I’ll Butcher Pigs to Support You! 1

Chapter 1

Sunlight floated outside the door. Song Yugui opened her eyes to a splitting headache, the fresh, earthy scent of soil inexplicably filling her nose. Clutching her head, she sat up with a groan and cursed inwardly. I’m never staying up all night to read a novel again. You wake up feeling more tired than when you went to sleep, and every part of you aches.

Lost in thought, she subconsciously swung her legs over the side of the bed to get changed for work, but the moment her foot touched the ground, something felt wrong.

Huh?

Why was the floor so uneven? And why were her slippers so scratchy?

She lowered the hand that was clutching her head, her mind clearing a little. She looked down, and was so frightened she nearly fainted.

What was this?

Song Yugui froze on the spot. Where were her smooth porcelain tiles? Where were her chic and classy bunny slippers?

How had they turned into a dirt floor and a pair of straw sandals? And the sandals were in tatters, with only a few strands of straw barely holding them to the sole.

Song Yugui’s head spun. Unwilling to believe the reality before her, she thought with trembling fingers, Am I dreaming? I should go back to sleep, just go back to sleep…

Shivering, she shrank back onto the bed, thinking this dream was simply too terrifying. Just as she was about to lie down ramrod straight and try to sleep again, the door curtain was pushed aside, and a strange woman of delicate beauty appeared before her.

Song Yugui was instantly stunned. The words, “Who are you?” died on her lips, drowned in the other woman’s timid gaze.

The woman’s features were alluring, but her demeanor was timid and shrinking. The pale skin visible on her body was covered in blue and purple bruises, a frightening sight.

“Y-You’re awake…”

When the woman looked up and saw her, she seemed to grow even more terrified. The way she instinctively took a step back betrayed her deep-seated fear of Song Yugui.

Something was definitely not right. One outrageous theory after another flashed through Song Yugui’s mind.

The most likely of them all was: could she have transmigrated?

…

“I think I’ll go back to sleep.”

Her emotionless voice echoed in the room.

All hope lost, her eyes vacant, Song Yugui wanted to know who this bruised woman was, yet at the same time, she was terrified of the truth. She had a sinking feeling that today would upend everything she had known for over twenty years.

Forget it, I’ll just run from it for now, she thought. What if I wake up and everything is back to normal? What if this woman only exists in my dreams?

With that thought, Song Yugui resolutely lay back down, closed her eyes, gave her legs a kick, and passed out.

Only when Song Yugui’s eyes were closed did Shen Xizhi dare to reveal a sliver of her true feelings. The air in the room seemed to drop a few degrees, but not a word was spoken—only the soft sound of footsteps fading into the distance.

When she next awoke, the sky was dim. The first thing Song Yugui saw was the decaying, dilapidated roof beams above, as if she were in some poor villager’s hovel.

Looking down at the unfamiliar clothes on her body, she squeezed her eyes shut, then forced them open again. Unable to stop herself, she pinched her arm hard. The sharp pain made her yelp, and she was finally forced to accept the truth: she had really, truly transmigrated.

And into a poverty-stricken household at that.

Her big house, her phone, her computer, her air conditioner, her refrigerator—all gone.

In despair, Song Yugui fell back onto the bed, lying there half-dead. The door opened, letting in a slanted ray of the setting sun. The slender woman entered, silhouetted against the light, her expression timid and her movements cautious. “Wife, it’s time for dinner. I… I just made some vegetable congee.”

Huh?

What?

She stared at the woman, all pretense of composure gone. “What did you call me?” she asked instinctively.

Shen Xizhi was terrified. She flinched back half a step, her right hand nervously clutching the back of her left. Her large, round eyes began to well with tears as an instinctive fear seized her heart.

She thought she had said the wrong thing again. Her voice was a low tremble, her expression timid. “W-Wife… You were the one who told me to call you that…” she said, a hint of barely perceptible grievance in her tone.

Wife. The term sounded so familiar.

