From Cultivator to Widow Chapter 88 Discussion

I liked this story because it is a slice of life in a village setting in the 1970, but I was not able to enjoy it for long because of the FL's mother in law. I have never read about a woman more horrendous than her. Her daughter-in-law gave birth to four little sons, worked like a horse in the house and in the fields while starving and living in a small room, five persons in one bed, then she received one final blow - a letter that her soldier husband is dead. She developed fever and died (at that moment the FL transmigrated). So her wasted feverish body killed by grief is lying in bed and her mother-in-law (who just lost her son, by the way) enters and yells at her "You b*tch, you are so lazy, pigs and chicken are unfed, etc.!

The novel deals a lot with that in-laws family and all its branches and the heartless matriarch and her emotions, and I could never overcome my shock from that woman's cruelty and lack of compassion in the first chapters of the novel and felt horrible each time it was about this woman and her gynormous family. I just did not want to read any further, I did not care about her and her offspring, her sons, daughters, grandkids, etc. But the author was determined to develop her story in that direction, less and less about the FL and her kids and more and more about her in-laws' affairs.

The FL herself was quite interesting, though

Spoiler

She lived until she was 16 in our world and then became a little baby in a cultivation world. Then she grew up again, cultivated quite a bit and went on a mission to acquire some spiritual treasures and died.

One treasure that she acquired, a Bone Lotus growing in her private space, will allow her to restore her cultivated body in that spiritual realm, but it requires a lot of time for the Lotus to mature for it to work.

So, the FL who is now in her third world, in her third body, in China, similar to 1970's China in our world, uses her time to bring up four little sons, being a perfect Chinese mom to them.

There is absolutely no romance in any of her three lives in three different universes. One widowed man with his own three kids liked her but she let him know that there was no way in hell she would let him approach her.

She had a life and a mission of her own with gazillion of secrets and was not looking forward to having yet another country bumpkin husband, another greedy and power hungry mother-in-law and giving birth to a few more kids! In her mind, she owed to that deceased widow, she borrowed her body for a couple of decades in this world while she was waiting for the Bone Lotus to mature. She paid her debt of gratitude by raising that widow's kids.

She is not that sweet or doting with them and she was like their older sister slash private teacher or mentor in feeling, also growing up into an adult, having her own goals, etc. But she did take care of them in an amazing way. They had a great life and childhood with her together.

This novel is more of a metaphor for an overall track of a woman's life when we grow up, begin to develop spiritually and then experience down to earth motherhood and work life, after which a woman again is on her own, young again (at least in her heart), and matures spiritually.

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Big spoiler

Spoiler

She lived in that world for over thirty years, until the kids were in their mid thirties early forties and "died" in her sleep (her soul exited that body) at the age of sixty which shocked the family. She was the healthiest of them all!

But

The widow's sons found their dad instead! Well, he found them. He was not killed but was sent by the army on a long term secret mission all these years until he was old and injured. Strangely, the state did not support his wife and kids all that time! So when he returned, two years after the FL's death in this world, it was awkward. The sons were way too old and he could not give them anything anymore. They were wealthier than him thanks to the FL and his wife was gone. So, they took care of their elderly father. That was a happy and bitter twist in the story.

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