Grafting Life [Crossover]
Author: Lin Mu’er
Author Summary:
Lin Yu Tong travels among the various movies, novels, and works, looting and accumulating wealth.
Author notes: This is a crossover + transmigration story, not a quick transmigration. Be careful if you do not like the speed.
This will not all contain fanfiction, there will be originals.
Tags: Wuxia, Dream of Red Mansions, Limitless
Protagonist: Lin Yu Tong
Editor Review:
To Lin Yu Tong, transmigration is a job, one that a person must love. This job has an adorable goal, “amass wealth through unfair means.” She never though of changing others, much less the world. But many people and many matters changed because of her …
Translator Review: The first book of “Grafting Life” contains 18 “worlds”. “Grafting Life: New Journeys” contains 7. “Grafting Life: Restart” has 6. “Cannot Be Without You”, the fourth part of the series, is also complete and the most recent is “Cannot Be Without You: New Journeys”.
While the first two worlds are “fanfiction” with the female character transmigrating into novels (Dream of Red Chamber, and Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils), the rest of the worlds are mostly “historical transmigration” and “modern transmigration” with more/less original plots. When the author says this is not a “quick/fast transmigration”, they mean it. Each world can range between 50-200 chapters.
For me, and for a lot of readers, the bigger story “starts” with world three, where the main couple meet (chapter 92.) Honestly speaking, each story beyond world three can stand on its own. Even more honestly, I would have much more fun starting the translation from chapter 92.
Warning: this is completely unedited, there will be the strangest typos and phrasing.
Chapter 1 Red Chamber (1)
Lin Yu Tong looked at the dark sky outside and was a bit anxious. The rain was about to come down, and her brother Lin Yu Yang still had not returned from school.
Three years ago, she came to this world, and only her feverish younger brother Lin Yu Yang was by her side.
They were siblings, but the same age. They were children of the same father, but different mothers.
Their blood mothers should have been concubines of an important family. But she did not know why two pregnant women had been run out of the home.
The two concubines died of illness, leaving behind the two siblings to live together. They resided in a nunnery with only two old nuns. After the two nuns died, the children did not have anyone to take care of them.
When Lin Yu Tong arrived, this body had been starving for a long time, and she had no energy at all. The young boy next to her held a handful of rice tight in his hand, unconscious by her side, flushed red all over from the fever.
It had been winter then. A child of seven or eight had walked an unknown distance to beg for a handful of rice for his elder sister, but he fell ill.
Lin Yu Tong immediately felt heartsick.
While she was an outsider, she was not just a guest. She had to live a life of her own in each world.
She would also treat each world like one of her lives.
Up to now, she did not know what kind of world she lived in. She only knew that this world originally should not have the two of them, because if not for her arrival, the young sister and brother would have starved and frozen to death.
As an outsider, she was outfitted with a gold finger to survive. She did not have anything good, but it was not bad. A little pocket space just half an acre large, able to be farmed and store living things. These were not important. The important part was that in the center of the space, there was a small spring. The water there would always stay in the small hole the size of her face. No matter how much she used, the water never seemed to run dry. There was also another benefit of the water. When used over long periods of time, it could strengthen the body, expel poisons, and beautify.
The water and the fever reducing medicine she brought from the modern era saved the life of her brother she had gotten for free.
As a result, sister and brother managed to survive.
Living here for a lifetime was Lin Yu Tong’s job. Since she had a job, she had to take missions. The mission was to gather valuable things from different worlds. These things were not gold and gems, not antiques and paintings. No matter how many of them there were, they could not be brought back to the modern world.
In other words, the things she gathered in this world could be used in the next, but could not be brought back to the modern era she belonged to.
If she wanted to turn it into money, she had to find things that she could take with her and could sell.
Anything tangible could not be taken, so she had to get intangible things.
A few days ago, Lin Yu Tong had gotten a secret recipe for pickling vegetables. She immediately sent it back. The company said it had been sold to a small pickling workshop for five thousand. The company took fifty of the profit. In other words, through this way, Lin Yu Tong got two thousand and five hundred RMB.
