NancyBlue
The saying "extreme joy begets sorrow" was likely coined for Lu Qingran.
Just an hour ago, 28-year-old Lu Qingran had been promoted to manager of a department store. An hour later, she was in a car crash on her way home. When she woke up again, Lu Qingran was still Lu Qingran, but she had become the peasant girl Lu Qingran.
Since she was here, she would make the best of it, Lu Qingran thought optimistically, but reality had other plans.
The peasant girl, Lu Qingran, had lost her birth mother early. Her father remarried, and her stepmother, having given birth to two plump, healthy boys in three years, had become the family's hero, elevating her stepsister's status in the process.
The stepsister had a marriage contract to a dirt-poor family. The stepsister refused to marry, making Lu Qingran the only suitable substitute bride. The young girl couldn't bear the thought, and when she woke up again, the soul within her was new.
"I'll marry for you, but only if you sever all ties with me," the new Lu Qingran declared. "From now on, I will have nothing to do with any of you."
The stepmother and stepsister couldn't have been happier.
The in-laws were poor, true, but the father-in-law was honest and decent, the mother-in-law was sharp and capable, and the younger siblings were sweet. The family was harmonious. As for her cheap husband? Lu Qingran could only say that Heaven had been kind; she had actually encountered such a peerless good man.
Then came the great drought from the heavens. Grains yielded nothing, barbarians invaded, and the people were forced to flee. From then on, drought, locusts, torrential rain, floods, plague... natural disasters struck relentlessly.
While others fleeing the famine withered to sticks, the Yan family members were rosy-cheeked and plump.
Her severed family came knocking to sponge off her good fortune. Lu Qingran's response was sharp: "Who are you? I don't know you."