Miss_Little_Secret

When Jian Yiling wakes up in the body of a struggling village woman in 1960s rural China, she finds herself burdened with two malnourished children, an empty kitchen, and a reputation as a fragile, abandoned wife. But Yiling is no ordinary woman—she has knowledge, survival skills, and a sharp mind.

With foraging, hunting, and rare medicinal herbs, she fights to turn their fate around, one meal at a time. But just as she begins to rebuild her life, strange occurrences shake the village. Her supposedly missing husband returns—but why does another man, identical to him, appear in the shadows? And why does the village chief seem to know more than he lets on?

As Yiling digs deeper, she uncovers secrets buried beneath generations, a mystery tied to a hidden legacy, and a force that threatens to unravel everything she’s worked for. Along the way, fortuitous encounters bring her riches, knowledge, and influence—enough to not only transform her own fate but that of the entire village.

Her children, once weak and forgotten, will rise as geniuses of their time—one in business, the other in medicine.

But first, she must survive.

In a world where history is set in stone, can a single woman rewrite the future?

THE FORAGER'S LEGACY.

Yiling's breath hitched. The ones who come back?

She forced herself to stay calm. "What do you mean?"

Chief Wang's gaze drifted past her, as if looking at something beyond the present. "There's an old saying in this village," he murmured. "'The dead don't always stay dead, and the lost don't always leave.'"

A cold dread coiled in Yiling's stomach.

Chief Wang exhaled, rubbing his temples. "Many years ago, before even my grandfather's time, there was a traveler who arrived at our village. He was weak, starving, claiming he had been lost in the mountains for weeks. But something about him wasn't right."

Yiling listened intently, her pulse pounding.

"He spoke like a man, walked like a man, but the villagers… they said his shadow moved when he didn't. They said his reflection in the river smiled when he wasn't. And at night, he whispered to someone who wasn't there."

"The elders at the time knew what he was," Chief Wang continued grimly. "He wasn't the first. There had been others before him—people who went into the mountains and came back… wrong."

Yiling swallowed. "So what happened to him?"

Chief Wang looked at her, his next words sending ice through her veins.

The weight of his answer pressed down on her.

Chief Wang shook his head. "I don't know what your husband is, Yiling. But if he was truly lost in the mountains, if he tried to come back but never could…" He hesitated. "Then what returned last night may not have been him."

Yiling's nails dug into her palms.

"But he knew things only my husband could know. He felt real."

Chief Wang's gaze was steady. "They always do."

Yiling's breath came fast, shallow. She thought of the man she saw—the desperate look in his eyes, the fear in his voice.

I don't even know if I'm me anymore.

"What… what are they?" she whispered.

Chief Wang's expression darkened. "No one knows. But we call them the Echoes."

Yiling shuddered. The name felt… right.

Echoes. Things that came back, pretending to be the ones they lost.

She gritted her teeth, pushing away the fear clawing at her throat. "How do I know if it's truly him?"

Chief Wang's lips pressed into a thin line. "You don't."

The old man leaned in, his voice low.

Chapter 33: The ones who come back