The moment Xu Wanning woke up, someone slapped her hard across the face.
"You little bitch! Don't think you can scam me! I just pushed you, stop pretending to be dead!"
A harsh woman's voice with a thick northeastern accent exploded right next to her ear. Somewhere nearby, a child was crying softly.
Xu Wanning forced her heavy eyelids open and frowned at the middle-aged woman cursing in front of her.
What the hell…?
She wasn't dead?!
Still confused, she suddenly felt someone tugging at her pants leg. She looked down and met a pair of tear-stained red eyes.
"Mom… I'll be good, I'll listen to you… Please don't sell us, okay?"
The little girl clutching her was barely two or three years old, with a pale, skinny face and clothes so ragged and filthy that the original color was impossible to tell. The child looked like she hadn't eaten properly in forever.
Xu Wanning blinked in confusion.
Wait—what?
Mom? Sell kids?!
A small boy suddenly pulled the girl behind him protectively and shouted, "She's not our mom! She's a bad woman!"
"Cut the crap," the impatient middle-aged woman said as she picked at her ear. "Xu Wanning, just say it—two kids, five hundred yuan flat. Selling or not?"
Xu Wanning's head buzzed violently. In the next second, a flood of foreign memories crashed into her mind.
For a long moment, she stood frozen. Then she pinched her arm hard.
Tears instantly shot out of her eyes—but not from pain.
She wanted to cry, but no tears would come.
She had transmigrated into a novel!
Into the body of a vicious supporting character who shared her name!
Back in her real life, Xu Wanning had been a top chef in the 21st century, a master of both Chinese and Western cuisine. But during a cooking competition, someone swapped her snake meat with a venomous one. The poison spread too fast, and she never woke up again.
Now she was inside The Military Commander's Delicate Little Educated Youth Wife (Set in the 1970s)—and this body's Xu Wanning was unbelievably stupid.
Born into a proper cadre family, yet completely brainwashed by love, she got tricked by her so-called best friend Li Qianqian—a scheming green tea girl—into volunteering to go to the countryside. All because she had fallen for a manipulative scumbag named Gu Jun.
Turns out, that "friend" and the scumbag had been secretly together all along. They just wanted to use her for money.
They even schemed to get her drunk and threw her into the male lead's bed.
The next morning, Gu Jun staged a scene, pretending to catch her cheating. He accused her of betraying him. The male lead, a soldier, said he would take responsibility. But the original Xu Wanning, blinded by love and guilt, believed she was the one in the wrong. She even gave Gu Jun all the money the male lead sent home every month.
Now that bastard wanted to start a business and asked her to sell their two kids for cash…
"What are you spacing out for?! Hurry up—are you selling them or not?!"
The woman waved a hand in front of her face, her triangle-shaped eyes filled with greed as she stared at the little boy.
"Not selling! What, are you not scared of getting struck by lightning for human trafficking?!"
Xu Wanning finally said what she had always wanted to scream while reading the book. She grabbed the two kids and started walking away. The girl clung to her hand, and the boy held onto his sister tightly, ready to run at any moment.
The woman panicked when she saw them leaving. "Fine, fine! I'll give you fifty more! The little girl's not worth much anyway, just good for being someone's child bride! Don't be stupid!"
Xu Wanning pointed right at her nose and snapped, "Are you deaf? If you tell me to sell them again, I'll report you to the village office!"
Her heart was still pounding. Thank god she arrived in time—if the original had actually sold those kids, her ending would've been even more miserable.
Because that was exactly where her tragic fate began.
The male lead's mother had been kind and patient, always tolerating her nonsense for the sake of the children. She adored her two grandkids more than her own life.
But after the original Xu Wanning sold them, the grandmother tried to report her. Out of fear, Xu Wanning poisoned her with rat poison.
When the male lead returned and learned the truth, he searched all over the country for his missing children. During that time, he met the novel's heroine.
Years later, the son grew up, joined the army, and—ironically—was assigned to the same unit as his father. That's how they finally reunited.
But…
Xu Wanning looked down at the little girl holding her hand, her gaze softening.
In the novel, this girl had been sold several times—eventually ending up in a beggar's gang. They crippled her when she was young to make her beg for money. Later, she was sold to a remote village, chained up, and forced to bear children…
The original Xu Wanning, convicted of selling her own kids, was beaten daily in prison and died within a year.
Just remembering that scene made Xu Wanning shiver all over.
No way.
She had to play smart, fix everything, and survive till the end!