Quickly wear salted fish, she won by lying down

Chapter 1680 The Country Girl Looked Down Upon 1
This time, Linlang once again chose an ancient journey.

When Linlang chooses ancient times, she usually chooses those with abundant resources. She generally avoids ancient times that are too far removed from the past, with few resources and where even getting a decent meal is difficult, because the living conditions are too poor. Unless there are special reasons, she has no interest in going there.

She travels through time to visit different eras, not to suffer, unlike those who seek out the exotic and go to ancient times to see savages.

So the place we went to this time was still one of the world's relatively abundant resources.

However, the abundance of resources meant that only the wealthy and powerful could afford it. Ordinary people in the countryside had limited food options each day, especially during the lean season when they had to eat wild vegetables.

This is still a good year, with no war, favorable weather, and plenty of food. If there is war, drought, or flood, then forget about wild vegetables, you'll be eaten by others.

Fortunately, the family she was born into was about to prosper.

This family really had a stroke of incredible luck.

Their rise to power wasn't due to someone in their family entering the palace and becoming an empress, but rather...

They are somewhat like Granny Liu's family in Dream of the Red Chamber. Their ancestors were also descendants of a prominent family with titles. And this family, like Lin Ruhai's branch, had only one son per generation for several generations, and then the line died out in this generation.

The original family was a branch of this large family from several generations ago.

Because of this title, it was hereditary at the founding of the dynasty. And because the founding emperor had a very good relationship with the ancestor of the Zhou family, the emperor specifically emphasized that even if the eldest branch of the main family died out, the title should not be taken back. Instead, it could be given to a collateral branch. After all, even a collateral branch was a descendant of the same ancestor. Of course, this was only what the emperor told his own descendants, and outsiders naturally did not know. So when the main family died out, the emperor ordered people to search for the collateral branches of the family, and that's how they found the Zhou family.

Just like a royal family in a certain world whose population declined and the throne eventually fell into the hands of a collateral branch, the same thing happened to the original family.

The Zhou family and the inherited Zhenguo Duke's Mansion share a common ancestor of about five generations.

The ancestor of this branch of the Zhou family was the second son of the first Duke of Zhenguo. When the first Duke of Zhenguo was alive, he granted this second son the hereditary title of sixth rank because of his status as Duke of Zhenguo.

However, after the first Duke of Zhenguo passed away and the two families separated, because the sons and grandsons of their ancestor were all unsuccessful, the family went from being an official family to an ordinary wealthy family after the ancestor passed away.

However, because the original owner's grandfather's father, that is, the son of the old ancestor, gambled away the family fortune, the family quickly became destitute after the old ancestor passed away.

This is why the Zhou family is so poor now.

In fact, when Mr. Zhou was young, he enjoyed a period of wealth and luxury because his grandfather, a sixth-rank official, was still alive. However, his father was so extravagant that he angered his grandfather to death, and the family fell into poverty instantly.

Therefore, for a descendant of a noble family to become poor, it only takes two generations. Even the richest family can squander a mountain of gold and silver if they have a spendthrift son.

You should know that when the family was divided, their ancestor, as the second son of the legitimate wife, actually received a considerable amount of family property, but it was all squandered by the original owner's great-grandfather.

Every time my family mentions my great-grandfather, they grit their teeth in hatred.

After all, if their great-grandfather hadn't been so wasteful, they would be wealthy enough to afford education, if not extremely rich.

We're too poor to afford to go to school now. Luckily, Grandpa Zhou went to school when he was young and knows how to read, so he taught the children in the family to recognize a few characters.

Actually, it wasn't that the Zhou family hadn't tried to beg from their relatives like Granny Liu, but... the people from the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion were far more mean than the Jia family in Dream of the Red Chamber. They completely ignored the Zhou family, these poor relatives, and wouldn't even let them in the door. After being humiliated by them, the Zhou family never went to ask them for help again.

In fact, the Zhou family could understand the other party's thoughts. After all, if they succeeded in taking advantage of the situation, what would happen if word got out and everyone came to ask them for money?
However, if the Zhou family were as wealthy as the Duke of Zhenguo's family, they would still lend a helping hand with ten or twenty taels of silver to poor relatives who came to beg for money. Even though they are poor now, if any of their relatives were in trouble, they would still help with a few dozen copper coins, unlike the cold-blooded and ruthless Duke of Zhenguo's family.

Although they harbored some resentment towards the people of the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion for being cold-blooded and ruthless, they never imagined that one day the title of Duke of Zhenguo would fall into their hands.

In fact, after the Zhenguo Duke's family line died out, some people still wanted to find someone from the collateral branches to adopt. However, for some reason, the emperor's decree to allow the collateral branches to inherit the Zhenguo Duke's title came very quickly, leaving those who wanted to find someone to adopt no time to react.

Of course, the Zhou family knew nothing of this. At this moment, the Zhou family was gathered together eating wild vegetable pancakes. It was springtime, a time when food was scarce and the harvest season was still in autumn. They had almost used up the grain they had harvested last year and could no longer eat every day. So they ground the rice into flour, added some wild vegetables, and made wild vegetable pancakes to eat.

The rice used by people in the countryside is all brown rice. When it's ground into powder, it's very rough and not good for the throat. In addition, wild vegetables don't have much salt or oil, making them even more unpalatable. So after Linlang transmigrated, she took the wild vegetable cakes and pretended to go outside to play. She went outside, then threw the wild vegetable cakes into her space. She took out a nutrient solution from the space and drank it. There was no other way; time was tight, and eating would easily leave a smell that would arouse suspicion. So drinking the nutrient solution was the best way to fill her stomach and quickly solve her dinner problem.

Fortunately, they only need to endure this for one more day. Tomorrow, someone from the capital will come with an imperial edict to inform them that they are going to inherit the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion, and then they will no longer have to suffer.

Of course, this was also a time that Linlang deliberately chose to enter, so that she wouldn't have to suffer much and could live a good life.

The reason she didn't enter another world after entering the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion tomorrow was naturally to obtain firsthand information about the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion, so as not to be unaware of what the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion was like when the Zhou family first arrived. After all, the original owner's memories were unreliable, and she still needed to see it with her own eyes.

The reason for collecting firsthand information about the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion is that, for a long time, the original members of the family were completely manipulated when they entered the mansion. This is quite normal. The current members of the Zhou family, including Old Master Zhou, have never lived in such a large family before. How could they know all the intricacies of their schemes? They were bound to be completely manipulated by them.