Chapter 421: Chapter 414: I Am the Vicious Aunt (Part 1)
After Anning returned to Nihility Space, she spent countless years penetrating those world rules.
Her entire being seemed more transparent and broad-minded.
Initially, she resented the Main God for seizing her to serve as cannon fodder in countless lifetimes, each ending in tragic death.
But now, that hatred and unwillingness had faded.
She had quite the outlook of indifference to worldly affairs, and detachment from the mundane world.
Anning knew that she was about to rejoin the world.
Earlier, she had been to a vast world of Cultivation, where she had first experienced this sense of transcending the world.
In many subsequent worlds, it was the same, until many years ago, she penetrated some world rules, and then she again had desires and began to cultivate within the world.
But now this was...
It was truly as if she had been through several cycles in the mortal world and had let go of everything.
With this letting go, Anning’s powers had also become more profound.
An Xin jumped out to congratulate her: "Ningning, you’re really powerful now, and there are a lot more things in my space."
Anning and An Xin were one, so when Anning felt good, An Xin naturally did as well.
Anning smiled indifferently, reaching out to summon a wronged soul.
This was a woman in her thirties.
Her clothing was not fancy, but she looked clean and tidy, with a face that was quite delicate and pretty, conveying a certain scholarly elegance, but one could tell from her gaze that she was a very obstinate and somewhat aggressive person.
"What are your wishes?"
Anning asked softly.
The woman came forward to pay her respects: "I, what wishes do I have? Yes, I still have unfinished wishes."
She thought hard for a long time, resentment eventually appearing on her face: "I want Xu Er Ya to die a terrible death; I want to protect my children. My Lan, she shouldn’t have had such a fate, she shouldn’t have gone so soon. My Ying Ge’er also must be well."
Anning then knew this was a pitiful mother whose children had suffered tragic deaths.
Anning first absorbed the woman’s memories, and with the woman’s memories, Anning also felt that this person was rather pitiable.
This woman’s surname was Wen, named Wen Anning.
She was born and raised in the countryside, and she was the darling of her family as a child.
Wen Anning’s father was a Scholar, but after several unsuccessful attempts at the rural examination and not becoming an Advanced Scholar, he set his heart at rest and settled down to teach in the countryside.
Her family was not poorly off, and her mother was a refined woman. Her childhood days were truly comfortable.
However, good times did not last; Wen Anning’s mother died in childbirth, her baby brother did not survive either, effectively resulting in a double loss of life.
A few years later, her father, Scholar Wen, married a woman named Ms. Ping.
Ms. Ping had a sweet appearance but was inwardly bitter. On the surface, she treated Wen Anning well, but secretly she would find ways to harass her.
Wen Anning was like her biological mother in temperament—decisive and meticulous. Moreover, Ms. Ping entered the family when Wen Anning was already grown up, and she was not afraid of her stepmother. Instead, she often caused Ms. Ping some covert trouble.
Later, unable to tolerate Wen Anning, Ms. Ping found a marital match for her and married her off.
Wen Anning was married to Xu Zhiwen, the oldest son of the Xu Family from Xiao Guan Village.
The Xu Family’s means were not as good as the Wen Family’s; they were farmers for generations. Xu Zhiwen was frail from a young age but was exceptionally intelligent. His parents clenched their teeth and sent him to school.
Below Xu Zhiwen were younger brothers and sisters, who were all stronger physically, thus they worked on the farm, while only he studied. Actually, this had already drained the family’s resources.
Wen Anning wasn’t very willing to marry into the Xu Family, but her stepmother had made the decision and her father liked Xu Zhiwen, so she had no choice but to marry into the family.
Before her marriage, Wen Anning also took her revenge on Ms. Ping by calculating against her, which resulted in Scholar Wen providing her with a considerable dowry, giving Wen Anning a sense of satisfaction.
After marrying into the Xu Family, thanks to her dowry and her uncompromising nature, Wen Anning led a relatively comfortable life.
Xu Zhiwen wasn’t the type to bury his head in books; he was also quite calculating, good at handling matters, and knew how to sweet-talk, often keeping his father and Old Madam in high spirits. Naturally, he also managed to save up a bit of money.
