Mrs. May’s Survival Diary

Chapter 1 – The New  Widow

[T/L: This narrative takes place in ancient China and is about a widow who followed an adventurous journey to survive with her two young sons after her husband died. This may not be for everyone, as it is more than just a narrative about a dedicated woman. In this story, the author incorporates reincarnation, ghosts, Taisum, and other supernatural aspects.]

Rong Yinshuang felt that she couldn’t live anymore.

After her husband’s unexpected death, Mei Yuan’s second brother wanted to seize their property. Not even that, but that beast of a second master, Mei Yinshuang, tried to take Rong Yinshuang as a mistress. Luckily, he didn’t succeed, but the second master’s wife, her sister-in-law, kicked out Rong Yinshuang and her two sons, saying that she had tried to seduce her husband. Before kicking them out of their house, the second master’s wife slapped Rong Yinshuang’s eldest son, who was only five years old, until his nose was bruised and his face was swollen with blood. If Rong Yinshuang didn’t snatch her younger son, who was still three years old, from the claws of that cruel woman, he would also get beaten. 

After the three of them were kicked out of the Mei mansion without a penny in their hands, everyone started to insult Rong Yinshuang, saying that she, a new widow, didn’t have any virtues because she tried to seduce her brother-in-law before her husband’s bones became cold. But nobody thought or believed that it was the second master who thought to make trouble for his sister-in-law.

Rong Yinshuang was a lady from a good family, even though her birth family was in decline. She had never experienced such humiliation since she married into the Mei family at the age of fifteen. Her husband treated her respectfully and thoughtfully for their seven years of marriage, never causing her even the slightest hurt. However, after his death, the entire Mei family wanted to embezzle their private property, so they used every trick in the book to get her and the babies out of the house.

Her father-in-law and mother-in-law passed away one after another five years ago, and they left the entire family to her husband to take care of and asked them not to separate the family. For more than two years, Mei Yuan had taken care of the whole Mei family, and he never proposed separating from the second, third, and fourth families. Two months ago, Mei Yuan took his second brother, Mei Yuangui, out of town to do business, but unexpectedly, they encountered a landslide, and Mei Yuan died in a foreign land. Mei Yuangui survived because he was not with the group of people at that time and came back to report the news of Mei Yuan’s death. 

One day after the news of her husband’s death came, she understood the evil intentions of the Mei family. They wanted to embezzle the big house and private property, so they resorted to such dirty tricks. She knew that her second brother-in-law, Mei Yuangui, had long coveted her. When she was burning papers for her husband to guard the spirit, Mei Yuangui pulled her into the inner room and asked her to commit herself to him. After a hard struggle, she escaped from those dirty hands, but the second sister-in-law came and started to blame her. Hearing such filthy words, Rong Yinshuang felt ashamed, and she wished she could find a white silk to hang herself on the spot to prove her innocence, but then she remembered her innocent two children. 

 …………………………………

Rong Yinshuang was walking towards the lake, carrying her three-year-old child while holding the hand of her five-year-old child. Her clothes and hair were dishevelled, her face was pale, and her expression was dull as if she had lost her soul.

She was thinking that there was no woman in this world who was more pitiful and embarrassed than her.

 Finally, they came to the rippling river.

Rong Yinshuang squatted down slowly, put her younger son down, tore off a piece of fabric from the hem of the plain clothes, and then took off the gold hairpin on her head and the jade bracelet and ring on her hand, wrapped them carefully in fabric, and placed the bundle in her elder son’s hand and said, “Da’er, your mother is useless and can’t take care of you and your brother anymore. You take these and kneel under that tree, if anyone asks, tell him, Mother…in the lake.”

Hearing his mother’s words, the second son, Mo’er started to howl and tried to throw himself into her arms. Rong Yinshuang gave him another hug, then handed him into Da’er’s hands and touched Da’er’s already swollen face.

Dark clouds were gathering in the sky, and there was thunder and lightning, indicating there would be a rainstorm. 

Being a widow and losing her good reputation was the most tragic and hateful thing that could happen to a woman in this world. Not only she, but also her children, had to bear the shame for a lifetime. She was forced to die by public opinion, and she was powerless to resist; even if she had lived, the orphans and widows who had suffered a reputational blow would have been stuck with no way out.

Instead of the three of them, it was preferable to let her die alone.

Without wasting time, Rong Yinshuang took the two ignorant children under a small tree by the lake and then plunged into the icy water of the lake.

