"One hundred yuan! This one's the eldest. Strong build, good size. Throw in another ten jin of cornmeal, and you can take him right away!"
"What? One hundred? Harriet Caldwell, why don't you just go be a bandit? A useless little girl at most is worth fifty! Sell or don't sell, your choice!"
The sharp, nasty haggling drilled straight into Serena Caldwell's ears, word by word. The back of her head felt like it'd been smashed with a hammer. Pain seeped out from deep in her bones, so fierce it felt like her whole body had come apart. Her vision kept going dark.
She struggled to force her eyes open. Before her sight even cleared, she felt something clamp hard around her leg. A skinny little figure, thin as a bean sprout, threw itself at her. Two tiny hands gripped her leg with all their strength. The child's voice was already hoarse from crying, but she still kept shouting, "Ma! Ma, you're awake! Hurry and stop them! Don't let them sell Big Brother! Please don't let them sell him!"
Ma?
Serena's head buzzed loud as thunder. Then a flood of strange memories rushed up all at once, crashing into her mind like a burst dam.
She had actually crossed over.
She'd been the best of the best in modern medicine, skilled in both Chinese and Western practices. All she'd done was slip while gathering herbs in the mountains, and that had cost her life. And now, when she opened her eyes again, she'd become a miserable woman from the 1960s in Hongqi Production Brigade, also named Serena Caldwell.
What made her scalp prickle even more was this—this original owner hadn't just been weak and submissive. She had given birth to... quintuplets.
Right now, her sharp-tongued mother-in-law Harriet Caldwell was standing there with her hands on her hips, jabbing a finger at a little boy nearby while she bargained with a shifty-eyed man, spit flying everywhere.
"Seventy! And I'll throw in this little girl too! Seventy for both, not one cent less!"
Harriet spat on the ground and shot a glance at the bony little girl beside Serena.
The rat-faced man's eyes lit up at once. He rubbed his hands together, grinning from ear to ear. "Fine! Seventy for two. I'll hand over the money right now!"
"Ma! Don't sell Big Brother! Don't sell Big Sister!" The children were already scared out of their wits. Their faces were white as paper as they cried and rushed over, squeezing themselves in front of Serena like a clutch of baby chicks trying their hardest to guard the nest.
"Get lost! A bunch of worthless burdens!" Harriet cut them a vicious look and lifted her leg to kick them.
"Don't touch my little brothers and sisters!"
A little girl with two sprouting pigtails suddenly darted out. Her face was smudged with dirt, but her eyes were bright in a way that made people stare. She spread her thin little arms wide and blocked the younger children behind her.
This was Second Girl, the fiercest-tempered of the five.
Harriet kicked at her without hesitation, but to her surprise, that skinny scrap of a girl actually shoved back hard enough to make her stumble half a step.
"Well now, you dead girl, got some nerve, don't you?" Harriet's face turned green with anger. She raised her rough, heavy hand high, clearly about to slap Second Girl across the face.
"Stop!"
The shout wasn't loud, and weakness showed plainly in it, but it landed like a stone dropped into still water. The whole room went silent in an instant.
Serena braced one hand on the ground and slowly forced herself upright. The wound on her head was still bleeding, thin streams of blood running down her cheek and staining her whole face, making her look downright terrifying, like someone who had just crawled up from the grave.
But her eyes were nothing like the old Serena Caldwell’s.
The Serena from before had always been timid, shrinking back at every harsh word. But now, her gaze rested on Harriet Caldwell, heavy and cold, with a chill in it that was hard to name. Just one look from her was enough to make a person’s back go stiff.
"Well, look at that, you’re not dead?" Harriet’s heart skipped when those eyes landed on her, but she quickly put on her usual sharp, nasty face. "I knew you were faking it. What’s the point of playing dead? Useless thing. And you popped out a whole litter of little useless things too. The pot at home’s about to run dry. If we don’t trade a couple of them for money, what, you expect the whole family to starve with you?"
"Listen good, eldest daughter-in-law."
From the corner, Bernard Caldwell, who had kept quiet till now, finally spoke in a slow, dragging voice. The dry tobacco pipe in his mouth clicked as he puffed on it.
"Nathan Caldwell’s been in the army five years. Dead or alive, not one word from him. And this family’s still been feeding you and those five brats. That’s already more kindness than you deserve. Sell off two of them, at least the house gets something to chew on. You can call that their share of duty to the family."