Chapter 1 – Trial Participant?

“Hiss-“

Yan Hong quickly let go of what she was holding and the firewood in her arms scattered on the ground.

Looking at the palm of her hand in confusion, Yan Hong found that a small hole the size of a pinhole had pierced it, and blood beads were slowly seeping out.

“What is it?”

Licking the wound to stop the bleeding, Yan Hong squatted down and picked up the firewood that was split into forearm lengths.

She didn’t see anything like steel needles and cones mixed in. Although there were a lot of burrs on the wood, it didn’t look like it could pierce the skin.

“Xiaohong! Xiaohong! Where is that stinky girl hiding and being lazy?”

“Mother, I’m here!”

Hearing her mother’s shouts, Yan Hong hurriedly put the firewood at the bottom of the wall, bypassing the earthen houses she lived in and running to the front yard: “Mother, grandma told me to chop firewood, I didn’t hide to be lazy!”

The woman standing in the yard was around forty years old. She was angrily pointing at the basin of dirty clothes under the window sill that had not been washed, and when she saw the girl’s dirty face, she was even more furious: “You are a big girl! What were you doing chopping firewood?! Did Yan Dabao break his hand or his foot, and he can’t even chop the firewood?!”

Yan Dabao is Yan Hong’s cousin, the eldest grandson of the Yan family, and the treasure of the old lady. The curse of Yan Hong’s mother attracted the old lady. The door of the main room slammed open, and the spirited old lady of the Yan family came out and pointed at her eldest daughter-in-law and scolded: “How old are you and you still can’t control your mouth?! You still don’t know what should be said and what should not be said? Where did Dabao provoke you?! You’re his aunt and you actually cursed Dabao to have an accident!”

Yan Hong’s mother didn’t dare to contradict the old lady, and scolded her daughter: “You stinky girl, I told you early in the morning to wash the clothes quickly, your father and your brother are still waiting to wear it. Look what you’ve done halfway through the morning!”

Yan Hong saw the situation and knew that her mother and grandmother would not stop talking anytime soon, so she stepped forward, picked up the wooden basin with dirty clothes, raised her feet, and ran out.

When she ran far from home, Yan Hong could still hear the chorus of her mother and mother scolding each other behind her.

In the river in the village, the upstream is the place to collect water, wash rice, and wash vegetables, and the downstream can only be used for laundry. Yan Hong carried the basin and rushed to the south of the village downstream. Some diligent women have already washed the clothes of the whole family and are shaking away the water before spreading out on the bushes by the river to dry.

“Xiaohong, this way, this way!” A girl who was squatting on the river bank beating clothes saw Yan Hong and moved her clothes, giving up half of the clean slate.

This kind of slate set on the rocks by the river bank is installed by the villagers themselves, so that the women in the village can use it for laundry; Yan Hong thanked the girl who greeted her and carried the basin over.

This girl is the daughter of the Yan family’s neighbor, Liu Erni, one year older than Yan Hong, and has just turned fifteen this year.

Before marriage, Yan Hong’s eldest sister took the girls in the village up the mountains and rivers to find wild fruits, catch fish and shrimp, and fought with the wild boys in the village. She had a lot of “reputation” among the female dolls in the village. Even Yan Hong got along well with the girls in the village.

“Didn’t you say yesterday that you would come to wash clothes early this morning, why did you only come now?” Liu Erni asked while pounding the heavy burlap clothes.

“My grandma told me to chop wood before going out.” Yan Hong pouted, “Yan Dabao was supposed to do it, but he said that his wrist hurt, so my grandma asked me to chop it for him, so as not to delay the family’s lunch.”

When Liu Erni heard it, she said unhappily, “Your family’s Yan Dabao used the excuse of chopping firewood to stay at home and not farm, right? Now, he refuses to chop firewood and your grandma still continues to spoil him.”

“Hey, that’s my grandpa and my grandma’s favorite.” Yan Hong rolled her eyes and said, “Last night, my dad said that the whole family was going to the fields today, and Yan Dabao told grandpa and grandma that he would stay at home to chop firewood. My grandpa blew his beard and glared at him a few times, but did not say anything more.