She was very satisfied. No matter how long she stayed in each world, it was just a week in the real world.
Even if she only got this much in this world, she would not have made a loss in the mission. Two thousand five hundred per week. There were four weeks in a month. If she got such an income each week, she would get ten thousand a month. It was very good!
This was pure profit without any expenses. She was eating and living in a different world!
But if considered from a different angle, in the mission world, the people were alive. She would also get hungry and feel pain. If she lived well here, then she would have a good time, and she would make a profit this week. If she did not live well, then she would suffer pain and hardship for a lifetime.
This was something that Lin Yu Tong could not tolerate. She had to work hard! Not just so she could live better in this world, but also to set a good foundation for the next. If she got more wealth in her pocket space, then she would suffer less in the next world.
Holding such an attitude, Lin Yu Tong started to seek her survival in this unknown world.
The two concubines had not left behind any money. The mother of Lin Yu Tong’s body, Concubine Liu, had come from a family that operated a pickled vegetable shop before she became a concubine. Later, the family got into a lawsuit, and she sold herself as a slave.
This concubine had good skill at making pickled vegetables. Lin Yu Tong had some memory of this. But most of the so-called secret recipes were on the net, and were not worth anything if sent back to the modern world.
But right now, it helped Lin Yu Tong find a path to survive.
This was the south, likely near Yangzhou. The pickled vegetables of the south were different from the north.
Concubine Liu came from the north and her pickled vegetables were the north style. Yangzhou was a prosperous place, with people coming from all over.1 People from the north naturally missed the taste of their home.
So in these three years, Lin Yu Tong started with one person walking the streets with a jar of pickled vegetables to supplying shops, and now she even had her own pickled vegetable work shop.
The siblings stopped living in the nunnery and moved to the base of the mountain. They bought a house in the village, bought farmland, and could be consider to be property owners.
Later on, she send her younger brother to school.
While Lin Yu Tong liked money, she was not a stone-hearted person. In this world, her life would be long. She had to live it like it was real life.
Right now, there was about a hundred taels of secret money, fifty acres of land, one house of stone, another fifty taels of silver and a pickled vegetable workshop. It was no longer a difficult thing to support her brother in his education.
There were no servants in the home. She hired day laborers to do the chores.
Lin Yu Tong was very satisfied with the present life. The dishes on the table had gone cold, but her younger brother still was not seen. The wind started again. The rain of the autumn was both dark and cold. If one was caught in the rain, they would get sick. She felt some regret at not having bought a horse carriage before. Otherwise, she would not be as anxious as this.
Just as she was wondering whether to have the worker from the workshop go to check the school, she saw a carriage heading towards her home.
Lin Yu Tong frowned. The family was just the two siblings. They did not have any relatives or friends. Who was coming?
The carriage stopped. An old man in his fifties got off the carriage, and then lifted the curtain, with her brother coming out.
Lin Yu Tong sighed in relief. “You child, how come you only came back at this time?” She turned and smiled politely at the old man. “My brother must have ridden Mister’s tailwind, thank you very much.”
Steward Lin looked at the girl smiling calmly at the door and sighed inside. He heard her call her younger brother, who was just a month younger than her and a head taller, “child” and found it amusing. He smiled.
Lin Yu Tong thought, what was wrong with this person, to smile without any reason? But thinking that her brother had troubled the other to return, she politely invited the other in to sit. “If you do not mind the humble house, please come in for hot tea.”
Steward Lin hurriedly agreed and followed in.
Lin Yu Yang looked helplessly at his sister. You invite people in without even knowing what was going on, let’s see how you deal with this.
Steward Lin looked around the small courtyard. There was the main room and two side rooms. Clean, simple, and elegant. It was rare.
Lin Yu Yang secretly pulled his sister’s sleeve, clearly having something he wanted to say.
Lin Yu Tong thought, with this person here, how could they speak privately? It would be too rude. She pulled her sleeve back. So old now, but still liked to pull her sleeve. When would he grow up?