Song Yugui froze. In her entire life, she had only ever encountered it in one place: the novel she had been reading just last night.

Transmigrating into a novel… isn’t that sort of thing just fiction? So it’s true? Staying up all night can actually get you transmigrated into a book?

Horror slowly dawned in Song Yugui’s eyes. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to believe it. With her heart in her throat, she scanned the room. Every corner her gaze landed on was more dilapidated than the last, until she was too scared to look anymore. Her frantic gaze returned to the woman. “What… what’s your name?” she asked cautiously.

A dead stillness filled Shen Xizhi’s beautiful eyes, leaving them utterly vacant.

She must be looking for another excuse to beat and curse me, she thought. No matter what I say, it will be wrong.

When the woman before her remained silent, Song Yugui instinctively straightened her posture to appear more confident. She forced her eyes to stop darting around, terrified of being found out.

She waited patiently, and after a long moment, she finally heard the other’s voice. The woman who had just looked so pitiful and timid now spoke with a voice tinged with the lifelessness of utter despair, as faint as the wind, as if she had lost her very soul. “Shen Xizhi. Has Wife forgotten even this?”

This probably wasn’t the answer Song Yugui wanted, she thought. Who does she want me to pretend to be today? Without any hints, she couldn’t possibly guess. She could only assume, her mind a blank with dread, that this was the usual prelude to a beating. Song Yugui would ask who she was, and once she answered, she would be told she was wrong, beaten for it, and only then told what role she was meant to play.

The young woman was filled with dread, but she was powerless to resist. The mere memory of her past beatings was enough to make her face drain of all color, and her thin frame trembled where she stood.

But she didn’t know that the person opposite her, upon hearing that name, had her eyes fly wide open, her face turning paler than a three-day-old corpse.

Wh-What? Shen Xizhi???

Of course she remembered that name. It really was from that trashy novel she’d read before bed last night!

If not for the last shred of her sanity, Song Yugui would have fainted right then and there.

So those stories about transmigrating into a book because you share a name with a character are actually true!

She never should have stayed up all night reading just because some cannon fodder character shared her name. If she hadn’t read for so long, if she hadn’t read this book, she might not have transmigrated. No—been pulled into the book itself.

Her eyes vacant, Song Yugui thought, What an apocalyptic start. Other people transmigrate and become princesses or noble ladies. Me? I get to be the village’s poorest female scoundrel, known for harassing other women.

Damn you, heavens! What kind of god are you, anyway?

And that wasn’t all. She also had a long-abused wife who could decide to murder her at any moment: Shen Xizhi.

If Song Yugui’s name was an insignificant footnote in the book, Shen Xizhi’s was anything but. She was the main villain, the greatest obstacle to the male and female leads’ happy ending. Born in the mud, she killed her abusive wife—a woman with a penchant for other women and a love for tormenting them—in order to survive. Living as a widow in Songjia Village, she orchestrated several ‘chance’ encounters to seduce the male lead, successfully winning his favor. If not for her status as a widow and her vicious methods, Song Yugui suspected the male lead might have actually chosen her in the end.

Her hand closed around something, and she squeezed it hard to vent the tempest raging inside her. It was prickly. She looked down. Well, damn. Straw. Her soft, fluffy blanket was gone, replaced by a pile of straw.

Heaven itself wants me dead.

Song Yugui lay on her back, staring blankly at the ceiling, her face an expressionless mask. Life was so miserable. All those years of hard work, and she had just bought her house!

Shen Xizhi braced herself for the inevitable scolding, but it never came. Cautiously, she raised her eyes and saw the look of utter devastation on Song Yugui’s face, as if the sky itself had fallen. Her brow furrowed slightly.

What does this mean?

Song Yugui’s gaze slowly lowered to meet hers. Like a startled rabbit, Shen Xizhi instantly dropped her eyes and hopped back a step, putting distance between them. It was obvious she had already suffered inhuman treatment at ‘her’ hands.