Without waiting for Deng Yuyuan to reply, Tian Tian dropped a line telling her to sit peacefully in the room and avoid the draft, before running off in a flash.
Deng Yuyuan smiled helplessly, gently teasing the infant in her arms. Having regained a little strength, the baby's tiny, kitten-paw-like hands loosely curled around Deng Yuyuan's pinky finger. She also began to grow active, squirming around against Deng Yuyuan's chest.
Feeling the ticklish sensation from her finger, Deng Yuyuan slowly rocked her, humming an off-key tune. She figured the official name could wait, but she needed to think of a nickname now—she couldn't just keep calling her "baby" or "child" every day.
Let's call her Tuantuan. Tuantuan and Yuanyuan—together, it meant "reunion."
In her past life, she had been an orphan. She never expected that by transmigrating here, she would gain a family member. It was truly a blessing in disguise.
Thinking of the cause of her death, Deng Yuyuan gritted her teeth in sheer irritation. As a programmer who worked herself to the bone, after consecutive days of overtime, she had chosen "revenge gaming" instead of resting.
Consequently, she had suddenly dropped dead while playing a simple farming game!
She refused to blame herself for lacking self-control; she could only blame the farming game for being too seductive.
[...]
[Would you like to launch the farming game?]
Deng Yuyuan subconsciously rubbed her eyes and blinked. It didn't seem to be a hallucination. A holographic projection of the farming game had actually appeared in mid-air right in front of her!
[Would you like to launch the farming game?]
Seeing the floating text again, Deng Yuyuan suppressed her excitement. After glancing left and right, she whispered, "Launch! Launch!"
If the price of transmigrating into a book was receiving a golden finger, then she was absolutely willing! She'd even forgive the farming game for killing her!
[...]
[Hello, dear player. If you need to communicate with the farm's AI customer service, you may do so by speaking in your mind. However, operating the farming game requires manual interaction with the hologram. Therefore, it is recommended that players only start the game when alone, to avoid being misdiagnosed as a psychiatric patient.]
Deng Yuyuan understood. She hadn't expected the farming game to come equipped with an AI smart customer service after her transmigration.
[...I am usually very busy. Do not contact me unless it's urgent.]
Alright, as expected, when AI became too advanced, it inherited humanity's laziness and excuse-making.
[...]
The farm gates slowly opened, and a plot of barren, black farmland materialized before her. Deng Yuyuan had a bad premonition.
She looked at the player information in the top-left corner in disbelief. Under the default avatar hung a glaring "Level 1."
Her max-level game account, which she had ground so hard for that it killed her, was gone!
It felt exactly like a bolt from the blue.
Trying hard to suppress the urge to grind her teeth, Deng Yuyuan took a deep breath. It was just starting over from scratch—she could do this!
At Level 1, the game gifted one bag of rice seeds, so she planted the rice first. Originally, the rice in the game matured in two minutes. Now, she had to wait two hours for a single harvest. Watering and removing pests could speed up the maturation process.
After harvesting the rice, selling it to the shop would earn her four gold coins, which could be exchanged for two bags of rice seeds. Harvesting the rice five times would allow her to reach Level 2, unlocking cows so she could produce milk! Once she reached Level 10, processing plants would unlock, producing more convenient agricultural products.
However, she hadn't found any other changes yet. Logically speaking, this farming game shouldn't just be a way to kill time in a period novel world without computers and smartphones. It should definitely have other functions.
[Please explore on your own.]
Then this AI was pretty wicked. Deng Yuyuan sighed. She would just wait until the rice was harvested to see.
Suddenly, a whimpering cry came from her arms. Tuantuan had woken up. Tears welled up in her large, dark grape-like eyes, and her soft, boneless little hand balled into a fist, poking out from the swaddling blanket and waving around randomly.
She wondered if the baby was hungry again, or if she just needed her mommy to coax her.
At a loss for what to do, Deng Yuyuan picked the infant up, stood up, and paced slowly. She freed up one hand to hold the baby's wildly flailing fist, trying to play with her.
Tuantuan cried even harder.
Alright then.
Deng Yuyuan tried ladling a spoonful of rice water from the pot on the stove. After blowing on it gently for a moment, she brought it to Tuantuan's lips. The little one twisted her head away, clamped her mouth shut, and continued wailing.
She figured the baby just wanted to cry. After all, infants loved to cry. Her cries were getting louder, which meant she was very healthy. Deng Yuyuan tried hard to find excuses to convince herself.
Right on cue, a knock echoed from outside the door. Deng Yuyuan heaved a sigh of relief—having someone help come up with ideas would be great. Although she subconsciously knew that an infant's crying was perfectly normal, no mother could avoid worrying about her child.
Still holding the baby, Deng Yuyuan didn't open the door immediately. Instead, she asked loudly, "Who is it?"
"It's me, Zhang Ci Hao, the third son of the village chief. My mom asked me to deliver a sack of rice to Jiahua's wife!" a clear, youthful voice rang out from outside.
Deng Yuyuan opened the door to find a handsome, fair-skinned young man dressed in simple clothes. His figure was tall and slender, possessing a refined elegance that was quite different from the usual rough-hewn men seen in the village.
She knew him. Zhang Ci Hao was the generous neighbor in the book who often brought the female protagonist, Little Fubao, various trinkets to make her happy. As the youngest son of the village chief, he was heavily doted on by his elderly parents. Because his family was well-off, he often skipped working for work points and instead just wandered idly around the village.
Before the door opened, Zhang Ci Hao had heard the baby wailing inside. He thought he would be met with a disheveled and frantic mother, but to his surprise, Deng Yuyuan carried herself with poise. She didn't seem flustered in the slightest as she stepped out openly to greet him.
It was evident she had been living a hard life. Despite having just given birth, her body was shockingly gaunt without a hint of postpartum swelling. She looked sallow and emaciated, yet her eyes were gentle and resolute. The baby in her arms was still whimpering softly like a little kitten.
As Zhang Jiahua's good friend, Zhang Ci Hao had originally planned to persuade her to reconcile. If her husband were around, she wouldn't have to coax the baby all by herself. But when his gaze landed on her sunken cheeks, the words of persuasion caught in his throat.
He thought, "Brother Zhang really is too much. Letting his perfectly good wife starve to such a state—no wonder she wanted to run away! If it were me, I would've run too!"
"...Brother Zhang knows he was wrong," Zhang Ci Hao finally managed to squeeze out.
Deng Yuyuan cut him off. "You can just leave the rice in the yard. Thank your family for helping me through this difficult time. I'm currently busy cleaning up the house, so I won't ask you to stay."
Normally, feeling this awkward, the young man would have turned and left immediately upon hearing such words. He didn't like dealing with social pleasantries anyway; slacking off was much more his style.
However... his feet felt rooted to the ground. He stared intently at the woman's exquisite yet slightly weary features and mumbled, "Why is the baby crying?"
Deng Yuyuan was taken aback for a moment. "I don't know either. I suppose she'll be fine once she tires herself out from crying."
With that, she intended to close the door. She still had to hash things out with the production team captain later and really didn't want to waste her energy on anything else.
A pair of strong, bony hands pressed against the door. A hint of roguishness surfaced on the young man's face. "How about letting me try to coax her?"