Lin Yu Yang touched his nose and was helpless. She did not give him a chance to explain. If she was shocked later, it could not be blamed on him.
Entering the main room, the hosts and the guest sat down. Lin Yu Tong took out the freshly dried chrysanthemum tea for the guest. In the sweet and white porcelain cup, the flowers bloomed. Steward Lin stood up and accepted with both hands.2
This action caused Lin Yu Tong to be on her guard. This was not right!
She glanced at her brother and saw him looking at her with a “you just detected this?” look.
Lin Yu Tong did not get an answer and turned to look at the old man. “You acting like this frightens me.”
Steward Lin had already investigated before coming here, from how Lin Yu Tong raised her brother alone and how they lived. Thee years ago, she had just been a girl of eight. Even ordinary men would not have such capabilities. She worked hard and was very capable. She managed to eke out a living, managed to earn such property, and supported her brother to be educated. If an ordinary family had such a son, their family would not fail.
The situation in the residence right now needed a strong girl like this to be in charge. Also, with a son, no matter what happened in the future, it was better.
He did not hide and said directly, “Miss! This old servant is inviting Miss and Young Master back to the residence.”
Lin Yu Tong was stunned for three minutes, and could not digest the information. In the end, she finally reacted and felt that this made sense.
The company would not throw her into a world that she never heard of. The company had not developed such a service.
Then she was in a world she was familiar with.
But she had come here for three years, and did not know what kind of world this was. Usually, she was busy earning a living. She also had the two thousand and five hundred RMB she earned earlier as her bottom line, so she had forgotten about the matter.
Her eyes widened. She asked curiously,”Residence! What residence?”
There was no shock, no anger, no being at a loss. Just curiosity.
Not just Steward Lin, even Lin Yu Yang could not help but look at her.
Steward Lin said with a smile, “It is naturally the Lin Residence, the Salt-control Censor Residence.”3
Salt-control Censor Residence! Why was this so familiar?
One name immediately jumped into Lin Yu Tong’s mind — Lin Ru Hai.
So this was the world of the Red Chamber! 4
Lin Yu Tong felt that red cash was flying right in front of her! 5
If she sent back the recipes for dishes and desserts of the Red Chamber and sold them to food companies, how much money would it be?
If she passed back the clothing, jewelry and embroidery methods and sold them to clothing companies, how much money would it be? 6
If she send back the arts of Mother Ma to a research institute, how much money was it worth?
Lin Yu Tong did not dare to think more, fearing that she could not stop herself from drooling.
Return! She had to return! If not for her wealth, then for the future of her brother. Would her brother not inherit the three million taels of silver of the Lin Family and leave it to the Jia Family to be wasted? 7
Notes: Well, I finally got around to putting this up. It’s been … waiting a while.
- Grafting Life Chapter 2 Red Chamber (2)
- Grafting Life Chapter 3 – Red Chamber (3)
- Grafting Life Chapter 4 – Red Chamber (4)
- Yangzhou is in modern day Jiangsu. It has historically been one of the richest regions, located by the Grand Canal and acting as a port city. ↩
- Both hands when receiving something is a sign of respect. Same as when presenting something with both hands. ↩
- In the Dream of the Red Chamber, the star-crossed lovers are Jia Bao Yu of the Jia Family, and Lin Dai Yu of the Lin Family. Lin Dai Yu is the only living child of Lin Ru Hai and Jia Min, making Jia Bao Yu and Lin Dai Yu cousins. ↩
- Dream of the Red Chamber, also known as the Record of the Stone, is one of the most famous works in Chinese literature. It was written during the Qing Dynasty by Cao Xueqin, and is supposedly semi-autobiographical, or contains at least some elements of his own life experiences. ↩
- 100 RMB bills in China are red. ↩
- Dream of the Red Chamber is known for its detailed descriptions of landscape, food, clothing, and feudal life in general. ↩
- The Lin Family was known to be rich, as their ancestors were marquises, and Lin Ru Hai is in a powerful and rich position as salt control censor. ↩
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