Chapter 1: Chapter 1: Sold Herself for a Hundred Yuan, Merit Points 999,999

Gu Qinghuan lay on the hard, uncomfortable kang bed, her whole body aching as if it had fallen apart. She was dazed and groggy.

Faint voices drifted in from the outer room.

“Mom, do you think she’ll sneak out and run away in the middle of the night?” a young woman’s voice asked.

“She wouldn’t dare! She took our Xu family’s money—alive, she’s a Xu; dead, she’s a Xu corpse.

Without an introduction letter, how could she leave? Become a vagrant? Your father’s been the village secretary for years, he’s no pushover.

Besides, her own mother is still suffering in the cowshed in the neighboring village. The monk may escape, but the temple remains!”

This middle-aged woman’s voice made it clear she was not someone to be trifled with.

“My mom’s the best. This move is just killing two birds with one stone. Spent a hundred yuan and got my crazy second brother a well-educated, well-mannered wife.

Plenty of men in the village have their eyes on Gu Qinghuan, but in the end, my crazy brother lucked out.

Now we can finally send the lunatic off with a clear conscience. Let’s see who dares say anything now!”

Gu Qinghuan, usually so proud and aloof, had ended up like this. And now that she was married, Brother Chen wouldn’t like her anymore. Thinking of this, Xu Meiling felt a wave of satisfaction and flattered her mother.

Liu Guifang said smugly, “Stop with the sweet talk! I still think a hundred yuan was too much. If it weren’t for your father insisting on being generous, eighty would’ve been enough for Gu Qinghuan to agree.

But I’ll admit, the woman’s really a beauty. I heard her family used to be scholars. If her family background wasn’t so bad, and her mother wasn’t labeled a stinking intellectual, I’d have matched her with your third brother. What a pity.

But now that the lunatic—cough, I mean, your second brother—has a wife to look after him, I can finally breathe easy.”

Thinking about finally getting rid of this burden, she felt like she was walking on air.

After a moment, she reminded her daughter, “Don’t go blabbing about this. Trafficking people is illegal. This was all voluntary.

Gu Qinghuan agreed to marry your second brother. Our Xu family is kind—we didn’t mind her being a stinking intellectual’s daughter, and we even gave her a hundred yuan as bride price. We’ve done more than enough.”

“Exactly…”

…

Their voices faded into the distance.

Gu Qinghuan stared at the thick cobwebs on the ceiling, goosebumps rising all over her skin.

She forced herself to digest the original owner’s memories, as well as the sudden appearance in her mind of a book called “The Delicate Wife of the Seventies.” In her heart, a herd of wild horses thundered past.

So this was the time-travel gift from the King of the Underworld?

To hell with time travel—she’d been tricked!

She wasn’t the real owner of this body.

A few hours earlier—

Gu Qinghuan had collapsed in a pool of blood like a rag doll, her whole body wracked with pain. She never expected being hit by a car would hurt so much.

If she’d known… If she’d known, she would still have chosen to save that child. She’d overestimated herself, but how could she just watch a young life slip away before her eyes?

As her consciousness faded, she heard people shouting, a child crying… all sorts of sounds.

Then, darkness.

When she regained awareness, Gu Qinghuan had become a wandering soul.

She drifted along with other spirits, crossing a bridge—there was no forgetfulness soup on this bridge.

Suddenly, a grand hall appeared before her, with a plaque reading: “Hall of the Underworld.”

So people really did go to the afterlife after death.

Seeing the ox-headed and horse-faced guards at the gate, she felt a little nervous. But since she’d died doing a good deed, she calmed herself.

Inside, she relaxed. The Hall of the Underworld was basically just an administrative office.

At the entrance, a number machine dispensed tickets to waiting souls. Gu Qinghuan quickly queued up.

Rows of service windows handled reincarnation procedures.

After getting her number, Gu Qinghuan obediently waited.

“Number 666, please proceed to Window 6 for reincarnation processing.”

Gu Qinghuan glanced at her ticket—sure enough, 666.

She hurried over and handed it in.

A slender hand reached out from inside, took her ticket, and scanned it. With a beep, Gu Qinghuan’s life story appeared on the screen.

“Please verify your information. If correct, click confirm.”

Gu Qinghuan, female, from Dong Province, Huaguo. Died at age 28.

Cause of death: Killed by a truck while saving a little boy deliberately abandoned on the road by enemies.

Parents divorced when she was young, raised by grandparents. Highest education: 985 university graduate…

All the basic info was correct.

What caught Gu Qinghuan’s eye was the last line in bold red:

Merit: 999

She asked, “Excuse me, what does ‘merit’ mean? Does it affect me?”

A lazy male voice replied, “Merit directly affects your next reincarnation. You’ve got a pretty good number—you’ll have a good next life.”

Gu Qinghuan was just feeling pleased when the red number suddenly changed, becoming even more eye-catching.

From 999 to 9999.

“What’s going on?” Was the machine broken? Gu Qinghuan wondered.

The staff inside was startled too. Thinking he’d made a mistake, he checked carefully, then patted his chest in relief. “Your merit from saving that person was just calculated.

You got lucky—the person you saved was extraordinary, so you earned a lot of merit. Your next life will be rich or noble for sure.”

Gu Qinghuan thought, At least my death wasn’t in vain.

She was just starting to feel happy when suddenly, the machine emitted a shrill beep.

Even the ox-headed and horse-faced guards at the door were startled and came over to check.

The merit number on the screen changed again.

The ox-headed guard stared at the screen in disbelief. “Am I seeing this right? The merit points?”"

"Chapter 2: Bargaining with the King of the Underworld for a Cheat, Damn Time Travel