Ji Xiu arrived three days ago. When he came, the palace examination had just ended, and he happened to return to the inn.
The room was quiet and empty. Only then did he feel at ease enough to sift through the memories in his mind and the trajectory of the previous life’s world line, gaining a preliminary understanding of this world.
The plot of this world’s world line was derived from a transmigration palace intrigue novel.
The female lead was Yunshan County Princess, who was also the original body’s future daughter.
That’s right. In the predetermined world line of the previous life, the original body did not refuse the emperor’s bestowed marriage. Instead, he married the princess and had a daughter.
At his core, he was a weak-tempered, ordinary scholar. Aside from his handsome looks and a bit of talent, he had no other merits. On the contrary, having been deeply poisoned by Confucian ideology, he was filled with reverence for imperial authority and did not dare to resist it in the slightest.
Before the spring examination, the original body and a close friend went to the Protectorate Temple to burn incense and pray for peace of mind while preparing for the exams. There, they ran into Princess Dongzhu, who had disguised herself as a man to leave the palace. The original body had already crossed paths with the princess at that time.
The princess had grown up pampered and indulged, with a strong and arrogant personality, straightforward and domineering.
Seeing that the original body was handsome, the princess fell in love at first sight. Afterward, she left the palace multiple times to see him and even lowered her status to confess her feelings.
The original body rejected the princess, stating that he already had a wife and children at home.
Upon learning this, the princess was extremely resentful and declared that she would return to the palace to ask the emperor to bestow a marriage, forcibly taking him for herself.
Once a marriage was bestowed, it became an imperial edict, the golden words of the emperor, not to be contradicted.
The original body was in utter turmoil. Thus, in the Golden Hall, when the emperor applied a slight pressure, he yielded and agreed.
After the marriage, the original body and the princess appeared loving and harmonious. They had one daughter, who was deeply favored by both the emperor and the empress dowager and was bestowed the title of Yunshan County Princess.
This Yunshan County Princess was the female lead, but she was no ordinary child.
She was a fetus-transmigrator, fully aware of history.
Sixteen years later, the old emperor passed away. The new emperor, who had been crown prince for thirty years, ascended the throne. He enfeoffed his sons and selected consorts for them.
Yunshan knew who the next emperor would be, so she placed her bet in advance. With her status as a county princess, she married her cousin, the Seventh Prince, as a secondary consort.
On the outside, she appeared weak and pitiful. On the inside, she was deeply scheming and ruthless, a genuine black lotus.
According to the normal plot development, as the female lead, she would go through a series of household and palace struggles, gain the Seventh Prince’s favor, defeat the primary consort, and accompany the Seventh Prince as he entered the imperial palace.
At that time, the Seventh Prince would ascend the throne as emperor, holding supreme power.
Yunshan County Princess would then rise to the position of empress, basking in limitless glory.
However, before things could develop to that point, the plot changed.
In the original world line, a certain villain broke free from the restrictions of the world line, gained self-awareness, and killed the female lead.
That villain was precisely the original body’s first daughter, Ji Yue Sheng.
Why did Ji Yue Sheng become a villain? Of course, it was related to the original body.
As half-sisters sharing the same father, they carried the same half of blood, yet their experiences from childhood to adulthood were completely different.
Yunshan was pampered from a young age. She had a father who was a top scholar and a mother who was a princess. At birth, she was bestowed the title of county princess and grew up amidst splendor and luxury.
Ji Yue Sheng, on the other hand, lost her mother and younger brother. She clawed and struggled her way forward, enduring countless humiliations and hardships before barely surviving to grow up.
Of course, at the very beginning, Ji Yue Sheng was nothing more than an ordinary village girl. Her father was open-minded, her mother gentle, and she had a younger brother. Their family of four lived harmoniously, leading an entirely ordinary life.
Everything changed in the year Ji Yue Sheng turned four, when her father Ji Xiu went to the capital to take the examinations and never returned.
That year, the original body placed first on the imperial examination and became the top scholar. Under the emperor’s pressure, he agreed to marry the princess. Harboring a sliver of wishful thinking, he wanted to privately plead with the princess and bring his wife and children to the capital.
