After transmigrating into the book, I helped my mother reconcile with her divorced husband.

The child, a little over a year old, had slender limbs, a large belly, a large head, and walked unsteadily. Liu Ying tried to step forward, but was stopped by Lu Zhiyuan. She squatted down and hugged the child to her arms.

“Miss, he’s covered in mud and will get your clothes dirty.”

"Fireflies, people are more important than clothes."

She wiped the mud off the child's face and took her pulse, but suddenly froze halfway through. The girl was severely malnourished, with no signs of poisoning. The child nestled in her arms, timidly tugging at her hand, her gaze shifting to the side as she looked down to ask a question.

"You want me to go see your mother? Your mother is sick and in a lot of pain, isn't she?"

The child pursed his lips and nodded.

Lu Zhiyuan picked up the child and led her to her mother. She followed behind a man with her head down, being verbally abused by him. The man was severely poisoned; there were obvious ulcers on the back of his hands and arms, as well as on his neck, making him look rather gruesome.

Like a child, the woman had dry, yellow hair, thin limbs, and a slightly protruding belly.

Upon hearing her child's voice, the woman quickly turned around, and her previously dull eyes lit up when she saw her daughter.

"Nannan, why did you run into that young lady's arms?" The woman apologized to Lu Zhiyuan, "I'm sorry, I didn't know my daughter..."

With a muffled "smack," the woman received a slap from her husband, followed by even harsher curses and insults.

Lu Zhiyuan glanced at the man, and Liu Ying immediately had him gagged and dragged aside. The woman was stunned for a moment and quickly pleaded, "Please, Miss, let him go. He's just a foul-mouthed person."

"Are you mute or handless? He didn't know how to talk back when he insulted you, and he didn't know how to hit you back when he hit you. How can you protect your daughter if you're so weak?" He rolled up the child's tattered sleeve: "These injuries, he did them, didn't he? How old is she?"

The woman's eyes reddened, and she shook her head, saying, "I...I didn't know she would harm Nannan."

An old woman nearby couldn't help but say, "Miss, please don't blame her. She's a pitiful person too, the only one in her family who still cares about Nannan."

The woman was sold into the man's family to be a wife, and from the moment she entered the man's home, she never had a good day. She had to manage the household affairs and do farm work. If she made the slightest mistake, she would either be scolded by her mother-in-law or beaten by her husband.

Nannan was born on a mountain road.

In the dead of winter, her mother-in-law forced her to go up the mountain to gather firewood. The poor woman, nearly full-term pregnant, trudged up the mountain, her steps uneven and treacherous. On her way down, the heavy snow obscured her vision, and she tumbled down the slope, giving birth to her child. Whether by sheer luck or the protection of the mountain goddess, she miraculously made it home carrying her baby.

As she spoke, the old woman spat fiercely on the ground.

"I don't know what kind of heartless people her mother-in-law and husband are. She just came back from the brink of death, and they neither care about her nor the child. Instead, they scolded her for not carrying the firewood back and even kicked them out of the house. It was only thanks to the village chief's intervention and the help of other villagers that they were able to survive."

Perhaps she had suffered too many grievances and become numb; the woman held her child without uttering a sound.

The old woman continued, "She loves Nannan very much. To prevent Nannan from being mistreated in that family, she would rather be beaten more often. But she has too many things to do and can't always take Nannan with her. The injuries on Nannan's body were inflicted by her husband and mother-in-law when she was away and busy outside. We, the villagers, have all tried to persuade her, even the village chief has spoken to her, but we are outsiders and can't interfere in other people's family affairs."

"I'm so sorry, Nannan! If we had both died that day..."

"What nonsense are you spouting! It's not your fault, why should you two die?" Lu Zhiyuan took her pulse. Besides severe malnutrition, she also had a serious gynecological disease, and her body was severely depleted, requiring proper care. Strangely, she and her daughter were not poisoned.

"You didn't eat that grain?"

The woman looked up suddenly, and when she met Lu Zhiyuan's eyes, she shook her head slightly: "Nannan and I are not a good match."

The grain was distributed by spies from Southern Chu under the Xie family's name, who claimed that some impurities had been mixed in during storage, but this wouldn't affect its usability. Years of war had led to grain shortages in various regions, especially in villages near the capital. Their grain had been requisitioned by corrupt officials under various pretexts, forcing them to buy rice and flour from grain shops in the city.

Every household received grain, calculated per person, ranging from four or five jin to twenty jin. Although it wasn't much, mixed with wild vegetables, it could last them for quite a while.

The mother-in-law and husband were reluctant to share their food with the women and children, so they had to go out and find their own food. At this time of year, all the edible wild vegetables had been dug up by the villagers, and even the unripe wild fruits had been picked clean. What was left were some astringent, bitter, inedible, and unsuitable wild grasses.

The woman had no choice; to survive, she and her child ate whatever they could.

As a result of misfortune, there was not a trace of toxin in their bodies.

The woman, stunned by the turn of events, stood frozen in place for a long while before finally embracing her daughter and sobbing. The surrounding villagers also sensed something amiss in Lu Zhiyuan's words—the grain the Xie family had given them was poisoned.

Gradually, people began to gossip that the poisoned grain was distributed by the Xie family, and that Lord Xie was now in charge. Coupled with the previous rumors that the Xie family had colluded with the enemy, the people began to panic, believing that the Xie family was trying to eliminate them completely.

Physician Jiang stood on the city wall with a megaphone, speaking with a strong voice: "The grain was stolen from the granary by the Southern Chu people, and the poison was smuggled in by them. This matter has nothing to do with the Xie family. Neither General Xie, Manager Xie, nor Lord Xie have distributed any grain to you. The Xie family's grain is only distributed through one channel, which is the relief grain and disaster relief grain provided by the local government."

The loudspeaker was quite loud, and Physician Jiang was a little disoriented, feeling a buzzing in his ears. To dispel the people's concerns and clear the Xie family's name, Physician Jiang shouted at the top of his lungs.

"You should have heard about what happened in the capital. It was Lord Xie who single-handedly captured those Southern Chu spies who were trying to wreak havoc on our dynasty and plunge the people into a deep abyss of suffering. This trip out of the city to provide medical treatment was also on the Emperor's orders. My surname is Jiang, and I am the head of the Imperial Medical Academy. Those who are treating you are all imperial physicians from the Imperial Medical Academy."

The murmurs among the people subsided considerably.

Physician Jiang continued, "If the court were to abandon you, and if Lord Xie harbored selfish motives, there would be no need for this."

Lu Zhiyuan stood in the crowd and responded to Physician Jiang's words: "Indeed, if the Xie family wanted to harm you, they could have simply closed the city gates and had the soldiers shoot you under the pretext of suppressing a riot! You have already contracted a strange illness and will die within seven days at most. Why would the Xie family go to such lengths to invite the imperial physicians from the Imperial Hospital and the doctors from the city's traditional Chinese medicine clinic to treat you?"

Lu Zhiyuan drawled, "Those doctors at the city's traditional Chinese medicine clinics charge money."