“If it weren’t for you, you cursed star, my fine son wouldn’t have died!”
Gong Ze had barely stepped over the threshold of the back hall with Shuisheng when he heard the old lady throwing a tantrum.
Gong Ze raised an eyebrow, thinking: How thick-skinned can you be? Your son caught a venereal disease and was rotting in bed like a bowl of century-egg-and-lean-pork congee — and you call that a “fine son”?
“Fine”? Do you even know what fine means?
Fine means don’t come near me.
Inside the back hall, the old lady sat in a chair, flanked by two old maids whose faces were just as fierce as their mistress’s. On the other side stood villagers from Fenshan Village. Kneeling on the ground was a scrawny figure.
The kneeling person’s hands, covered in tiny scars and scabs, clutched the fabric at their knees. They were still wearing that red wedding gown.
The villagers of Fenshan Village, having eaten and drunk their fill, never expected to enjoy after-dinner entertainment. They were full of energy, acting as the old lady’s boisterous hype squad.
The old lady wailed in her chair, slapping her thigh.
“My son — !”
“You died so tragically — your mother wanted to find you a wife to bring good luck, but instead I brought back a cursed star who killed you — !”
If you’ve ever heard an old rural woman cry in that drawn-out, singsong way — half weeping, half cursing — you’d know.
It’s quite interesting.
Crying, scolding, rhyming — who says the countryside doesn’t have hip-hop?
That rap was amazing.
Gong Ze covered Shuisheng’s mouth just as he was about to announce “Second Master is here!” and stood behind the crowd, thoroughly entertained.
When she got to the part about the “cursed star,” the old lady pointed viciously at the pale-faced person kneeling below. Seeing Lu Youling’s beautiful face, the old lady’s hatred only deepened.
The wife she had found for her son — if her son was gone, shouldn’t this wife still belong to her family?
She couldn’t let the girl run away.
It served her right — this shameless woman deserved to spend her whole life as a widow for her poor son!
Human nature is truly hard to predict.
Some people who experience misfortune become more empathetic and considerate of others.
Others just want to drag others down into their own misfortune.
The old lady was the latter — which was why she was so particularly hostile and hateful toward this ‘daughter-in-law’ she had barely even met twice.
“Look at that face of hers — so bewitching — she’s probably a fox spirit in disguise,” the old lady sneered, her powder-and-rouge-painted face grotesque despite not having washed it off yet.
“She was a beggar, starving to death. If I hadn’t given her a bite to eat and let her live, could she be standing here today?”
“Her life belongs to my son!”
“I saved her for my son in the first place. Now that my son is gone, she should be a widow for him for life! Fellow villagers, you’re all witnesses — don’t you agree?”
The old lady aggressively asked the Fenshan villagers, wanting them to join in her clamor.
The villagers weren’t happy about that.
Good grief —
Your son visited brothels and slept with widows, brought ruin upon himself, and before he died, he still wanted to marry a girl and ruin her — and now you want her to be a widow for life on top of that?
How utterly heartless!
The villagers didn’t want to share in her evil. They mumbled and grunted noncommittally, not saying a word. The old lady shot them several furious glares.
Hearing that she would be a widow for life, the kneeling figure’s back hunched slightly.
But for some reason, she never opened her mouth to defend herself.
Only Gong Ze knew why — because Lu Youling was a man pretending to be a woman — and he didn’t dare speak.
“What do you say, Village Chief?”
Seeing that the villagers weren’t playing along, the old lady snorted and asked the village chief.
The village chief looked troubled and said, “This girl may be a beggar, but she’s still a person. And this isn’t the old days anymore — buying and selling people isn’t allowed. She never got a marriage certificate with your son, never completed the ceremony, and she’s still a pure, innocent girl. Even in the old days, in this situation, you’d have to send her back home.”
“What?!”
“Send her back!?”
The old lady shot up at this. Perched on her chair with her bound feet tucked beneath her, her eyebrows shot up like a weasel possessed, and she shrieked, “No way!”
“I was the one who saved her life! The birth charts matched! Even if they didn’t complete the ceremony, I already laid out the feast!”
The old lady leaned forward and sprayed at the village chief: “You all ate the feast — what do you mean it doesn’t count?! If you say it doesn’t count, then pay me back for the feast! Pay me back! If you don’t pay, no one’s taking her anywhere!”
Then she launched into another of her rural old-lady wailing raps.
Gong Ze was thoroughly entertained.
If this woman weren’t technically his aunt, he would have applauded and tipped her.
There was a true, unadulterated flavor to old-school village cursing. In modern, civilized, trendy times, many aunties and uncles were vying to be polite, trendy, respectable relatives — too shy and face-conscious to deliver such a perfect tirade.
The village chief looked troubled. “Old Madam Gong, you’re being unreasonable. That feast wasn’t a wedding feast — it was clearly the funeral feast for Old Master Gong and the eldest son…”
The old lady twisted his words: “Oh, so you’re bullying me now! As soon as I lose my husband and my oldest son, I get picked on! Oh, my dear husband, my son — why didn’t you take me with you!”
The village chief: …
The village chief was sprayed with a face full of spittle.
Perhaps it was the smell — the middle-aged farmer wiped his face and deflated significantly.
The villagers giggled and pointed at the old lady.
Even they thought the old lady was wrong. But Lu Youling was a wandering beggar with no family to back him up. Otherwise, even if the old lady was wealthy, she wouldn’t dare force him to stay.
After all, the ceremony hadn’t even been completed. No one in the world could call that a wedding.
The old lady’s argument had no leg to stand on.
Unfortunately, Lu Youling had no one to speak up for him. And women in rural areas at that time had little to no voice. The ridiculous thing was — Lu Youling was the victim, the one most affected — but with no man in the family to claim him, he couldn’t even defend himself.