Xu Zhiwen treated Wen Anning very well. He appreciated that Wen Anning was literate and had the acumen to uphold the family’s honor. At first, the young couple made decisions together, leading to a harmonious marriage.
Later, when Wen Anning gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, her life in the Xu Family got even better.
When the twins were over two years old, Xu Zhiwen took part in the college examination. Tragically, he encountered a robbery on the journey and was killed while protecting a classmate.
After Xu Zhiwen’s death, Wen Anning became more assertive, and no one dared to bully her.
If things had continued this way, given Wen Anning’s nature and abilities, she would have surely raised her children well, marrying her daughter off to a respectable family, with her son possibly succeeding in the imperial examination.
However, Xu Zhiyong’s daughter, Xu Er Ya, was taken over by a transmigration girl.
Originally an honest child, Xu Er Ya was once injured by a stone to the head, fell ill with a fever, and passed away, her body then occupied by a woman from the modern era.
This transmigration girl, as the new Xu Er Ya, disapproved of the Xu Family’s ways.
Especially Wen Anning.
She thought Wen Anning was malicious and a source of disaster.
She convinced Xu Zhiyong to cause a family split and then followed the transmigration girl’s ways to start earning money, gradually improving the second branch of the Xu Family’s fortunes.
If it had stopped there, Wen Anning wouldn’t have said anything, but Xu Er Ya then secretly targeted Wen Anning’s daughter, Lan, who was kidnapped by child snatchers and sold into a brothel in Jiangnan.
And Wen Anning’s son, Ying Ge’er, inheriting Xu Zhiwen’s intelligence, began the imperial examinations at the age of eleven, passing the county and Prefecture Exams at his first attempt. However, during the college examination, Xu Er Ya poisoned his food, causing him to fall ill and miss the examination.
Later, Xu Er Ya even sought out thugs to ruin Wen Anning’s reputation and joined forces with Wen Anning’s stepmother, Ms. Ping, to set her up for rape. Outraged, Ying Ge’er attempted to defend Wen Anning’s honor, only for Xu Er Ya to have people break his legs.
Eventually, Wen Anning and Ying Ge’er were driven out of the Xu Family and left to beg for a living, dying miserably on a winter night.
Meanwhile, Xu Er Ya somehow found out that Zhou Xun, whom Xu Zhiwen had saved, had become an Advanced Scholar and later an official.
She sought out Zhou Xun, exploiting her identity as Xu Zhiwen’s niece to gain his protection, and later married into a good family, living a smooth and prosperous life.
Seeing Anning silent, Wen Anning began to weep softly.
"I have never wronged Xu Er Ya. I don’t know why she can’t tolerate us, why she had to harm my children. Even if she harmed me, I wouldn’t hate her this much, but what did my children do to deserve this? Moreover, after harming us, she had the audacity to seek Zhou Xun’s help. How could she dare?"
Anning too felt that Wen Anning had been wronged.
She was a rare discerning person, so resolute and unyielding to her fate, yet she died at the hands of someone as despicable as Xu Er Ya.
Wen Anning could not comprehend why Xu Er Ya would harm Lan and Ying Ge’er.
But Anning understood.
She pieced together clues from Wen Anning’s memories and quickly realized the truth.
Xu Er Ya must have transmigrated from a book.
In that book, Xu Er Ya surely had died early.
And Wen Anning and her children must have led an exceptionally good life.
Lan surely married well, and Ying Ge’er surely passed the Advanced Scholar exam and became an official, while Wen Anning should have enjoyed a life surrounded by prosperous descendants.
There was also Zhou Xun, who was grateful and would surely take care of Lan and Ying Ge’er for life, treating them as if they were his own children.
For Xu Er Ya to receive Zhou Xun’s care, she had to eradicate Lan and Ying Ge’er.
Furthermore, Xu Er Ya was probably also afraid.
She feared that if Lan and Ying Ge’er, the main characters of the world, lived, she would have no good days ahead. It was because of these selfish reasons that she took the lives of Wen Anning and her family.