“Yan Dabao was spoiled like this, not to mention, my brother has the same virtue as him…”

“Hiss-“

Gossiping about family matters, Yan Hong soaked the clothes and laid them on the stone slab, and was about to rub and wash off the mud, when suddenly the palm of her hand hurt.

“What’s wrong?” Liu Erni turned her head to look over.

“It’s nothing, there seems to be a thorn in my palm,” Yan Hong raised her left hand and looked at her palm suspiciously.

After years of working in the farm, a thin layer of calluses had formed on the palms of her hands. After Yan Hong licked off the oozing blood, there was no more bleeding, and no wounds were left. Nothing could be seen with the naked eye.

The sudden pain was fleeting, and Yan Hong was hesitating whether to find a steel needle to pick the thorn, when a strange luminous sheet-like object suddenly “popped” out of her palm.

“?!”

Yan Hong subconsciously ducked back, her buttock fell to the river bank’s muddy ground, shocked at the strange “luminous sheet-like object” that seemed to emerge from her own palm.

“8-KI3 implant chip reading complete.”

“Trial participant ID4039 enters the queue.”

“Trial site opening countdown: seven hours and three quarters of an hour.”

Yan Hong was born in a small mountain village and the farthest she had been were only to the nearby towns. It was impossible to know what a virtual screen was.

She was originally half illiterate, but strangely enough, she could read the text displayed on it… But even if she could read it, she couldn’t understand what this scene meant at all.

It was not until Liu Erni called her “Xiaohong” several times that Yan Hong woke up from the shock.

“Erni, you, can you see what I have in my hand?”

Liu Erni glanced at Yan Hong who was holding her palms up stupidly, and stood up, shaking away the water in her hands: “You mean the thorn on your hand? Does it hurt? Do you want to borrow a needle to pick it out?”

Saying this, Liu Erni came to Yan Hong’s side and opened her eyes wide to look into Yan Hong’s palm…

“Not that the thorn – you can’t see this?!” Yan Hong anxiously pointed to the top of her palm and said.

“Which, ah?” Liu Erni asked blankly.

Yan Hong’s face changed several times.

This glowing “sheet” in the palm of her hand… Only she can see it?!

Just when Yan Hong thought she had done something to provoke the gods to be punished by heaven, and was so nervous that she sweated profusely, the glowing sheet “floating” on the palm of her hand disappeared.

“…??”

Yan Hong held her left hand and looked at the back of her palm, turning it over again and again.

“All right, don’t make a fuss, hurry up and wash your clothes so you can go home, don’t miss the noon meal.” Liu Erni was too lazy to keep up with her nonsense and reached out to pull Yan Hong, who was still sitting on the ground, up, “Your grandma won’t save you a meal, don’t come crying to me when you’re hungry.”

In the countryside, only when the farm is busy will they eat an extra noon meal. Usually, they only eat the early morning meal and the evening meal.

The growing body of Yan Hong is just at the time where it needs to consume a lot. The morning meal was in accordance with the needs of the men and the two adult women in the family, and she was only given a buckwheat bun the size of a fist, which was digested completely after chopping up firewood. When Liu Erni reminded her to finish washing clothes and catch up with lunch, Yan Hong immediately got up.

“You really didn’t see anything just now?” Yan Hong, who couldn’t figure it out, said to Liu Erni, who was washing the clothes.

“What did you see? Are you pretending to be crazy and stupid?” Liu Erni asked helplessly, “What’s the use of pretending to be stupid in front of me? Go to your grandma. Your family’s Yan Dabao is used to pretending to be sick and crying to curry favor, how many times did he benefit?”

Yan Hong immersed herself in scrubbing the clothes for a while, then raised her head unwillingly and said, “Did you really not see Erni? A big sheet popped out of my hand… It was shining, with words written on it!”

Liu Erni was annoyed by the question, and said perfunctorily, “Yes, yes, there are words, it’s amazing.”

