Becoming the Villain's Discarded Wife
Chapter 281: The Past

Chapter 281: Chapter 281: The Past

The surprise on Nanzhi’s face suddenly froze, and she looked at him with some disbelief.

Did... Mrs. Liu...leave?

Considering that possibility, Nanzhi started to look a bit unwell: "Did Mrs. Liu leave the house?"

The atmosphere between the two of them became cold. Shen Zhiyu stared blankly at his mother, then asked obediently, "Uncle Shen, is Brother Doudou here?"

Shen Yuntian, hearing the little fellow’s voice, looked somewhat lonely. He wanted to ruffle the little fellow’s head, but seeing his clean appearance, he had to retract his hand.

"Doudou is not in Yan City, and Uncle Shen doesn’t know where he has gone."

Shen Yuntian’s voice was incredibly hoarse, it was difficult for Nanzhi to listen to. After a period of silence, she began to carefully ask, "Yun Tian, did you encounter any trouble? If it’s possible, could you tell me about it?"

After hesitating for a while, Shen Yuntian allowed them into the room.

The room was small. Shen Yuntian had rented it for twenty wen a day. He had been busy with work since moving in a few days ago, so he hadn’t had time to clean up.

"Sister-in-law, and Zhiyu, please sit while I go and pour some water." Shen Yuntian said quietly, then he went to the kitchen.

Nanzhi and Zhiyu were left sitting awkwardly in the courtyard, looking around.

"Mom, did Brother Doudou go missing?" Little Zhiyu asked in a quiet voice, his head lowered in desolation.

"Zhiyu, dear, Mom doesn’t know all the details, we’ll ask Uncle later." Nanzhi took in the surrounding environment, her expression was very complex.

She did not know what kind of troubles Shen Yuntian and his family had encountered, but from the current situation, it seemed like it wouldn’t be good news.

Thinking about how Mrs. Liu, who always protected her and called her "girl", had encountered troubles, Nanzhi’s heart tightened.

"Sister-in-law, Zhiyu, I don’t have any tea here, but do please drink this water," Shen Yuntian said somewhat awkwardly, bringing out two bowls of warm water.

After signing in at Yahang, he worked as a laborer, moving goods. Although it was hard work, he was able to earn about seventy wen a day, so he could save some more silver.

He had traveled many places by now and was confident that sooner or later he would find his siblings.

"Yun Tian, what happened to you guys over the past two years?" Nanzhi began to speak cautiously, unconsciously tightening her grip around her cup.

Shen Yuntian remained silent for a while, then started telling his story: "At the time we were fleeing from hunger, our family had one donkey. We didn’t buy another one, instead, we put all our grain on a donkey cart. It was okay at first, those who were with us were fellow villagers. We met up with Li Zheng’s family midway, and we continued the journey together.

As we continued to journey forward, many of our villagers left and we met refugees from other areas.

At first, they did not dare to do anything because we had more people, so we were careful with our journey. We thought we could maintain a tense relationship, but one night, the temperature dropped suddenly and a lot of people froze to death. That’s when a few of the refugees started getting ideas, and in the middle of the night, they sneaked over to take our stuff."

"Fortunately, we were taking turns keeping watch, so no one was hurt. But they took half of our food and we lost all our bedding."

Shen Yuntian paused for a bit at this point.

Nanzhi remained silent, pressing her lips together.

The fact that she and Miaomiao’s family were able to survive that winter was directly related to the mule cart.

The cart of the mule cart was made by her father with the help of her two brothers. They deliberately made two layers, leaving a gap in the middle. During the temperature drop, they filled it full of dried rice stalks to keep warm.

Miaomiao’s cart was also modified by her father later on. Otherwise, with just a single layer of bamboo woven cart, they wouldn’t have survived the harsh winter.

Especially after all the bedding was taken.

"Later, my mother caught a chill, and she didn’t last long before she died on the road." When Shen Yuntian got to this point, his eyes were already turning red.

They originally had a lot of people in their family. At first, his mother wanted to buy another donkey cart, but his father declined. In the end, the only donkey cart was used to store food. Even Doudou and the other children had to follow the adults on foot on the journey.

After the bedding was stolen and their food halved, during rest breaks in the evening, they could only move the things from the donkey cart to the bottom of the cart, and the adults huddled together to keep warm.

Before his mother died, she was terribly hunched over. Her last words were to take care of her grandson before she passed away.

She worked hard her whole life, and in the end, she did not even have a coffin.

"We kept moving for three months. Just before we reached Huai, we were attacked by bandits. They killed a lot of people. My brothers and I tried to protect our family and escape but ended up getting caught and taken to the bandit’s lair.

We were in the bandit’s lair for two months. In the end, the Huai officials sent people to wipe out the bandits, and I managed to escape."

"What happened after that?"

"After that, I went to Huai, but I couldn’t find any news of my family. The only thing I knew was that my father was killed by the bandits while protecting my two sisters-in-law."

Tears had fallen onto Shen Yuntian’s face, a constant reminder of his powerlessness.

If he had been more useful, his mother would not have frozen to death, his father wouldn’t have died at the hands of bandits.

"I stayed in Huai for half a year but couldn’t find out anything. Even the relatives we were supposed to go to had already moved to Jiangyun. I thought that maybe my brothers and sisters-in-law also heard the news and worked in Huai to save some silver and went to Jiangyun."

Shen Yuntian fell silent again, not continuing his words.

But Nanzhi understood his meaning.

No one was in Jiangyun, so he had to wander around to look for his family, and that’s how he ended up in Yan City two years later.

"What about Uncle Li Zheng?"

"I’m not sure about Uncle Li Zheng’s family, we were just traveling together initially, but separated afterwards."

Nanzhi nodded her head, then took a sip from her cup. The room fell back into a deathly silence.

Even Zhiyu lowered his head, not saying a word.

Nanzhi’s eyes started to well up with tears. She never expected Mrs. Liu and her family to encounter such hardships.

She remembered the first time she saw Mrs. Liu when she had just come to this world. It was because of an incident with a wild chicken egg. At that time, Mrs. Liu came down the mountain in a fit of anger, then hurried up the mountain with her.

Mrs. Liu always called her "girl" as if she was her own daughter.

Thinking about how such a good person froze to death on the road during their escape, Nanzhi couldn’t hold back her tears.

When she first arrived in this world, the first warmth she experienced was from Mrs. Liu.

"This time I came to Yan City, I want to do some more searching to see if there’s any news of my brother and sister-in-law." Shen Yuntian’s voice was hoarse, and he looked desolate.

"Your throat and your face..."

"The bandits did it. They wanted me to join them, I refused, and they locked me in a cellar with two dogs that ate rotten meat. My face was bitten by them. As for my throat, it went wrong when I was being used for experiments."

When Shen Yuntian said these things, he tried to sound more nonchalant. But to him, compared to losing family members, these things didn’t seem to matter as much.

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.