night’s dream were true, how wonderful that would be.”
But even if it wasn’t, it didn’t matter. As long as her second son tried hard, the dream would surely come true someday, Madam Liu thought happily.
Chu Qingsong, who had hung from the dead tree all night and was near frozen, saw his mother come out and whimpered weakly, feeling death close at hand.