The daily life of a peasant girl taking the imperial examination

Xia State, Pingchuan Commandery, Linxi County, Yunshui Town, Zhuge Village.

In June, Zhuge Village was unusually hot, and the villagers were working hard in the fields.

At that moment, a thin, dark-skinned girl who looked no more than eight years old sat on the edge of the field and sighed softly.

This little girl is the granddaughter of Zhuge Fengshou's family at the east end of the village. Her nickname is Dahua, and her full name is Zhuge Yunshu, the same as her name in her previous life.

She has been in this time and space for eight years; she is a legendary "reincarnation".

She was both lucky and unlucky. She was lucky to live in an era where women could take the imperial examinations to become officials, but she was unlucky to be born into a peasant family and to be a girl.

Although both men and women in this dynasty could change their fate through education, daughters of wealthy families always had access to education, while poor peasant men were considered lucky if they could even read a few words, let alone a peasant woman.

"Dahua, come home for dinner. What are you doing sitting there daydreaming?" Her father, Zhuge Laifu, hurried home with a bamboo basket full of grass on his back.

Seeing his father's expression, Zhuge Yunshu couldn't help but smile helplessly.

Both characters transmigrate into ancient peasant families, but why are the parents in other novels hardworking, honest, and capable, while her parents are lazy, cunning, and even harmful to their child?

Maybe it's because she's not the female lead!

"Uncle Fengshou's family is really unlucky to have such a lazy son."

"That's right, I saw him running to the outhouse all morning."

"Haha, a lazy donkey on a millstone produces lots of excrement and piss."

"You're absolutely right. It's not even mealtime yet, and they've already gone home."

"Luckily, he has many sons, otherwise what would he do in the future?"

"..."

All that could be heard was a group of aunts and uncles from the same village talking loudly and without restraint in the field.

Hearing the discussions behind her, Zhuge Yunshu couldn't help but sigh. The god of time travel really knew how to reincarnate her, making her become the daughter of her lazy father, Zhuge Lai, in a wealthy family.

Her father, however, was much more thick-skinned than her. He usually let other people's opinions go in one ear and out the other, and never blushed.

Even his grandparents, who were the heads of the household, couldn't do anything about him.

To avoid being lazy, he would always use a few days each month as an excuse to ask to pull weeds in the fields with his children, citing feeling unwell. In his words, the children were too young, and he was afraid they would trample the rice and ruin the crops, so he would come to supervise even when he was sick.

It sounds so righteous, but in her eyes, her father just wanted to get away from his grandparents' control so he could be lazy.

On his way home, Zhuge Yunshu looked up into the distance and was momentarily lost in thought.

The past two decades would occasionally surface in her mind.

In her past life, she was an orphan who barely managed to finish university by working part-time. After graduation, she didn't have any great ambitions, so she found a nine-to-five job in a small town with beautiful scenery. Although the salary wasn't high, it was enough for her to make ends meet, and she lived a comfortable life.

However, her good fortune didn't last long. When she was 24 years old, she was killed by an object thrown from a high-rise building on her way home from get off work.

Before she died, she seemed to vaguely hear someone ask her: If you have an afterlife, what kind of family would you want?

She instinctively replied: Please let her be reborn into a large and prosperous family!

Although she seems happy living alone, she still longs for the warmth of family. This is a little secret she keeps hidden deep inside and has never mentioned to anyone else.

As it turned out, her wish came true.

She was indeed born into such a large family, with her grandparents still alive, two uncles, one younger uncle, four older cousins, and four older cousins—a truly prosperous family.

The eldest uncle is Zhuge Lairong, the second uncle is Zhuge Laihua, his father is Zhuge Laifu, and his youngest uncle is Zhuge Laigui. The four brothers' names mean "wealth and prosperity," and it is said that his grandfather asked his second cousin, who was an official, to help him choose them.

His father, Zhuge Laifu, was practically universally disliked in Zhuge Village. (This is how his grandmother, Old Chen, described him.)

At the time of his birth, a wandering Taoist priest happened to pass by Zhuge's house and asked for water. In return, the priest cast a divination for him, predicting that this child would surely rise to prominence in the future.

This delighted the Zhuge couple, so they spoiled and pampered Zhuge Laifu from a young age, which led to his lazy and gluttonous personality.

When Zhuge Laifu was eight years old, he was old enough to take the clan school exam. The Zhuge couple waited expectantly for the results.

After all, that wandering Taoist priest had said that their son would rise to great heights in the future.

Doesn't this mean that the imperial examinations will be a viable option in the future?

However, reality often falls short of expectations. Zhuge Laifu did not receive a place in the clan school and was expelled early for disregarding examination rules.

