The Quick Transmigrating Cannon Fodder Chooses to Farm - Chapter 1

Xu Yin slowly opened her eyes.

The first thing she saw was an old-fashioned mosquito net. It was made of cotton gauze. It had patches and yellow spots on it.

Through the top of the net, she could see the wooden beams and the rafters of the roof and even the sunlight slipping through the cracks between the tiles, which cast mottled light and shadow inside.

Her hand pressed against her aching head. She felt a mixture of joy and sadness as she recalled the original host’s memories that she’d received when the original host’s body was unconscious.

She knew that she had transmigrated again.

That’d happen with enough practice, she supposed.

She had been brought into this story world by the Life Assistance System.

The Life Assistance System initially presented itself as a very inconspicuous black jade pendant. Her grandmother had left the pendant in her name before she passed away. (1-1)

She wore it for many years without noticing anything special about it. 

It wasn’t until her second year of graduate school that she did. While watching a meteor shower on a mountaintop with her roommate, Xu Yin was trapped in the rain and caught a fever. When the fever broke two days later, the pendant had disappeared.

After that incident, though, Xu Yin began to hear a voice in her head claiming to be a system that had come from a more advanced civilisation.

Before she could fully comprehend what was happening, she had been transported by the system into the realm of story worlds.

Each time, she’d become a rotten-hearted ultimate cannon fodder that she’d complained about before.

Before this story world, she had passed through two other story worlds in succession.

The first story world was set during the turbulent times of the Republic of China. (1-2)

She had been clueless at that time. All she wanted to do was go home. She missed her family—her parents, her brother, and her sister-in-law. This caused her to fail in completing the system’s tasks, and she was unwittingly turned into cannon fodder, just like the character originally had been in the original storyline.

She died a miserable death.

The pain and despair she felt before she died seemed to have been carved into her bones. Even now, the memory of it still gave her chills and made her shudder.

In her second story world, Xu Yin was a poor peasant girl who lived in a famine-stricken era in ancient times. 

Xu Yin learned from her experience in the first story world that she had transmigrated to. She pondered it thoroughly and finally understood the rules of the Life Assistance System. Then, she decisively avoided the male and female protagonists of the book and survived. 

She relied on the original host’s farming experience and the advanced agricultural techniques that she purchased from the system marketplace. As a result, she could live a relatively comfortable life in her later years. 

However, during her escape from the famine, there was a point when she had to walk barefoot on snow. This experience left her with a severely weakened body and an endocrine disorder.

Later in her life, a malicious person spread gossip about her, and as a result, no one dared to propose a marriage to her. Xu Yin was left alone, and she couldn’t be happier about it.

Since she didn’t get married, she naturally didn’t have any children, either. 

When she realised that her time in this story world was running out, she simply sold her good field, orchard, and workshop.

She donated half the proceeds to a charitable organisation, which resembled an orphanage in the modern world.

And now, she’d been transmigrated into her third story world…

She still had no idea why she was being transmigrated from one story world to another and when she’d get to stop.

Would she get to return to her family after she completed her tasks in a few story worlds—like they were but checkpoints, or would she be stuck here, hopping from one story world to another for the rest of time?

No one had told her anything about that.

The Life Assistance System, which was disconnected to her for most of the time, would only mechanically issue her tasks and rewards.

If she’d get a chance to rate this crappy system in the future, she’d definitely give it a bad review. 

Fortunately, this time, she hadn’t transmigrated into the troubled times of the Republic of China, when wars never ceased and the country was divided up by warlords, nor had she transmigrated to the turbulent ancient times, where natural disasters and the suffering of the people were constant. 

Although it was still far from the modern era that she used to live in, at least she wouldn’t have to flee for her life anymore. 

However, her identity still rather disheartened her. She had become the ultimate cannon fodder who had been reviled by everyone in the story and despised by everyone in the comment sections. She had become the younger sister-in-law of the female protagonist!

This novel was titled ‘The Dashing Young Stepmother in the 80s.’

The female protagonist was called Zhu Yunjing. 

After graduating from high school, Zhu Yunjing expected to go to university. However, her older brother experienced a work accident that permanently injured his hand. 

Her parents, who favoured sons over daughters, then married her off to the Xu family. She was to marry Xu Zhinian, the only son of the family whose first wife had died. Her parents used her bride price, which amounted to 500 yuan, to find a satisfactory daughter-in-law who’d marry her disabled brother.

After Zhu Yunjing married into the Xu family, she had a falling out with her unreasonable in-laws, who spoiled their daughter—the original host. She held onto every penny of the salaries and allowances that Xu Zhinian had sent.

She then sent her detestable sister-in-law to a labour reform farm out of resentment. When she eventually went to the army, she brought her two stepsons with her.

