Chapter 1: Transmigrated as a Black-Hearted Widow

“Grandma...”

Tong Huaqiong slowly drifted back to consciousness. Before she could even figure out why she was in a mud-walled house instead of a laboratory, she was startled by a timid, milky-voiced cry.

“Grandma...”

“Are you calling me?”

Tong Huaqiong propped herself up and met a pitiful little face. The tear-streaked face nodded frantically, adding with a trembling voice, “Grandma, you’re awake!”

Unable to handle the shock, Tong Huaqiong’s eyes rolled back, and she slumped back onto her pillow.

“I told you to watch Grandma, how did you watch her? How did you let her faint again the moment she woke up?”

“Your mother is a little slut, and you’re a money-sink. Your mother knocked Grandma unconscious, and now you’ve fainted her with anger.”

“Just you wait, I’m going to call your father to beat you.”

In her daze, Tong Huaqiong heard a teenage boy wailing loudly.

“I didn't...”

The timid little voice carried a sob.

“Brat born of a little slut!”

A deafening tenor voice burst into the room, accompanied by a flurry of chaotic footsteps.

“What did you do to your grandma?” the tenor barked sternly.

The little voice burst into a wail.

“Second Brother, don't waste words on her! Just give her a beating first!” a lazy female voice added, fanning the flames.

“I’ll beat the life out of you, you little brat born of a slut!”

Tong Huaqiong squinted her eyes open slightly and saw a dark-skinned young man attempting to take off his shoe to strike someone, though he struggled to get the shoe off for quite a while. The little face she had encountered upon waking was now frozen in terror, large eyes like black grapes continuously spilling tears.

The girl who was instigating leaned sideways against the doorframe; her large, heavy body blocked the light, plunging the room into instant dimness.

*What kind of family is this?* Tong Huaqiong’s mind was a mess. Seeing the dark-skinned young man reaching for the poor little girl, she didn't even feel like stopping him.

At this moment, she just wanted to die!

“Second Uncle, things aren't clear yet, don't hit her yet.”

A young woman pushed past the large girl, only to be shoved hard by her, nearly falling. The young woman stumbled into the room and pulled the little girl into her arms.

“I saw it with my own eyes. Grandma woke up, saw the money-sink, and fainted again.”

“If my father doesn't hit her, who will he hit?”

The wailing teenage boy held a stick as thick as an arm and handed it to the young man.

The young man snatched the stick and swung it toward the young woman.

The large girl instigating from the side cheered, “Second Brother, hit her! Hit her hard!”

The young woman dodged while pleading for mercy, clutching the child, who was wailing in terror.

Thus, it became a scene of one hitting and one dodging, accompanied by the large girl's and the boy's cheering and the little girl's cries, turning the room into a chaotic mess.

Tong Huaqiong watched, dumbfounded, through slit eyes.

“Second Uncle, let's see how Mother is first. Can we hit her later?” the young woman cried out while dodging.

Tong Huaqiong quickly closed her eyes and pretended to be dead.

*What kind of person was the original owner of this body to raise such unreliable children?*

Knowing full well that the mother had fainted, they didn't even think to check on her; instead, they just caught a child to beat and scold.

“Oh, Mother! Mother, did you really just wake up?”

“Mother, say something, Mother!”

Prompted by the young woman, the young man finally acted human. He dropped the stick, rolled to the bedside, and began wailing.

“Mother, Mother, you've been unconscious for two days and one night! Wake up, Mother!” A howl exploded in Tong Huaqiong's ear.

Tong Huaqiong felt the bed sink heavily as the instigating girl plopped down by the bedside; the woman's heavy body pressed down so hard that Tong Huaqiong could barely breathe.

“Mother, if you die, what will I do? I'm not even married yet!”

Tong Huaqiong thought: *Just hurry up and crush me to death, I don't want to be your mother!*

“Grandma really did just wake up. I saw it clearly.”

“She opened her eyes and was scared unconscious by the money-sink.”

The teenage boy stood by the bed, continuing to fan the flames.

“Yaozu, you can't talk nonsense. Man'er is so small, how could she scare Grandma?” the young woman defended with a trembling voice.

“If Mother doesn't wake up, I'll kill both you and Mother with one stroke,” the young man threatened.

The room fell into chaos once more!

“Mother, you can't die! I've already lost my father, I can't lose my mother too!”

The large girl wailed. This cry finally gave Tong Huaqiong the courage to open her eyes.

*You nearly scared the life out of me!*

Being a mother or a grandmother without pain wasn't necessarily unacceptable, but she was terrified of having to share a bed with some old man.

That was why she had nearly fainted from that cry of "Grandma."

Fortunately, fortunately, the old man of this house was gone!

