Chapter 1

After my parents died, I moved between relatives. None kept me for more than a month.

The first to offer me a home was my aunt, who had married a wealthy merchant.

She was well-off and gentle.

Taking pity on me for losing my parents so young, she worried that I wasn’t getting enough food or warm clothes and fed me with ferocious dedication.

She managed to turn thirteen-year-old me into a sixty-kilogram strongwoman.

But kind as my aunt was, she had a daughter with a filthy mouth.

She called me a “curse on the family.”

I didn’t indulge her. I went straight over and knocked out two of my cousin’s teeth.

After yet another occasion when she watched me slap her daughter into spinning like a top, my aunt finally reached her limit.

She handed me over to another relative.

But whichever relative it was, none could take one of my punches.

My last stop was the home of a distant uncle.

When I was beating the son of the previous household, he’d stood there grinning, all his teeth on display.

Then that relative shoved me into his arms. “Your turn.”

“Huh?” said my uncle.

He took me home, utterly dejected.

Halfway there, I suddenly said, “Wait.”

I ran back to the last house, dragged out their dog, beat it up, and returned at my leisure.

“Let’s go, Uncle.”

For the rest of the journey, he was very quiet.

Then he suddenly said, “Don’t hit my son. Please.”

“All right.”

Inside, I was laughing. As if. I’ll hit you too.

When we reached his house, I discovered that this family was frighteningly poor.

My cousin was all skin and bones. His arm wasn’t even as thick as my thigh.

At mealtimes, three sparse dishes appeared on the table, a sea of green: nothing but vegetables.

Red-eyed with hunger, my cousin would charge like a bull, knock me aside, and fling himself at the food.

At that moment, I knew I’d met my match.

From then on, every day I had to fight my cousin, who was five years older than me, then my uncle, then my aunt.

Only after beating all of them could I get a bite to eat.

Thank goodness my other aunt had built me such a sturdy body. It kept me from starving to death in my first month there.

In the second month, I improved by leaps and bounds.

All three of them together were no longer a match for me.

My uncle had run out of options. He looked around, realized there wasn’t a relative left who hadn’t kept me, and decided to sell me.

I understood.

“Uncle, make sure you find me a good family that’ll feed me!”

His mouth turned down. He seriously doubted whether he could sell me at all.

He couldn’t.

The brokers all shook their heads when they heard my record.

“Never seen a girl as combative as your niece. Such an innocent face, and the temperament of Lu Bu reborn.”

“We’re only trying to make some money. We don’t want our customers dead!”

We thought he’d be stuck with me forever. Then, one day, a noblewoman appeared at our broken-down house.