Yan Hong was overjoyed and said, “You saw it too, right? It’s not that I’m seeing things in the middle of the day, right?”

Liu Erni glanced at her suspiciously, and as if she had thought of something, her face was stunned, and she didn’t know whether to cry or laugh: “Okay, who told you that pretending to be crazy can stop your marriage, don’t be silly, beware of your mother’s big stick.”

Yan Hong closed her mouth.

She did not have a clear idea about her mother’s proposal for her marriage, but instinctively resisted it in her heart, and did not want to think about it.

Seeing that Yan Hong was in a low mood, Liu Erni felt more and more that she guessed correctly. She beat the clothes with her hands, and whispered to persuade: “We have to go through this, I have to get married before you. Our ancestors were like this too, whether you want it or not. Your mother loves you, she will surely find a good one for you, so don’t mess around. If you ruin your reputation, you can’t say what kind of family you will marry into.”

Yan Hong’s heart was stuffy, and she lost the thought of telling Liu Erni what was going on in her palm.

——read at awanderingpotato.com

After washing the clothes and going home, Yan Hong’s mother, Zhang, and old lady, Wang, had already steamed the buckwheat steamed buns for the family to eat. When Yan Hong entered the courtyard, Zhang sent her to the fields to call people back for dinner.

After eating the extra “noon meal” that was only available during the busy farming season, Yan Dabao, who had been lazy all morning in the second uncle’s house, was taken to the field. And only Yan Hong, who had been asked by Zhang to stay at home to “take care of her skin so that she could talk about marriage”, could stay with the old lady to look after the house.

Yan Dabao was unhappy that Yan Hong, this “water to be spilled”, can hide from the fields and be lazy. But in fact, Yan Hong, the one looking after the house, did not have the leisure to be idle… Cleaning the main house where the old couple lives, dismantling and washing the old couple’s beddings. When the sun gradually slanted west, the old lady sent her to collect water and splash the vegetable field behind the house, and there was no time to breathe.

Mrs. Zhang hurried home early for the evening meal. Seeing that Yan Hong’s face was still tanned, and didn’t see the results of “skin care” at all, she could not get rid of the blockage in her chest for a long time.

“You, you don’t know how to learn from your sister!”

Before going to bed, Zhang, who was sleeping on the same wooden bed with her daughter, poked Yan Hong’s head with her finger: “You listen to whatever your grandma says, why are you so naive? When your sister was at home, when did she let your grandma make her act like a servant?”

Yan Hong remained silent. It’s not that she didn’t have any ideas in mind, but she knew that no matter what she said her mother wouldn’t listen.

Mrs. Zhang couldn’t do anything about this silly daughter, so she just sighed and said, “If you have such a temper, if you don’t find a kinder husband, I’m afraid that even your bones will be chewed and swallowed, unlike your sister, I don’t even worry about her…”

Yan Hong was reluctant to think about getting married, so she just listened obediently to her mother’s complaints before she said, “Mother, let me tell you something, I seem to have something drilled into my hand—”

Mrs. Zhang, who was already lying down, waved her hand impatiently: “Tomorrow morning, I’ll get a needle and pick it for you.”

When the voice fell, the person fell asleep.

Yan Hong, who was about to elaborate, watched her mother snoring.

“Okay… I’ll talk about it tomorrow.” Helpless, Yan Hong also lay down gently beside her mother.

With her head on the pillow, Yan Hong, who had been busy all day, quickly fell asleep.

Time passed.

In the dead of night, Yan Hong, who had already fallen asleep, had a book-sized translucent screen appear from the palm of her left hand.

“Trial participant ID4039 is about to enter the trial.”

“Countdown to the trial venue: ten, nine, eight…”

A few seconds later, Yan Hong, who was having a good dream, disappeared silently…

*****

TOC >>

**TN

Water to be spilled — daughters who will get married and become outsiders eventually

Hi, Aris here. =) If you’re new here, just wanna let you know that english is just my 2nd language and my translation is far from perfect. Please click X if you know it’s gonna bother you. (*3*)

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