Princess Dongzhu had been personally spoiled by the emperor. She was arrogant, domineering, and possessive. How could she possibly share her husband with another woman?
After hearing the original body’s plea, she was enraged by her consort’s lingering attachment to another woman. Not only did she refuse, she even sent assassins far to Jiangnan to hunt down the mother and three children.
The mother and children waited peacefully in their hometown for news from the original body, only to suffer this calamity out of nowhere, narrowly escaping death time and again.
In order to survive, the mother and children gritted their teeth, sold the family’s farmland, left their hometown, and headed to the capital to seek refuge with the original body.
This only made things worse. They walked straight into the princess’s grasp.
On the very night they entered the capital, the mother and children were killed in the inn where they were staying.
However, although the princess was of noble status and could force the top scholar to abandon his wife and remarry, she could not openly commit murder without provoking public outrage. Thus, after killing the mother and children, she issued another order to set the place on fire to destroy all traces.
It was also because of the fire that the assassins failed to discover a survivor in time.
Ji Yue Sheng escaped from the inn. Through the flickering flames, she saw the original body and Princess Dongzhu standing outside. With her sharp mind, she guessed the reason why the mother and children had been hunted down.
She hated the original body and the princess. She stayed far away from them, concealed her identity, sold herself into servitude, and after many twists and turns, became the personal maid of the eldest daughter of the Minister of War. She lay low, waiting for an opportunity to take revenge.
Sixteen years later, the minister’s eldest daughter married the Seventh Prince as his primary consort.
As the personal maid of the minister’s eldest daughter, Ji Yue Sheng originally could have stayed in the minister’s residence and did not need to follow her into the Seventh Prince’s household.
However, she had long known that the Seventh Prince’s secondary consort, Yunshan County Princess, was the daughter of her enemies. Ignoring the minister’s eldest daughter’s attempts to stop her, she insisted on following along, because this was her only chance to get close to the original body and Princess Dongzhu and avenge her family.
After entering the Seventh Prince’s household, Ji Yue Sheng acted according to her own will, helping the minister’s eldest daughter deal with the secondary consort Yunshan County Princess. Her schemes were profound, and she was skilled at endurance. It took a full three years for her to successfully make the Seventh Prince loathe the ruthless Yunshan County Princess and shift his anger onto the original body and Princess Dongzhu.
Thus, before Yunshan County Princess could even unleash her female lead halo, she died amidst the inner strife of the Seventh Prince’s household.
Meanwhile, the minister’s eldest daughter, also a villain, took the female lead’s place with Ji Yue Sheng’s help, becoming the Seventh Prince’s beloved woman and accompanying him into the imperial palace.
Compared to the predetermined world line, this change could be described as earth-shattering.
The female lead died, and the villain became the ultimate winner.
The force that had plotted the world line behind the scenes could not accept this reality. The world collapsed, time reversed, and everything returned to that year.
Ji Xiu replaced the original body’s consciousness, standing in the Golden Hall. Listening to the emperor’s seemingly casual question that nonetheless affected countless lives, he decisively rejected the bestowed marriage.
He knew that the emperor would certainly be furious.
But he also knew that the emperor’s temperament was even more arrogant than Princess Dongzhu’s. Since he had already refused like this, the emperor definitely would not issue an edict to bestow the marriage.
The course of events unfolded much as he had predicted. Although he lost his qualification to enter the Hanlin Academy, he managed to extricate himself smoothly.
As for Shi Zhang’s regret on his behalf, Ji Xiu did not take it to heart.
He had already entered the Hanlin Academy once. He had already walked the path of becoming a favored minister of the emperor once. There was nothing remarkable about it.
In this life, he wanted to change paths.
Perhaps… he would take the route of being a grassroots, hands-on official who spoke up for the people.
…
After the palace examination came the mounted parade through the streets.
This was originally an occasional reward, but over time it became a tradition. Thus, even though the emperor held a very poor impression of Ji Xiu, he could not cancel the event.
The common people had long been eagerly awaiting it, ready to watch the newly selected scholars pass by.