Unless he said he was a man.
But if he said that, they would definitely blame the eldest son’s sudden death on him. The old lady would skin him alive.
Lu Youling was completely alone.
He knelt pitifully on the cold ground. The meal of steamed cornbread and pickled vegetables he had sold himself for was already mostly digested.
His body swayed. His head of rough, yellowed, malnourished hair was topped with a bride’s phoenix crown. He looked like he might faint at any moment. But his eyes — they shone with a stubborn, bright tenacity.
Gong Ze observed Lu Youling.
When he first read the story, he had imagined Lu Youling would be like his Sang You, his little young master — a beautiful, lively boy. But seeing him in person, Gong Ze found Lu Youling was completely different from what he had pictured.
Lu Youling was tall.
He was as thin as a stick — long, slender limbs. Wearing the woman’s wedding gown, his arms and legs stuck out by a large margin. The clothes hung loose on his frame.
He had thought that someone who could pass as a woman must be very beautiful.
But Lu Youling was merely neat-looking.
He had a naturally fair, fine complexion — paler and smoother than others. In a farming village where faces were tanned and weathered, this stood out. Only spirited, dewy-skinned seventeen- or eighteen-year-old girls could have such good skin.
Rural people aged early — they were in the sun, laboring, marrying and having children young.
And Lu Youling’s eyes were just ordinary almond-shaped eyes. His left eyelid was double, but his right was slightly smaller.
His lips were thin. He had no moles on his face.
But Lu Youling had a certain energy.
Like a blade of grass struggling out from a crack in a cliffside — tenacious, unyielding, radiating a fiercely burning light. He was born to climb upward, to strive for more.
In the old days in rural areas, this type of ‘woman’ was often called restless, someone who made waves.
But you can see the same look in the eyes of many modern women who came from difficult backgrounds, moved to big cities, and became decisive, daring, and enterprising.
Even though Lu Youling was a fake woman.
Gong Ze admired him.
The later ending also proved Lu Youling’s future achievements.
Because the name of this world is: Transmigrated to 1949: National Medical Genius
That’s right…
Yes…
Lu Youling was a transmigrator.
The rest of the plot that System Nǐ Hǎo Dà hadn’t finished showing Gong Ze detailed Lu Youling’s identity and ending.
In his past life, Lu Youling was a medical university student. As the saying goes, “Advise people to study medicine, and heaven sends down lightning.” He died from overwork, staying up late studying. Just before his death, the family jade pendant he wore on his chest shattered.
When Lu Youling transmigrated into this world as a little child, his family was fleeing a famine, and he ended up wandering, nearly starving to death.
But the family jade pendant had fused into his body, turning into a spiritual spring.
In the early stages, the spiritual spring produced only one drop per day, barely enough to keep Lu Youling’s starving body clinging to life.
Later, it would grow.
After he escaped from the Gong family and met the protagonist gong, who was an officer, Lu Youling used the spiritual spring water to save the officer’s ailing grandfather. As a result, the protagonist gong helped Lu Youling avoid the Gong family’s pursuit.
Later, he also helped Lu Youling settle down in the capital.
When Lu Youling started doing small business, his luck was phenomenal — he always managed to stumble across powerful figures who had fallen on hard times.
He used the spiritual spring water to save one person after another. Eventually, by leveraging the networks of these people, he secured household registration, went to school, and studied.
Using his future knowledge from seventy years ahead and the spiritual spring, he became a national medical genius.
Even historically famous figures — the likes of Qian Lao, Dai Lao, and other extraordinarily prominent individuals — vied to schedule surgeries with him and befriended him.
Later, many academicians of medicine were his students.
In the end, Lu Youling defied fate, extended the lifespan of the nation’s leaders, and made the country stronger and more prosperous. He was etched into history. When he grew old, his statues and portraits stood alongside those of Li Shizhen and Hua Tuo in every medical university — students prayed to him before exams.
You could say he was ridiculously overpowered.
Even his partner, the protagonist gong, thanks to Lu Youling’s network, rose through the ranks from officer to general. The two lived in harmony their entire lives.
Meanwhile, Gong Ze, as the villain, experienced a very different fate. When the Cultural Revolution came and the “Four Olds” were abolished, the Gong family — once wealthy landowners with an ancestor who had been a high official in the old empire — were persecuted and had their property confiscated. The family scattered; some died, others fled.
The villain escaped Fenshan Village.
Having studied and knowing English — which was a huge deal in that era — even during the precarious period for intellectuals, he still managed to carve out a place for himself.
When he learned that Lu Youling had become a famous doctor, he wanted Lu Youling to work for him. So he spread the word that Lu Youling had once ‘married’ his elder brother.
This caused a major rift between Lu Youling and the protagonist gong, who had been in the early, ambiguous stages of their relationship — they nearly broke up.
Lu Youling’s own reputation was ruined.
The villain seized the opportunity to reach out to Lu Youling, pretending to be a good person by coming forward and explaining things, thereby salvaging Lu Youling’s reputation and putting Lu Youling deeply in his debt.
Out of gratitude, Lu Youling used his connections to help the villain.
In the middle was a complex emotional entanglement among the protagonist gong, Lu Youling, and the villain. Eventually, the villain’s deeds were discovered, and he suffered double retaliation from both Lu Youling and the protagonist gong.
He met his end.
Now, the timeline returns to this moment.
Lu Youling was still just a pitiful, unlucky soul — someone with a spiritual spring that produced only one drop a day, just enough to keep him from dying. He was starving, swaying unsteadily, sallow and thin, forced to pretend to be a woman.
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