She was a widow!

Otherwise, thinking about the imagery of an old man "pressing a pear blossom against a begonia," she really wanted to poison the whole family with rat poison.

“I'm not dead yet, why are you wailing as if at a funeral?”

Tong Huaqiong's eyes widened.

The moment she spoke, the original owner took over.

“Mother!”

“Mother!”

The large girl and the dark-skinned young man immediately fell silent, the joy on their faces looking entirely genuine.

“Mother, you're awake!”

“Waaa, I thought Mother was going to die, I was so scared!”

The large girl leaned over Tong Huaqiong, crying and laughing with excitement, her fat flesh trembling so much that Tong Huaqiong felt she was about to meet the King of Hell.

“Gu Taohua, can you say something pleasant? Mother wasn't dead, but you're going to curse her to death.”

“It's not cursing her to death, it's crushing her to death.”

“You old fat thing, get up quickly! Mother is about to run out of breath from your weight!”

The young man pulled the large girl up, and Tong Huaqiong instantly felt her breathing ease.

“Mother...” Seeing her mother-in-law awake, the young woman clearly breathed a sigh of relief. She timidly tried to step forward to check on her, but under the fierce glares of the large girl and the young man, she froze, not daring to move.

The young man said fiercely to the young woman, “Hurry up and bring Mother's medicine. I'll settle the score for you knocking Mother unconscious later!”

With tears in her eyes, the young woman hurriedly pulled the little girl out to fetch the medicine.

...

How could a modern university student in the prime of her life accept becoming an ancient rural old woman with children and grandchildren?

Tong Huaqiong wanted to accept reality and get into character, but she simply couldn't.

Even the original owner's name, Tong Dajiao, gave her a sense of dazed confusion, like something out of a rural romance novel.

The only thing she felt lucky about was that the original owner, Tong Dajiao, was a widow.

Although she was already a grandmother, Tong Dajiao was only forty years old.

As she regained her composure, the original owner's memories gradually flooded into Tong Huaqiong's mind.

Tong Huaqiong realized one thing: this wasn't just a simple transmigration; it was a transmigration within a rebirth.

The old soul in this body was no saint; she was a combination of a wicked stepmother, a wicked mother-in-law, a man-favoring matriarch, and an indulgent parent.

She truly deserved her fate.

And in her previous life, she had indeed met her retribution!

The original owner married into the Gu family at fourteen to be a stepmother. She had a stepson and a stepdaughter, and later gave birth to two sons and a daughter.

As a stepmother, she treated her stepchildren inhumanely—beating, scolding, starving them, and frequently locking them in the cattle shed.

During the busy farming season, the stepson, Gu Dahan, took on all the farm work, while during the rest of the time, she sent him to the docks to carry sandbags, with every penny he earned rolling into her pocket.

After the stepson married, she immediately activated her "wicked mother-in-law" skills. She forced all the housework and field labor onto her daughter-in-law, Chen Sufen, and didn't even spare her when she was pregnant; the day after giving birth, she drove her back to the fields.

As for the stepdaughter, Gu Baishuang, it was even worse. After taking a large dowry from a wealthy family in town, she shoved her fourteen-year-old stepdaughter onto her son to be a second wife to a man three years older than the stepdaughter herself.

Meanwhile, she was extremely indulgent toward her two biological sons and daughter.

With a mother like the original owner, whose roots were rotten from the start, her biological children were all "bad bamboo."

The eldest biological son, Gu Dashu, was a lazy glutton in his previous life. He relied on his younger brother, who later became a high official, to prey upon the villagers. Because of his many crimes, the entire male line of the family was executed by waist-cutting.

Among the twins, the son, Gu Jingzhe, was actually successful. He studied hard, passed the imperial exams, and became a high official. However, after entering the capital, he clung to the powerful, abandoned his wife and children, and plotted to marry a lady from a Duke's mansion. Once he held great power, he formed factions, engaged in corruption, seized land, favored concubines, and neglected his wife, even enabling his brother and nephew to commit crimes. He was eventually stripped of his rank and beheaded.

The daughter of the twins, Gu Taohua, was spoiled into a willful, "love-brain" personality. She forced herself upon a scholar from the neighboring village, causing a scandal of pregnancy before marriage. The scholar, failing his exams repeatedly, relied on the Gu family's youngest son to donate his way into becoming a county magistrate. Once in office, the couple acted like a swarm of locusts, nearly leaving the entire county without a livelihood, before finally being tied up and burned alive on the city wall by refugees.

The original owner experienced the confiscation of her family's property. Upon hearing the news of her daughter being burned to death, she finally died of fright as she watched the severed heads roll during the execution of her children and grandchildren.

(End of Chapter)