It would be a lie to say that the Zhuge couple weren't saddened that their long-cherished wish had come to nothing.

But they quickly cheered up. So what if they were tricked by a wandering Taoist priest? Besides, how many people in the farming family have the same talent for studying as their cousin?

From then on, Zhuge Laifu's treatment at home plummeted from heaven to hell, and he even lost his daily special meal.

Especially when he was nine years old, his parents had a son late in life, and after he was born a younger brother, he no longer had the right to refuse.

He began to follow Master Zhuge to the fields to do farm work every day.

However, Zhuge Laifu, who had been pampered by his parents since childhood, was not willing to do farm work. So he kept fighting with Zhuge Laoshang and his wife until he was of marriageable age, when he finally gave up the struggle and took the initiative to work in the fields.

For no other reason than that, what family that loves their daughter would be willing to marry their lovely daughter to a notorious lazybones?

The Zhuge family elders were quite anxious. Although their son was handsome, could he put food on the table? In this feudal dynasty, for a farmer's son, not being hardworking and able to endure hardship was the biggest drawback.

So the old couple begged and pleaded with everyone they knew, and after giving her many nice gifts, they finally moved the matchmaker, who agreed to arrange a marriage for Zhuge Laifu.

As a result, Zhuge Laifu, who was a real handful, simply ran away from home.

What could the elderly couple in the Zhuge family do? They had already tried beating and scolding, and were forced to decide, out of desperation, to adopt a son for their third son, since the other two families had plenty of sons anyway.

This way, the third son's branch of the family won't die out.

However, to everyone's surprise, less than a year later, Zhuge Laifu rescued a woman from outside. It was said that she had fled from the north during a famine and was willing to be his wife.

According to what she overheard, her mother was a merchant's illegitimate daughter who was robbed on the way to escape famine, resulting in the death of her family. She was so hungry that she stole a steamed bun and hid to eat it, which is how she survived. This allowed her father to get a great deal.

Zhuge Yunshu couldn't help but sigh, "Birds of a feather flock together," as her mother's troubles were no less than her father's.

Her mother didn't have a formal name; her nickname was Lin Si Niang. Because her family was well-off, she didn't know any life skills other than eating. If you asked her to cook a meal, she almost set the kitchen on fire. If you asked her to weed the fields, she could uproot all the crops. It wasn't on purpose; she was just born with the life of a pampered young lady.

Because she had lost her health while fleeing famine, she only became pregnant with difficulty four years after getting married.

Pregnant Lin was feeling unwell due to her previous poor health. She often felt dizzy, vomited, and even fainted. Her family had to call a doctor every now and then. In fact, the number of times they had called a doctor before was less than the number of times they had called a doctor during her pregnancy.

There was no other way; farmers couldn't afford to get sick. Grandma Chen could only let her stay at home, do nothing, eat and drink well, and focus on her pregnancy. Things only started to improve after she gave birth to her daughter.

After giving birth, her mother probably got used to being taken care of. In order not to work in the fields like her eldest and second aunts and do laundry and cook for the whole family, she used her best skill – needlework.

This skill did indeed convince the family, not for any other reason than that no woman in Zhuge Village knew this skill; they only knew some small sewing and mending jobs.

Therefore, her mother, Lin Si Niang, who was otherwise good but not talented, became the best needleworker in Zhuge Village, and this skill brought some meager income to the family.

Actually, given her mother's skills, she shouldn't have earned so little. But it's her mother's fault for being lazy; she often used eye discomfort as an excuse to only take on a few embroidery jobs in town each month, and that was only after her grandmother coerced and bribed her.

Zhuge Yunshu sometimes felt that her parents might be time travelers who had not awakened their memories, simply because their thinking was too advanced.

Her mother, Lin, had damaged her health during childbirth and, for the sake of her own life, did not plan to have any more children. Of course, this was only the most important reason.

Zhuge Laifu also felt sorry for his wife, so he bought a folk remedy from the doctor to make men infertile and bribed the doctor to tell others that it was his fault. This silenced the Zhuge family elders, which was the main reason why the Zhuge couple had tolerated his mother not giving birth to a son to carry on the family line.

As her parents' only child, she held a position in the family second only to her cousins.

In order to gain the same status as her cousins, she tried to use her young age and sweet talk to please her grandparents.

But whenever they saw her, they would think of her parents and how much money the family had spent on her even before she was born. The old couple would get angry and give her a cold shoulder.

Alas, there was no other way; so at the age of eight, Zhuge Yunshu still could not escape the fate of being a peasant girl in ancient times.

—Going to the fields to do farm work.