A peasant girl travels through time with a hospital, rising to become an empress.

Liu Yan would never forget that day until her death. It was the coldest and most desperate day of her life, chilling to the bone and suffocating with despair.

At that time, their daughter was only ten months old. She never ate a full meal during her pregnancy, filling her stomach with coarse rice and wild vegetables. She was born prematurely, and the baby was weak from birth. From the moment she was born, she had to take medicine and rely on herbal decoctions to keep her alive.

But when Grandma Nie and Nie Erzhuang found out it was a girl, their expressions immediately changed.

She didn't care about the child's well-being, and didn't even give him a proper name—just because the child was always taking medicine and spending money, Old Mrs. Nie would curse him every day as a "money-losing brat." Those three words were like poisoned needles, piercing Liu Yan's heart with pain.

At first, Nie Erzhuang still had some conscience, after all, the child was his own flesh and blood, and he would occasionally frown and go to the county town to get a few doses of medicine for the child. But as time went on, the cost of medicine was like a trickle of water, and he gradually became impatient. He threw down the medicine bag and cursed, "A money-losing thing, a hole that can never be filled." After that, he refused to care about the child anymore and let him fend for himself.

Liu Yan had no choice but to cut her food rations in half again, tighten her belt and save up her own money. If she still didn't have enough, she would shamelessly ask Liu Xiong for money. It was an embarrassing feeling to beg for money, but as long as she could raise enough money for her child's medicine, she could endure anything.

That winter was exceptionally cold; the biting wind felt like knives scraping across your cheeks, chilling you to the bone.

Liu Yan was chopping firewood in the yard with her child on her back. Sweat soaked her inner clothes, but suddenly a burning sensation came from her back.

Startled, she flinched and the axe fell to the ground with a clatter. She quickly untied the child from her back and hugged him tightly.

The child was burning up, her face was flushed red, her lips were cracked, and her eyes were tightly closed. She was unconscious from the fever and didn't even have the strength to cry. Only her faint breathing proved that she was still alive.

Liu Yan felt as if an invisible hand was squeezing her heart, and the pain made her tremble all over.

She rushed into Old Mrs. Nie's house with her child in her arms, and knelt down with a thud, her forehead hitting the cold brick floor hard, drawing blood. "Mother, please, give me some money! My child has a fever, and it will be too late to see a doctor if we don't do it soon!"

But Old Mrs. Nie didn't even lift her eyelids. She held the rough porcelain bowl and drank the hot porridge, then slowly spat out a mouthful: "What a waste of money!"

At that time, Liu Xiong and Huang Zhenzhu were working in another city, far away and inaccessible. No one in the entire Nie family was willing to lend a helping hand.

Liu Yan held the child, her knees numb from the cold, blood mingling with tears streaming down her forehead, but Grandma Nie remained unmoved.

Clutching her last savings of copper coins, Liu Yan carried her child on her back and stumbled to the village entrance. The cold wind whipped up snowflakes that stung her face, but she was oblivious to the pain. She kept pleading with the oxcart driver, "Please give us a ride to Fulin County!"

After finally getting on the oxcart, she hugged her child tightly and wrapped him up in her cotton-padded coat, but the child's body heat still made her heart pound.

She sat on the bumpy oxcart, repeatedly pressing the back of her hand against the child's burning forehead, tears falling like broken beads, hitting the child's face and instantly freezing into ice pellets.

She had only one thought in her mind: even if she had to pawn everything she owned, even if it meant risking her own life, she had to save the child.

She even prayed to the vast sky: "God, I brought this child into this world. It is my fault as her mother for not protecting her. If you really want to take her life, then take my life in exchange! Please, spare her, let me die in her place!"

When they arrived in Fulin County, it was already completely dark, and all the clinics and pharmacies in the town were closed.

Liu Yan carried her child on her back and knocked on doors one by one in the cold wind, her palms red and swollen from clapping, her voice hoarse and broken from shouting.

After knocking on more than a dozen clinics, with no one responding, the door of one clinic finally creaked open a crack. An elderly doctor with gray hair poked his head out, looked at the unconscious child in her arms, and then at her snow-covered, tear-streaked appearance. Moved by compassion, he led them inside.

Liu Yan, as if grasping at a lifeline, quickly and carefully handed the child to the old doctor. She was trembling with nervousness, her teeth chattering, her hands gripping the hem of her clothes so tightly that her nails dug into her flesh, her heart and eyes filled with hope.

"Doctor, please save her! Please, you must save her!"

But the old doctor only glanced at the child's face, then gently touched her nose and breath before sighing deeply and slowly shaking his head.

That sigh struck Liu Yan's heart like a heavy hammer, making her feel as if she had fallen into an ice cave.

Liu Yan could never forget the old doctor's eyes when she died; they were full of pity, compassion, and regret, but not of the hope she had longed for.

"My lady, please accept my condolences. The child has already passed away. You're too late..."

He stopped breathing...

I'm late……

These six words, like a rusty, dull knife, scraped at her heart again and again.

She felt dizzy and her ears were ringing. All other sounds disappeared, leaving only those six words echoing repeatedly in her mind, tearing at her nerves.

She stood frozen in place, her body ice-cold, ten or even a hundred times colder than the winter chill outside.

She experienced heartbreak for the first time.

It was a despair colder than the dead of winter, more painful than being cut by a knife. Her world completely collapsed at that moment.

She didn't know how she left the clinic, nor how long she walked or where she ended up.

The road beneath her feet was as soft as cotton, yet as sharp as a knife's edge. She walked numbly, her tears long since dried, leaving only empty eyes staring at the dark night sky.

The sky collapsed, the earth caved in, the child was gone, and her only support in the Nie family, her only thought for living, was also gone.

At that moment, Liu Yan didn't even want to live anymore.

She felt that death was not scary. Once she died, she could see her child again, be with her child, and no longer have to endure this excruciating pain.

It's so cold outside, and her child is so young. How lonely and scared she must be walking alone on the street.

She couldn't let her child walk alone.

She walked out of Fulin County in a daze and somehow ended up in a dense forest.

The baby in her arms was completely cold, like a block of ice, making her heart ache.

She herself grew colder and colder, her hands and feet stiffened, and her consciousness gradually blurred. She simply stopped walking, sat down against a withered tree, hugged the child's cold body tightly, pressed her face against the child's already cold face, and closed her eyes.

She felt her strength being drained away little by little, her life slipping away bit by bit, and her consciousness gradually sinking into chaos.

She thought to herself: Let me just fall asleep like this, fall asleep forever, and never have to endure this pain again, never have to watch my child suffer again.