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

But just then, she faintly heard the sound of a baby crying.

The crying was very soft, intermittent, and weak, like a newborn kitten meowing, so fragile that it seemed as if it would disappear at any moment.

At first, she thought it was her imagination, that her deceased child was calling her, so she whispered, "Child, don't be afraid, Mother is coming to be with you, Mother is coming..."

But the crying didn't stop, coming intermittently, clear enough not to be a hallucination, slowly seeping into her ears and reviving her dying consciousness.

Liu Yan jolted awake and opened her eyes instantly—no, the crying wasn't in her head, there really was a baby crying!

Having just experienced the pain of losing her child, how could she bear to hear her child crying?

The crying was like a needle, pricking her and awakening her maternal instincts.

Even though she had little strength left and her heart was still aching, she still leaned against the withered tree, stood up unsteadily, and followed the sound of crying, taking difficult steps towards it.

Deep in the forest, there was a cave covered with a thick layer of dead leaves, and the crying could be faintly heard coming from inside the cave.

She looked around and found signs of a struggle near the cave: several trees were lying on the ground with deep marks on their trunks that looked like they had been slashed by weapons, and there were some messy footprints and dried dark red bloodstains on the ground.

Liu Yan didn't care about being scared, didn't care about why this was happening, and didn't care that she was already exhausted. She quickly used her frozen hands to push aside the dead leaves and crawled into the cave on both hands and feet.

The cave was dark, but by the dim moonlight filtering in through the entrance, she could vaguely make out a small figure.

It was a baby, looking even smaller than the child she had just lost, probably only six or seven months old, lying on a pile of hay, crying weakly like a kitten.

Hearing someone come in and smelling the faint scent of milk emanating from Liu Yan, the baby seemed to suddenly gain some strength. With all its might, it opened its little mouth and cried out, its little head shaking around as if searching for someone to feed it.

Liu Yan's heart was instantly gripped tightly; all her despair and sorrow were suppressed by the faint cry of the infant.

Without thinking twice, she acted on her maternal instincts, quickly stepped forward, and carefully picked up the child.

At that time, she had not yet fully weaned, and although her milk was thin, she immediately took the child into her arms and breastfed him.

When a child is extremely hungry, it sucks hard out of its survival instinct. The meager amount of milk is the most precious comfort in the world for a starving infant.

It was this child who gave Liu Yan a glimmer of hope for life.

She originally intended to leave with her biological daughter, but since she had encountered this crying, helpless little life, there was no reason for her to abandon it.

After feeding her child, she took off her coat and wrapped it tightly around the baby. With her already cold daughter on her back, she endured that long and desperate night in the cold and damp cave.

No matter how much heart-wrenching pain there was last night, the dawn will still break as usual the next day.

With the help of the morning light, Liu Yan finally saw the appearance of the child in her arms.

A delicate, exquisitely sculpted face, with big eyes that shone like stars in the sky, nestled awake in her arms, neither crying nor fussing.

When Liu Yan looked over, the child grinned, revealing a shallow dimple on his cheek.

That smile was like a ray of warm sunshine shining into a frozen heart, bringing Liu Yan's lifeless soul back to life.

Children are the most innocent and pure, capable of healing the world's wounds.

Although the child's blanket was old and dirty, it was clear that it was made of high-quality material. There were signs of a struggle and dried bloodstains all around. Liu Yan guessed that the child's family may have been robbed and killed by bandits or chased by enemies, which is why they were hidden here. If they stayed here, it would probably not be safe.

She hadn't eaten for almost a day and a night, and her body was weak, but with a stubborn will, she stood up, holding the newly found child in one arm and carrying her already cold daughter on her back in the other, and wandered aimlessly through the forest.

Liu Yan had never traveled far from home since she was a child, and she couldn't even tell directions. But by some strange twist of fate, she accidentally wandered out of the forest and returned to Fulin County.

She had no money left, and she relied entirely on her willpower to walk all the way from Fulin County back to Qinghe Village. When she returned to the village, the child on her back was already stiff.

Liu Yan was extremely reluctant, but she also knew that the child should be laid to rest.

She quietly buried her next to her parents' graves in the old Liu family house, where her dearest loved ones were buried, and the child would not be lonely there.

This is why, when Nie Qianqian said she wanted to buy a house in the county town, Liu Yan insisted on building a new house next to the old one, hoping that if her child "came back" one day, there would be a home waiting for her.

The child was buried there, and it felt as if a piece of her heart had been ripped out, buried in the earth along with the child.

She sat in front of the grave for a long time, her mind blank, until the child in her arms cried because of hunger.

His own daughter was gone, but heaven sent him this little baby girl.

Looking at the child's innocent face, Liu Yan finally made up her mind: no matter how difficult it is, she must protect this child.

She abandoned her suicidal thoughts, wrapped the baby girl in her own daughter's blanket, and forced herself to return to the Nie family home.

After all, it was her and Nie Erzhuang's biological child who had died. She was hesitating whether to tell Nie Erzhuang about her daughter's death when, as soon as she entered the door, Nie Erzhuang slapped her without saying a word because she hadn't come home all night.

The slap was very powerful. She hadn't eaten for a day and a night, and the slap made her stagger and fall to the ground, completely extinguishing her last shred of hope.

Nie Erzhuang already hated girls and didn't even care about his own daughter, so how could he tolerate a child he had picked up?

From then on, this secret remained buried in her heart for more than a decade, so long that she almost thought it was a dream.

"Speak up! Answer me!" Nie Erzhuang's roar pulled Liu Yan back from her reverie.

The man before her glared angrily and asked her in a hoarse voice, his face gradually overlapping with that of a winter night more than a decade ago.

When she was in the most pain, all this man did was slap her.

Liu Yan suddenly stepped forward, raised her hand high, and with all her might, slapped Nie Erzhuang across the face.

This slap, carrying over a decade of hatred and resentment over the wrongful death of his own daughter, left a deep red handprint on Nie Erzhuang's face.

“Our child is dead!” Liu Yan’s voice was choked with sobs, yet every word was like a knife. “He died twenty years ago in the winter, on that freezing night, in the indifference of the entire Nie family!”

"Nie Qianqian is a child I picked up, and she has no blood relation to you whatsoever! Listen carefully, you are not allowed to come near me again, and you are even more not allowed to come near Qianqian! You are not her father, you have no right to discipline her, you have no right to expect her to be filial, and you should never have anything to do with her in this lifetime!"

Nie Erzhuang was completely stunned. He stared blankly at Liu Yan, clutching his hair tightly with both hands, and roared like a madman, "I don't believe it! You're lying to me! You must be lying to me!"

"I, Liu Yan, swear!" Liu Yan wiped away her tears, her tone resolute, "If there is even the slightest falsehood in this matter, may I be struck by lightning! Nie Qianqian is not my biological daughter, nor is she yours!"