Fang Zhiyi couldn't bear to watch any longer and hinted, "Cornus."
Wen Yan froze. "Cornus?" After a moment, she brightened. "Why didn't I think of that?"
"In the era before chili peppers were introduced, cornus could serve as a substitute," Fang Zhiyi said, observing Wen Yan's excitement with mixed feelings. If she managed to survive in ancient times, it was probably thanks to her sheer lack of brains.
Wen Yan began frequenting the mountains and actually succeeded in finding cornus.
Fang Zhiyi stopped slacking off and started teaching her how to identify medicinal herbs.
"You’re not some kind of medical system, are you?" Wen Yan muttered, examining the herbs in her hand.
Worse than that—I’m not even your system.
Wen Yan didn’t pay attention to whether he responded, humming a tune as she headed home. She had fully adapted to life here. Admittedly, it was a bit dull, but it wasn’t without its challenges.
Passing by a mountain spring, Fang Zhiyi suddenly spoke up. "Why not try a waterwheel for irrigation?"
Wen Yan hesitated, scratching her head. "But I don’t know how to make one." She had skipped that lesson.
"Well, we’ve got nothing better to do. Might as well give it a shot," Fang Zhiyi said.
Wen Yan considered it and then jogged down the mountain.
To her surprise, Zhang the Carpenter understood what she was describing after just a rough sketch and an explanation of the principle. It seemed the ancients weren’t so dim after all.
Now, her improved farming tools were even being sold in other regions. When the blacksmith mentioned that people were copying her designs, Wen Yan was furious and wanted to sue. Fang Zhiyi talked her out of it.
"Ancient times don’t have patent laws. Try to let it go."
Fang Zhiyi still enjoyed observing the female lead’s business ventures.
Sun Yuwei’s clothing store featured trendy designs—so trendy, in fact, that they included lotus sleeves, horse-face skirts, and even dresses. To keep up with demand, she had hired quite a few workers.
Fang Zhiyi browsed her shop with interest and quickly figured it out. Before her transmigration, Sun Yuwei had been a live-streaming hostess, so she must have owned a wide variety of outfits. Her familiarity with fashion was practically a specialty.
But just as Fang Zhiyi was marveling at this, a group of aggressive men stormed into the shop and began smashing things without explanation.
Sun Yuwei screamed for the authorities but didn’t dare intervene. Fortunately, passersby reported the incident.
Even when the constables arrived, the men didn’t stop.
Once things finally calmed down, the head constable glared at the troublemakers and demanded, "Why did you wreck this shop?"
The leader threw down a garment. "Look at this! She sold this kind of clothing to my wife!"
Fang Zhiyi leaned in for a closer look—it was a perfectly normal outfit.
Sun Yuwei straightened up defiantly. "What’s wrong with it? I wear the same thing! What’s the problem?"
The man’s eyes bulged. "What’s the problem? The arms and chest are practically exposed! Even the ankles aren’t covered! If you, a painted woman, want to wear it, fine! But why sell it to my wife? She must’ve lost her mind to buy it!"
Sun Yuwei didn’t immediately grasp what "painted woman" meant.
"This outfit is completely normal! Your wife thought it was pretty when she bought it! Look at the design, the embroidery!"
The constable’s expression darkened. After a pause, he said, "Regardless, wrecking someone’s shop is wrong. You owe compensation."
The man angrily tossed down a few silver fragments and jabbed a finger at Sun Yuwei. "You just wait! If you keep selling this filth, I’ll be back!"
The constable gave Sun Yuwei a long look but ultimately said nothing, shaking his head as he left.
From that day on, her shop still had customers—but they were all heavily made-up women.
Sun Yuwei didn’t think much of it until one of her employees quit in distress.
"What’s wrong?" she asked gently. This girl had been obedient, and Sun Yuwei was reluctant to see her go. Business hadn’t met expectations, and many had already left—this was the last one she’d kept.
The girl flushed. "My family won’t let me work here anymore."
"Why? Is the pay not enough?"
The girl shook her head. Just then, another customer entered. The girl glanced over and whispered, "Boss, you shouldn’t keep doing this kind of business." Then she fled, red-faced.
Sun Yuwei was baffled.
"In ancient times, even a sleeve brushing bare skin was considered indecent. Too idealistic," Fang Zhiyi mused, clicking his tongue. His presence had brought "reality" crashing down on them.
When Sun Yuwei finally learned what "painted woman" meant and realized her clientele now consisted entirely of courtesans, she was livid.
Her son, whom she’d sent to school, began distancing himself from her. Only her youngest confessed that his classmates mocked him, saying his mother was a painted woman, and refused to play with him.
Sun Yuwei gnashed her teeth in fury and shut down the shop.
She refused to believe it.
Was surviving in ancient times really this hard? Impossible! She had a spiritual spring space!
By the time millet harvest season arrived, the villagers finally noticed—Wen Yan’s family’s fields yielded far more than theirs. So her composting method actually worked!
Wen Yan, however, was preoccupied. While villagers saved leftover grains for seeds, she meticulously selected the plumpest, most abundant ones to cultivate next season.
Fang Zhiyi, his skin bronzed from the sun, stood behind her, watching. After a while, it dawned on him, and he hurried off to his own fields.
Wen Yan exhaled in relief once he was gone.
"When will we ever have gender equality and no more arranged marriages?" she grumbled.
Fang Zhiyi chuckled. "Even in your time, arranged marriages still existed. And gender equality? That wasn’t achieved until recently, was it?"
Wen Yan thought about it—he was right.
"Achieving equality takes many factors—social progress, cultural evolution. But throughout history, many great women have earned respect. So don’t lose heart."
Wen Yan smirked. "You know, for a useless system, you sure spout a lot of grand speeches."
"Less talk, more work. After this, we’re making tofu!"
At the mention of tofu, Wen Yan’s eyes lit up.
"Cornus with tofu!"
Fang Zhiyi wasn’t entirely sure if that combination might be lethal.
Over the next few days, Fang Zhiyi kept appearing by Wen Yan’s side—helping harvest millet, drying it, making tofu. Wen Yan’s parents were all smiles, but she herself wore a scowl.
Fang Zhiyi was puzzled. Given Wen Yan’s attitude, how had they ended up together in the original storyline?
What Wen Yan didn’t expect was the sudden recognition. Her composting method was reported to the county, and officials came to commend her. After inspecting her bountiful millet harvest, they nodded approvingly, recorded the results, and even gave her a small monetary reward. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to keep her happy for a while.
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
nto another world, I bought a slave for the first time, never expecting the silver wolf girl to be so cute... Lin Feng: I know it's cold, but you don't have to sneak into my bed! Yuna: Just sharing body warmth, if you dare do anything naughty, I'll definitely...
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
