The person Shen Ziyi saw in the mirror was still fair and rosy, but it couldn't hide the signs of her weak body. Shen Ziyi thought at first glance the person standing in front of the mirror looked like her younger self – visibly exhausted but stubbornly trying to hold on.
Shen Ziyi sighed in distress! Not only did the original owner look exactly like herself, but the original owner's personality was also somehow like hers.
When the news of Zhou Shangnan's death reached the village chief, she was already heavily pregnant with the twin boys. Everyone, considering her situation, discussed a lot before eventually deciding to inform her. But to everyone's surprise, the original owner didn't break down, crying, or fussing as everyone expected. Her reaction stunned everyone in the village; many people even started to spread malicious rumors about her. She behaved completely normally and gave birth the following week.
Only Shen Ziyi knew the truth from the original owner's memory. The original owner was terrified, extremely scared. She was originally not from Ninghai village but was brought by her kind grandmother from some mountain traffickers. She lived a few years of good life until her grandmother was alive. After her grandmother's death, she became an unpaid servant of the Shen family's second house and also a punching bag for her aunt in secret.
After marrying Zhou Shangnan, who was also an orphan with the heavy responsibility of five younger siblings, she freed herself from the hell named Shen family. Despite being poor, having many mouths to feed, and an unhappy marriage partner, the original owner actually spent the most peaceful life in all those years. Knowing she was pregnant with two children, Zhou Shangnan suggested going to the provincial capital for work. The original owner naturally agreed. Who knew that within a few months she would be informed that the husband whom she had been longing to return wouldn't come back anymore, not even in her entire life.
With two unborn children and five young siblings, what could she, a heavily pregnant woman, possibly do now?
The original owner was scared, so scared that she didn't even dare to shed tears behind closed doors lest people knew her weakness. In a society where reform was not yet fully open, weak people had the least right to live peacefully, let alone an orphan like her and orphans like the Zhou siblings.
After giving birth, the original owner didn't stay in confinement even for ten days. Instead, she let her two youngest sister-in-laws take care of her two newly born kids and took the older ones to the farm.
She did a good job indeed; she sent the oldest two siblings, Zhou Shanghua and Zhou Shanshan, to high school in town despite many opinions. She also let the other three Zhou siblings go to the village school. It cost a lot of money; she had to work twice as much as before to cover the expenses, but she did it all tirelessly, without any complaint.
Her actions received outrageous scolding from other relatives who calculated but couldn't get the money. Other villagers were also baffled by her stupid action. After all, according to villagers, girls were money-losing things; even feeding them was a loss, let alone working extra hard to send them to school.
Others didn't know, but Shen Ziyi knew why the original owner did this. Because before leaving, she promised Zhou Shangnan she would take care of his siblings, and over time she started to treat them as her family. So the things she didn't enjoy, she simply let them enjoy.
But things don't always go as they want. A few days ago, she had a high fever which required going to the town hospital, but the original owner was reluctant to spend money because in a few days Zhou Shanghua would need money for his college. So she let the high fever burn her silly, which eventually caused organ malfunction and unexpected death.
That's when Shen Ziyi came here.
Shen Ziyi couldn't help but sigh helplessly after going through the original owner's memory, but also felt a little sad.
When she was mourning for the original owner, there were subtle noises at the door. She looked over, only to notice two little heads peeking inside the room from behind the door. As soon as someone met her eyes, he quickly hid behind the door like a tortoise.
Shen Ziyi pursed her lips. She knew those two little humans. They are the twins the original owner gave birth to – Zhou Jiajun and Zhou Jiaqing.
Even a glimpse of them made her feel very close to them. Shen Ziyi thought of the remaining emotion of the original owner and felt a little uncomfortable. She called the two little guys who were still trying to pretend they didn't exist, "Come out."
The little human beings seemed afraid of something, and started to push and pull each other. After fidgeting for a while, a head once again poked out from behind the door, clutching the door handle tightly. His big, grape-like eyes revealed some fear, cautiousness, and yet longing.
As if burned by such direct emotion, Shen Ziyi lowered her eyes somehow unnaturally. She didn't notice the little boy's bright eyes also dimmed. When she looked up again, he looked normal. Shen Ziyi called the twins by their nickname,
"Junjun, Qingqing, come here."
The original owner did a very good job in raising, feeding, and sending the male lead's five young siblings. She fulfilled all the responsibilities of a father and a mother for the five Zhou siblings and her twin boys, but the thing she neglected most was building an emotional relationship with them.
She was good in every way, but she had an introverted personality which sometimes people classified as being aloof. But the original owner never cared about it. There was no man at home. She did the work of both man and woman. A whole day of working in the field under the sun, then coming back to take care of the small chicken and duck farm, going to town to sell things already wore out the original owner every day. She used to go to bed utterly exhausted and fall asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.
Where would she have the luxury to spend some time with her babies and build their mother-child relations?
So the original owner knew she did a good job in everything but failed as a mother. That's why she dared not to face her children and always tried to avoid looking for them, which led the children and others to think she didn't like them or even hated them for making her raise so many of them alone. So over time, they became cautious around her.
So when Shen Ziyi suddenly called them so gently and lovingly, Zhou Jiajun and Zhou Jiaqing were stunned. Even Zhou Yufan, who was hiding, was stunned.
What happened to their mother (sister-in-law) suddenly?