Rong Yinshuang had bottomless misery as a result of the muffled sounds in the water and the hopeless cries of her children on the shore. As the taste of water plants gradually filled her stomach and the pain of suffocation caused her to twitch in the water, she unconsciously opened her mouth wide and spit out desperate water bubbles one after another. And she felt like her lungs were being stabbed with a sharp object.

She unconsciously waved her hands and feet, her mouth almost burst open with bubbles, and when she opened her eyes, she saw a blue-white human face dragging her ankles. It was horrifying. She had heard about water ghosts before but had never thought that they actually existed. She never thought that she would encounter such a horrible thing when she was about to die. Kicking her feet was useless. That pale hand still refused to let go of her ankle, and after a few struggles, she finally managed to escape. Then she thought that she was already dead and had become a water ghost. But unexpectedly, she felt that her body was rising up and that she was being dragged to the shore. 

At this moment, she regretted her decision to commit suicide, leaving her poor children alone in this world. ‘What will happen to my poor babies after I die…What should they do…They are still young, and why did I…’

At the critical moment between life and death, Rong Yinshuang suddenly thought of many things, and then her eyes opened suddenly, scaring away the people who were surrounding her.

Then, there was endless coughing; mouthfuls of lake water were vomited out by her, and she gradually began to breathe. Then she saw her sons kneeling beside her with teary eyes, staring at her blankly.

Rong Yinshuang coughed almost to death, finally recovered, and hugged the two children into her arms.

Then she felt that there was an extra force around her waist. Looking at her waist, she saw there was a rope tied around her waist. And then someone said loudly, “If you want to die, die farther away from here. You are going to die in front of my house, and I have to save you. Trouble!” 

The owner of the rope was a tall and well-built man with a little girl sitting on his shoulders, perhaps his daughter. He was dressed in a short jacket and a headscarf. He untied the rope around Rong Yinshuang’s waist and left with his daughter while cursing. After that, people around her also gradually drifted apart. 

Rong Yinshuang didn’t realise until just now that she had been dragged to the shore by that man. She wanted to thank him, but when she was going to open her mouth, the girl who had been sitting on the man’s shoulder abruptly turned her head and sent her a scornful glance, discouraging Rong Yinshuang. The man walked through a small door and slammed it with a bewildered effort.

‘Forget it, anyway; he doesn’t care about the words of thanks from a disgraced woman like me, so let’s just ignore them.’

The mother and sons’ clothes were completely soaked with rainwater, even though the rain had stopped. It was still summer, but after seeing Da’er and Mo’er trembling violently, she thought of finding a place to stay. 

However, she was now penniless, and Da’er had also dumped the bundle she had given her on the ground as she plunged herself into the lake. It was impossible to find the missing items because a lot of people had come to watch the drama a moment ago.  

She picked up  Mo’er, and walked out of the city, holding the older one. She remembered seeing an abandoned Taoist temple next to the official road outside the city when she and her late husband went out to play half a year ago. 

[TL Notes: A Taoist temple, also known as a dàoguàn or gngguàn, is a place where Taoism is practised and respected. Taoism is a religion that has its roots in China and promotes cultivating good moral and physical qualities in order to become immortal.]

The road was muddy due to the heavy rain. After Da’er slipped and fell twice, Rong Yinshuang had to let him climb up her back. She held Mo’er in one hand and supported Da’er in the other, and she walked for a long time.

…………………………..

Pushing open the door of the ruined Taoist temple, she was welcomed by the cold, rotten air. She waved one of her hands in front of her nose and walked in through the moonlight.

It was not very late; just the Xu Shi (7–9 p.m.) hour. After getting used to the darkness inside the temple, she found an open space, put her two children there, and started to search around the temple. Maybe beggars had lived here before; there were some straws in the corner. She picked out two handfuls of straw that hadn’t been wet by the rain and smashed them into pieces. She then broke a broken chair into pieces to use them as firewood.

After going back to the open space, she picked up two pieces of rubble, squatted on the ground, and started to make a fire. She had learned this method when her husband made a bet with her that she couldn’t start a fire without a firestone. Unexpectedly, the lesson she had learned that day became useful at this moment. 

After struggling for a long time, she finally succeeded. Then she removed her sons’ clothes, let them sit in front of the fire, removed her outer skirt and outer shirt, and wrapped the children in her outer shirt. After that, Rong Yinshuang also sat in front of the fire.