The female protagonist, who was beautiful and had a tough personality, led a prosperous life from the moment she arrived in the army.

Not only did she make Xu Zhinian fall in love with her, but she also made him change his attitude towards his family. 

His elderly parents wrote to him asking for his help. For instance, they hoped that he could use his connections to visit the labour reform farm and get his sister out earlier than she was supposed to. However, no matter how many letters they wrote to him, he ignored them all. 

On the contrary, every letter only made him feel more like her parents weren’t clear-headed. Though he still sent a small amount of money every year, he hardly ever returned to his hometown anymore.

The aforementioned sister-in-law, who was sent to the labour reform farm, was released ten years later. She came home to her old and lonely parents and was infuriated by what she found. She stormed into the army camp and demanded her brother divorce his wife. 

By then, Xu Zhinian already had a very important position in his unit, and Zhu Yunjing had been in charge of their art and culture troupe for many years. Considering their current high positions, how could the couple tolerate her tantrum? (1-4)

The two played the good cop and the bad cop game against her. Soon, the entire military compound also learned about every wrongdoing that the original host had made in the past.

Even though she had lived through ten years in a labour reform camp, the original host was still, after all, a 25-year-old unmarried woman. She couldn’t stand the judgement of the middle-aged women of the military compound, who were all disgusted by her.

One day, she broke a porcelain bowl and proceeded to scream and curse at the female protagonist.

The female protagonist fought back.

During the fight, pieces of the broken bowl on the ground pierced the original host’s neck and ruptured her carotid artery. She died before help could arrive.

Xu Yin: ‘…’

When she recalled this part of the storyline, Xu Yin shuddered.

She had now become this sister-in-law.

What a tragic life she had! She went through ten years of hard labour and then became a victim of manslaughter.

Fortunately, she had come to this story world before the main storyline had started.

At this moment, her cheap older brother’s first wife was still alive. 

As long as she could live in peace and not cause trouble, she wouldn’t die the same death as the original host.

While thinking all this, Xu Yin held her dizzy head and slowly sat up from the bed.

At this moment, a string of angry scolding came from outside the hexagonal lattice wooden window.

“You greedy, evil woman! How can you have the heart to steal and eat wild vegetable dumplings when your sister-in-law is still lying unconscious in there!?”

“It’s not like that, Mom. These are for Doudou. He has mouth sores, and the blind old woman at the village said that some boiled dandelions can cure him, so I dug some and brought them back…”

“Ha, like I’d believe you! What illness could a child possibly have? They’re just being naughty. What a lazy and cunning woman—I really hope that you’ll just die! Chop that pile of firewood! Don’t you dare eat until you’re done!”

“I’m going now,” her sister-in-law responded with a low voice. 

She stuffed the boiled dandelion dumplings into her bewildered son’s arms and hurried to the backyard to chop firewood.

However, Mother Xu still continued to scold her.

Xu Yin hurriedly got up from the bed.

She might not plan to cause trouble, but she couldn’t prevent her mother from doing so.

If her mother accidentally wore out her sister-in-law to her death, wouldn’t the storyline return to its original state? She wouldn’t even have anywhere to complain to, then.

Besides, this sister-in-law of hers was not at all lazy, evil, or greedy like Mother Xu made her out to be.

Not only was she not lazy, but she was also very diligent.

She always got up before dawn. Every morning, she’d cook a large pot of porridge and boil water on another coal stove. Then, she’d feed the chickens and clean their coop before washing the clothes of her family in the river. This morning, she’d gone to wash the clothes of her family in the river and hung them up to dry before going to the foot of the mountain to pick dandelions for her son.

By the time the old couple woke up, they would have hot water and steaming porridge. Honestly, it’d be hard to find a better daughter-in-law than her!

As for her being greedy, cunning, and evil—those were all even more nonsense!

Her mother had scolded her sister-in-law and told her to chop fireworks so early in the morning without letting her even have breakfast first.

After the communal mountain cleaning, the villagers were each given a share of the firewood pile.

The stacks of firewood were as tall as their wall. 

Many of them were sturdy, old tree stumps. Even strong young men like her older brother would need hours to chop them, let alone a weak woman like her sister-in-law.

Xu Yin put on a small floral shirt that’d been placed in front of her dressing mirror. It’d been ironed very neatly.

It went without saying that her sister-in-law had also ironed this shirt for her.

There was also an enamel cup filled with brown sugar water on the bedside table. There was still some warmth in it, so her sister-in-law probably brewed it when she boiled the first pot of water in the morning.

These were small things, but they accumulated into a lot. Even if she had a heart of stone, how could this not melt her heart? 

Even if it wasn’t for the sake of her own life, she wouldn’t want to lose such a kind and caring sister-in-law.