Volume One Chapter 1: The Widow Abandoned by Her Sons in a Year of Famine

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*Storage for stray thoughts. Ah ba ah ba ah ba*

At last!

After diligently playing her role in thirty-three minor worlds, enduring humiliation, delivering herself to the main characters for their triumphs and gold coins, and completing the ultimate aggrieved supporting-female-group missions, Mo Mo could finally retire!

From this day forward, she would never again have to play second fiddle to those brainless madmen and women.

Just thinking about handing over her system, receiving the keys to her very own grand villa, and then heading to the Retirement Star to enjoy a blissful life with a monthly pension of a hundred thousand energy coins, Mo Mo wept tears of joy while sitting on a bench outside the Finance Department of the Fast-Travel Bureau.

“Wuu wuu wuu~ Little Bao, I can’t bear to part with you, my dear. If I weren’t about to process my retirement, I’d fight by your side for another ten thousand years. Don’t worry, once I finish the handover, I’ll give you a full five-star rating and tip you thirty-three mega-submarines on the Annual Best System Leaderboard.”

Mo Mo chattered with her system in her mind, but she simply couldn’t suppress the upward curve of her lips.

Little Bao gawked at her. “Sis Mo, maybe you should control your expression first. I can’t sense the slightest reluctance from you—your smile is almost reaching the back of your head. And you’d better give me at least a hundred mega-submarines!”

“One mega-submarine costs ten thousand pension coins—are you trying to gouge out my heart and soul?”

“You’ve saved up billions of energy coins across all those little worlds. You couldn’t spend it in centuries, you stingy thing!” Little Bao stomped.

Just as Mo Mo and Little Bao were bantering, a loudspeaker in the mission hall of the Fast-Travel Bureau blared:

[Important Announcement! Important Announcement! We regret to inform you that due to the recent surge in retiring operatives, Retirement Stars 1 through 98 have reached critical capacity. The development team of Star 99 absconded after embezzling forty percent of the energy coins, and we are in hot pursuit. The massive loss of energy coins means Star 99’s development must be delayed indefinitely. A Retirement Group has been formed; all retirees with the following numbers, please report to the second floor! ...Number 33...]

In a flash!

Mo Mo shot to her feet, lips trembling as she muttered, “Don’t let it be real, please let this be my imagination—”

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Slowly, she opened her tightly shut eyes, trembling as she picked up the number card in her hand and looked.

She wanted to cry but had no tears.

Wonderful. She’d won the lottery. She was number [33].

She stood there dazed for a moment, then accepted her fate, dragging her half-dead body up the stairs to the second floor.

Little Bao spun excitedly in her mind. “Sis Mo, we’ll fight side by side for ten thousand years~”

Mo Mo could no longer speak; she was so furious she’d lost her voice.

………………………………

The world spun. A transition she knew all too well.

Mo Mo had already entered the body of someone who had just frozen to death. The moment she opened her eyes, a flood of memories surged through her mind.

This was a remote mountain village in an ancient, fictional world, called Shabei Village.

The owner of the body was a thirty-seven-year-old widow, also named Mo Mo, mother of three sons and a daughter.

The eldest son, Chen Qiang, was twenty, married to Wang Fang, with a four-year-old daughter, Chen Dahua, and a two-year-old son, Chen Da.

The second son, Chen Zhuang, was eighteen, married to Wang Wei, who was cousins with the eldest daughter-in-law, and had a two-year-old daughter, Chen Erhua.

The eldest daughter, Chen Ling, sixteen, was already married to the eldest son of Scholar Wang from neighboring Shanggou Village, but had no children.

The youngest son, Chen Cai, had just turned ten.

The original husband, Chen Zhuzi, was orphaned early. He survived on the charity of villagers, growing up on communal meals. But in a poor village, no one was well-off; though they fed him, a few could not help but grumble.

Little Zhuzi knew the villagers were kind enough, so he worked hard at whatever he could to help, only begging for food when he was truly starving—he was only seven then.

At this time, the original owner’s father arrived, fleeing with his six-year-old daughter, to Shabei Village. With the help of the kindly village chief Chen and the other villagers, they got registered and settled down. At the end of the village was a deserted, derelict house; with everyone’s help, the father and daughter moved in.

Her father was once the most skilled carpenter in their hometown, and so resumed his trade in the village.

Later, seeing Zhuzi’s plight, he took him on as an apprentice. The boy repaid him by mastering his craft to perfection.

His cleverness and diligence won everyone’s affection, and the original owner’s father grew more attentive in teaching him.

Their days gradually settled into a gentle rhythm, peaceful and warm.

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And so, the two grew up together as childhood sweethearts, slowly nurturing feelings for each other.

When the original owner turned sixteen, they married, and her father passed away content that same year.

Zhuzi became the village’s only carpenter, and with his excellent skills, life improved steadily for the family.

They rebuilt the house into a three-courtyard residence and bought dozens of acres of good farmland.

But fate delights in cruel twists, striking hardest when happiness is at its peak.

The year their youngest son, Chen Cai, was born, Chen Zhuzi died tragically—falling from a cliff while chopping redwood on the mountain.

The original owner was inconsolable, fainting with grief several times.

Yet, holding her infant son, surrounded by her three wailing children, she knew she could not collapse.

She understood that from this day forward, her beloved husband would never return.

She forced herself to manage Zhuzi’s funeral and shoulder the burden of the household—she was only twenty-four then.

At night, after the children fell asleep, she would lie in bed, tormented by sweet memories of their love, often crying until dawn.

Some villagers urged her to remarry, saying four children were too much to bear. Others wanted to adopt her children, but she steadfastly refused.

At that time, all the children were still dutiful and caring, understanding their mother’s hardship.

For thirteen years, she gritted her teeth and raised her children, married off her daughter, found wives for her two eldest sons, though the family fortune dwindled to just the house and eight acres of land.

Years of toil transformed her from a gentle, soft-spoken woman into a sharp-tongued, hardened matron.

How quickly hearts can change; who could have foreseen that her once beloved children would become strangers?

It was only a minor cold at the end of winter, but when she was feverish and delirious, her eldest and second sons abandoned her in the old deserted house where she and her father had once sought refuge—left her to die.

Mo Mo felt her whole body burning and weak, her head swimming with waves of pain, each breath from her nose scorching hot.

She struggled to open her eyes and lift her head. The room was drafty on all sides, windows shattered and battered.

A howling wind shrieked through, carrying flurries of snow that landed on her face and body.

Lying on the icy ground, she could not help but curse aloud, “Damn it! Those two bastards couldn’t even spare a filthy straw mat!”