The Great Song Dynasty's Soul-Forging in Progress

The thatched hut felt stuffy and dim, while the stove was cold. His mother, Yao, sat on the edge of the kang (heated brick bed), mending clothes by the sliver of light streaming in from the doorway. Hearing the noise, she looked up. She was only thirty-five or thirty-six, but her hair was already gray, and her face was etched with the marks of labor. Her features bore a striking resemblance to his mother from his previous life. Wang Zhonghua's throat tightened, and a deep longing for his mother unconsciously welled up in his eyes.

When Yao saw Wang Zhonghua, who was soaking wet and had a wound on his forehead, she dropped the needle and thread in her hand and stood up abruptly. Her lips trembled, but she couldn't say a word for a moment.

"Mother..." Wang Zhonghua called out, his voice hoarse and tears welling in his eyes.

Yao rushed over, not caring that he was covered in dirt, and touched him from head to toe. Her voice trembled as she asked, "Zhonghua? My son! What happened to you? How did you get like this? Were you bullied again?" Tears welled up in her cloudy eyes, but she held them back.

"Mother, I'm fine. I just... accidentally fell into the river. It was Master Lü who saved me," Wang Zhonghua hurriedly explained, his eyes warm and his heart pounding. He subconsciously avoided mentioning Qiu Laohu.

Yao was skeptical, her gaze sweeping back and forth across his face before she suddenly paused. She reached out and gently brushed the sweaty hair from Wang Zhonghua's forehead, staring into his clear eyes as if trying to find something within them.

"Zhonghua, my son," she said softly, her voice tinged with uncertainty, "you...you seem a little different? Are you sick?"

Wang Zhonghua's heart skipped a beat.

Sure enough, even the slightest change in a person cannot be hidden from their mother.

Indeed, an orphan is like an oak tree, while a child with a mother is a treasure!

Wang Zhonghua's heart was filled with turbulent emotions, overflowing with familial love.

Just as he was wondering how to answer, footsteps sounded outside the door. His father, Wang Zhuacai, had returned, his trousers rolled up to his knees, barefoot, carrying two grass carp strung together with straw rope. Catching fish with his bare hands was his specialty. When Wang Zhuacai saw the scene inside, his dark, honest face first lit up with joy, then paused in surprise. He then put the fish down by the door, rubbed his hands, and stammered, "It's good that my son is back, it's good that he's back... Fish, my dear wife, you should prepare the fish and give them to Zhonghua to help him recover."

The two grass carp, in the shadows by the door, still had their tails twitching slightly.

Looking at his parents' worried faces, his younger sister's hungry eyes, and at this destitute "home" where even dinner was uncertain, Wang Zhonghua's eyes welled up with tears again. A heavy sense of responsibility surged into his heart, and he silently murmured, "Father, Mother, Sister, I want this home. I will do everything in my power to protect this home!"

In the original owner's memory, his parents left him the best things in the house, but neglected his younger sister who needed more care. The younger sister also felt that it was only natural to take care of her brother and never competed with him for anything.

He took a deep breath, took out the heavy cloth bag that Lü Sanjun had just given him, and placed it on the only small wooden table on the kang (heated brick bed) that was covered with cracks from years of use.

The glittering silver was dazzling!

The cloth bag was opened, revealing ten ingots of snow-white silver, each ingot weighing ten taels, totaling one hundred taels.

The room fell into a deathly silence.

Yao gasped and quickly covered her mouth.

Wang Zhuacai's eyes widened as if he had seen a monster, and he staggered back a step.

Wang Xiangjun was so frightened that she hid behind her mother, only revealing a pair of terrified eyes.

One hundred taels of silver! In Wangjiagang, a middle-class family's annual expenses are only about ten taels of silver!

One hundred taels! In the countryside, that's a fortune you wouldn't even dare to dream of!

"Zhonghua...my son...where did you get so much money?" Yao's voice trembled uncontrollably, her face even paler than before. "You...did you do something...something bad?"

Her first thought was that her son had gone astray.

Wang Zhuacai finally realized what was happening, making a hoarse sound in his throat, both anxious and angry: "Quick! Return it to them! Where did this money come from? We can't take it! It'll cost us our heads!"

"Father, Mother, don't be afraid, don't worry."

Wang Zhonghua tried to keep his voice steady, "This money was lent to me by Master Lü, clean and honest. I signed a written agreement with him, it was for capital to do business. If you don't believe me, you can ask around, the whole Lü family knows about it."

He tried to keep his voice calm, lest he frighten his parents.

"Doing business? What kind of business do you want for a hundred taels?" Madam Yao didn't believe it at all. She reached out and touched Wang Zhonghua's forehead. "My son, have you fallen into the river and are you having a nightmare? Why are you talking nonsense!"

Wang Zhonghua held his mother's rough hand, feeling moved and warmed—a warmth he had longed for but could never attain in his past life.

Wang Zhonghua's gaze swept over his parents' panicked faces, finally settling on the two grass carp that were still struggling.

His voice wasn't loud, but it carried an undeniable firmness:

"Father, Mother, please believe me just this once."

"From today onwards, our family will no longer go hungry."

"I want my family, and Xiangjun, to be able to eat white rice and wear new clothes in the future."

He paused, then said, word by word:

"Try it if you don't believe me. I'm going to open a shop on Longsheng Street."

"Selling—Hu, La, and soup."

He spoke each word slowly and deliberately, with unwavering determination.

Yes, as a writer who has traveled through time, he has read many time-travel novels. He can't forge iron, brew wine, or conjure machine guns and cannons out of thin air, but he is confident that he can still make a bowl of spicy soup.

Outside, the setting sun finally sank completely behind the western mountains. The last ray of blood-red afterglow struggled to shine through the crack in the door, just enough to illuminate the pile of snow-white silver ingots, reflecting a dazzling, cold light that seemed to be brimming with infinite vitality and the unknown.

Wang Zhuacai and Yao squinted at the blinding light. Looking at their son, who seemed reborn, his eyes sharp as knives, they gaped, their throats stuffed with what felt like cotton—no, cotton didn't exist in this world. It was as if their throats were stuffed with a rag, leaving them utterly speechless, only a heart filled with turbulent emotions and a vague, fearful uncertainty about the unknown tomorrow.

Only the youngest daughter, Wang Xiangjun, peeked out from behind Yao's back with her withered little head. Hearing "no hunger" and "new clothes," her eyes, which appeared too large due to malnutrition, instantly shone with hope. She whispered, but with unwavering clarity, "Father, Mother, my brother... is the best! I believe in my brother!"

……

Dinner consisted of two grass carp boiled in a pot—boiled in plain water without a drop of oil. Most of the fish meat went to Wang Zhonghua, while the little sister and her parents ate some fish bones and drank some vegetable soup.

The dinner was very warm and cozy.

Having lived two lives, Wang Zhonghua enjoys the warmth of this family and wants to work hard to protect and maintain it.

That night, for the first time ever, the Wang family kept their oil lamps lit until late into the night. Wang Zhonghua, relying on his fused memories and modern knowledge, scribbled and drew on rough scrap paper. Yao Shi and Wang Zhuacai, who were illiterate, watched their son's peculiar drawings of pots and stoves, and his densely packed lists of ingredients and spices. They felt as if something had lit up his eyes; his focused expression and the fluidity of his writing gradually replaced their initial doubts with a strange, trembling anticipation.

My child, he's finally figured it out!!!