The young girl's name was Chen Yuluo, and today was her fifteenth birthday.
Waking up early, her mood was even better than yesterday. Despite shivering from the cold, she hummed a lullaby her mother often sang when she was little.
In truth, she could no longer remember her parents' faces. Ever since her family was destroyed when she was five, she had been passed around like merchandise.
Sometimes in her dreams, Chen Yuluo would revisit her childhood home, a vast mansion that took her a whole day to run across.
Every day, a group of older girls followed her, bringing her food when she was hungry, warm tea when she was thirsty, fanning her when she was hot, and providing warm clothes when she was cold.
This was a life that the current Chen Yuluo dared not even imagine.
She was meant to grow up in such an environment, to learn to read and write, master needlework, and perhaps meet a suitable husband, living a quiet life of marriage and motherhood.
But one night, after a nightmare-like event, that peaceful life was lost to her forever.
Chen Yuluo, fast asleep at the time, was awakened by fierce shouts of slaughter and tragic cries. She quietly crept out of her room, hid amongst the rockeries, and watched as the older girls who always followed her fell, one by one, into pools of blood.
She hugged her knees, trembling, and eventually fell asleep.
When she awoke again, the entire mansion was silent, no one alive. The ground was covered with cold corpses, all familiar faces, including her own parents.
Hearing sounds of movement, as if outsiders had entered her home.
Chen Yuluo, already terrified and disoriented, quickly fled through the back door of the mansion.
When she came to her senses, she had run out of the city gates and found herself in a wilderness, eventually taken in by a kind farmer's wife.
However, after only two days, she was sold by the farmer's wife to human traffickers, becoming merchandise, sold from one family to another, bought by one and then by another.
Having been pampered since childhood, she was incapable of doing any work. Coupled with the trauma of her family's destruction, she took two to three years to recover.
This was one of the reasons she was frequently bought and sold.
Fortunately, everything was finally in the past. Although her days were a little harder now, one wrong step could lead to scolding and beatings, not enough food, and no warm clothes.
But at least she was no longer displaced, being sold and bought like an item.
Chen Yuluo was already very content. Now, at least, she had a house that, though drafty, would not leak, even if it was filled with firewood.
Even if she didn't eat enough every day, at least she wouldn't starve to death. She had at least one meal a day, unlike before when she had only a corn bun every two to three days.
Now, she at least had white flour buns!
Thinking of the cold but still fragrant white flour bun she would receive in the evening, Chen Yuluo suddenly felt a surge of strength in her body.
Even when chopping wood, her movements became more agile. By noon, she had already completed most of the day's work.
Little did the girl know that the strength that appeared out of nowhere in her body was a power released by the innate Dao charm, which was depleting itself.
Periodically, the innate Dao charm would consume itself, providing a small amount of strength to fill this body that was about to collapse.
Without this, the girl might have already died silently in her sleep years ago.
But even the innate Dao charm, after more than a decade of depletion, could not last much longer. In less than three to four months, or at most seven to eight months, it would completely dissipate.
Unaware, Chen Yuluo had no sense of crisis, still working hard for the white flour bun in the evening.
After chopping the firewood, she took the accumulated clothes to wash. The icy well water made her hands numb, but it could not erase the smile from her face.
It was a pity that after she had painstakingly washed the clothes of the older girls in the courtyard, what awaited her was not the longed-for white flour buns, but a round of curses and beatings.
The frustration from the gentlemen in the household was vented upon the young girl by a few middle-aged women.
Looking at her delicate face, the women's anger intensified, and the force of their blows unconsciously increased.
Chen Yuluo, barely alive, used her last strength to crawl onto the bed in the woodshed.
To call it a bed was an exaggeration; it was just a pile of dry straw with a tattered quilt, barely providing any warmth.
She drifted into a dazed sleep, dreaming of steaming white flour buns. Compared to the pastries she had eaten as a child but couldn't remember the taste of, the fragrant white flour buns were more practical.
In her sleep, her body's aura grew weaker and weaker, sustained only by a wisp of innate Dao charm, but she could give up at any moment.
Unless a miracle occurred, Chen Yuluo, who had just turned fifteen today, would likely never open her eyes again.
Suddenly, a sigh echoed in the woodshed, followed by a light emanating from a string of wooden beads, which transformed into a somewhat ethereal figure.
Ji Yuan, condensing a clone with his spiritual sense, gazed at the huddled girl, let out a few soft sighs, and then extended a finger to tap gently.
In an instant, a stream of light entered Chen Yuluo's body, dispelling the cold and regulating her chaotic, weak blood circulation.
Simultaneously, he beckoned, quietly drawing in the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, slowly transferring it into the girl's body, replenishing her vital energy bit by bit.
It was a pity that this was only a spiritual sense clone, capable of very little. It could only sustain the girl's life for a little longer.
However, even so, a touch of color returned to Chen Yuluo's face, and her breathing gradually recovered, enough to survive the night.
In her sleep, the girl's breathing grew steady, sinking into a dream filled with steaming white flour buns.
The next day at dawn, Chen Yuluo woke up from her sleep, her throat feeling terribly dry and sore. She picked up the teapot on the ground and began to pour cold water into her mouth.
After downing half a pot of cold water, although her whole body shivered and a chill settled within her, her throat was no longer dry and sore, and her stomach felt full.
As if she had forgotten yesterday's unpleasantness, she laughed carelessly. Though she had little strength left, she continued with the day's work.
At her young age, she understood that only by persevering would she have a chance to eat in the evening.
If she did nothing, she would not only be beaten but would also go hungry for another day.
Being beaten was acceptable, but going without food was not!
Little Yuluo was full of vigor. As the sun set, she finally finished her tasks and was rewarded with half a white flour bun.
Even so, she was extremely satisfied.