If it were abruptly canceled, it might even trigger public unrest.
Ji Xiu changed into the vermilion red attire of the top scholar. Red gauze robe, red gauze skirt, red gauze knee covering, his entire body awash in brilliant red. Beneath it, he wore a white silk inner robe and sash. On his head was a black gauze official hat, and on his feet a pair of black cloud-patterned shoes. He led the other successful candidates, who wore blue scholar robes, as they rode through the streets on horseback.
The parade route went from the Golden Hall to the Left Gate of Chang’an, passing through Taihe Gate, Meridian Gate, Duan Gate, Chengtian Gate, and on to Daming Gate.
Over a hundred fine horses advanced together. Countless scholars, high-spirited and radiant, rode atop them. Even those whose appearances were less than ideal gained a bit of luster in such a lively atmosphere.
The common people enthusiastically cheered and scattered flowers.
In previous years, the most eye-catching was usually the Third Laureate, since that title was often awarded to those of outstanding appearance. Over time, the Third Laureate became a position reserved for particularly good-looking scholars.
But this time, it was the young and strikingly handsome top scholar who attracted even more attention.
“How is it that this year’s top scholar is better-looking than the Third Laureate?”
“Exactly, exactly. Just look at him. His talent must be exceptional. Otherwise, he should have been named Third Laureate.”
“The gentlemen of the Hanlin Academy will be blessed in the future. With such a handsome colleague, just seeing him every day would be pleasing.”
“Hahaha, yes, that’s right…”
The common people on both sides of the street chatted enthusiastically. When they saw the top scholar riding closer, they stopped talking and threw flowers, fruits, and embroidered sachets with all their might to express their fondness.
Some scholars failed to dodge in time and were struck by fruits, looking rather bedraggled.
Yet the top scholar, who received the most cheers, remained utterly unmoved, still bearing that steady and composed demeanor. It was as if all the fruits and sachets deliberately avoided him, and only flowers could land upon his person.
In truth, of course, this was not the case.
It was merely that after arriving in this world, Ji Xiu discovered the existence of the martial world and the possibility of cultivating inner strength, so he had practiced for a few days.
When fruits were thrown at him, he only needed to control the rhythm of his horse’s advance to calmly avoid all foreign objects.
In the eyes of the world, he wore his vermilion top scholar’s robes like a gentleman bathed in pure light, gentle and elegant, beautiful as if he had stepped out of a painting. There was no sign at all of deliberate evasion.
Everyone was convinced and thought to themselves that a top scholar was indeed a top scholar. Even his luck was this good.
But in reality, was his luck truly good?
…
Every year during the top scholar’s parade, the teahouses and taverns lining the streets did especially brisk business.
This year was no exception, and they had all been fully booked well in advance.
However, one particular teahouse was somewhat different. The entire establishment was completely empty, clearly having been rented out at a high price and refusing all other guests.
On the second floor of the teahouse, a window was slightly opened.
Princess Dongzhu stood by the window, looking down from above at the approaching procession. Her beautiful face was filled with coldness, her gaze vicious.
A mere peasant’s son dares to refuse her and her imperial father. He deserves death.
Princess Dongzhu deigned to appear here precisely because she had brought her subordinates along, intending to find an opportunity to intercept and assassinate Ji Xiu.
She wanted to kill him on the very day he topped the imperial examination, the happiest day of his life, so that he would die with unclosed eyes, full of regret, and know the consequences of defying an imperial command.
Yet after a while, as the procession drew near and Ji Xiu rode forward on horseback, Princess Dongzhu froze for a moment, unable to stop a trace of confusion and infatuation from surfacing.
After just a few days, how had Ji Xiu become even more handsome?
Compared to the man he used to be, who would panic and kneel at the slightest provocation and had little worth seeing aside from his face, the Ji Xiu who had become top scholar seemed reborn. His expression was calm and composed, his bearing noble and elegant. His entire body radiated charm, making him even more outstanding.
Princess Dongzhu bit her lower lip. A glimmer of infatuation flashed through her eyes, filled with ambition.
No. She absolutely could not miss out on this man.