Chapter 2 — TVF Chapter 2

The Love-Brained Empress (2) The steward hurriedly acknowledged the order and rushed out.

There was actually very little luggage left behind in this daoist temple. Anything of value consisted of medicinal herbs—carefully wrapped up and taken along.

As for the “immortal pills” the original owner had refined… they were better described as a mixture of heavy metals and their oxides and sulfides. Whoever consumed them was courting death. Qin Jingzhou ordered the guards to grind them up and bury the powder beneath the corner of the wall.

Once everything was packed, a quarter of an hour had passed. The two unfilial sons had finished being beaten and were now sprawled on the ground, weakly begging for mercy.

Qin Jingzhou stepped past them and boarded the carriage prepared by the steward together with Third Miss.

As he sat down, Qin Jingzhou watched Third Miss, who clung nervously to the side of the carriage, clearly unsure where to place herself. He tried to recall something—and a sharp pain shot straight into his skull.

He frowned slightly, patted the seat beside him, and beckoned to the clearly startled girl. “Come here. Sit by Father.”

Third Miss Xiao’s eyes were still red. She stared at him in disbelief. “Ah?”

Qin Jingzhou flicked her forehead lightly. “Come.”

She shuddered and hurried over, sitting primly beside the father she hadn’t seen in many years.

She didn’t dare look at him directly, only stealing glances from the corner of her eye, gauging his expression. In truth, she had almost forgotten what her father looked like—only vaguely remembered that he had once been… hot-tempered… Yet now, he didn’t seem so frightening.

With his cheap daughter sitting beside him, Qin Jingzhou didn’t speak further.

As the carriage rolled forward, he leaned back and focused on easing the headache.

He seemed to have inherited part of the original owner’s memories. When he saw people, his mind would respond with who they were—albeit sluggishly, but without causing trouble.

However, when he tried to actively rummage through his mind just now, he ran headlong into a wall.

Sorting out his thoughts, he asked the system, “Did I actually inherit the original owner’s memories or not?”

The system answered at once. “You did.”

Qin Jingzhou suddenly understood. “So the original owner refined pills and consumed them himself—full production-to-consumption pipeline.”

Mercury and lead, both inevitably present in so-called immortal pills, cause severe damage to the nervous system. Put simply, the original owner had eaten himself into idiocy. His memory must have been partially lost and scrambled.

That explained everything: why he ignored the changes in the capital over the years, ignored his family and subordinates when they came seeking him at the daoist temple, even refused to attend his second daughter’s wedding… It all suddenly made sense.

Not unwilling—but incapable. Though that incapability was entirely self-inflicted.

Qin Jingzhou pressed hard against his temples, suppressing the physical pain, and said slowly, “I merely choked on a pill while taking medicine, and someone was already impatient enough to box me up and nail the coffin shut.” He turned to Third Miss. “Your two brothers arrived awfully fast—just in time to make a racket around my coffin.”

Third Miss Xiao shuddered in fright. “Ah! Father!”

Qin Jingzhou raised his hand… and cautiously patted the back of her hand. “Don’t be afraid. Plenty of people want me dead. Few dare to act.”

Being gently patted, Third Miss instinctively leaned closer to him. “Father…”

Qin Jingzhou went a step further and tried patting her head. She forced out a stiff smile, and he smiled back. “Your father isn’t dead yet.”

She could no longer hold back. She threw herself into his arms. Even though his face was deathly pale and his eyes bloodshot, she still poured out her grievances. “Father! Second Sister—Second Sister is about to be killed by her husband… He’s not worthy of being my brother-in-law at all! The Marquis of Antai’s household is pushing her to her death!”

A question mark flashed through Qin Jingzhou’s mind: Second Sister? Second Miss Xiao?

His confusion was understandable. In the novel’s plot, the second daughter—said to have a loving marriage—had died of illness. Upon hearing of her sister’s death, the love-brained empress merely sighed, “Love runs deep but life is short,” grieved for half a day, and then resumed her deadly struggle with Consort Qi.

After the death of his lawful wife, the original owner never remarried. He had three sons and three daughters, ranked separately. The three daughters and the eldest legitimate son were all born of the first wife.

The eldest legitimate daughter was the novel’s vicious villain, Empress Xiao. The second daughter, Second Miss Xiao, married the eldest son of the Marquis of Antai, once the original owner’s subordinate. The youngest daughter—Third Miss Xiao—was the little crybaby before him now.

As for the eldest legitimate son, he had been crippled in an accident. While his father was away, he left the Duke Cheng’en’s residence and moved to an estate outside the capital. One northeast, one southwest, with the vast capital in between—and being disabled, he hadn’t made it in time. That was understandable. As for fleeing reality in low spirits… father and son were indeed cut from the same cloth.

The remaining two sons—the ones who had fought over the inheritance at the memorial hall and gotten ten strokes each—were both born of concubines.

Eldest legitimate daughter, eldest legitimate son, plus two concubine-born sons—every single one a disappointment.

Qin Jingzhou believed the little crybaby. If Second Miss Xiao had truly been wronged, only Third Miss Xiao would cry injustice for her sister.

So he rubbed the little bun of hair on her head. “I know. Let’s go home first.”

Their conversation inside the carriage was clearly overheard by the driver, steward, and guards.

Though the duke had left home to cultivate for many years, they had remained loyal. When they heard of his death, they were devastated and rushed over—only to find something amiss. Before the steward or the captain of the personal guards could react, the two young masters were already fighting over the inheritance.

Hearing what the duke had just said, their already-chaotic minds chilled further: could the two young masters have been deliberately stalling for time? On second thought, the duke was lucid and sharp—so all those rumors about him having eaten himself into madness were nonsense! The two young masters were now in the rear carriage. Once they returned home, the duke would surely render judgment.

The duke was the pillar of stability.

The journey from the suburban temple back to the Duke Cheng’en’s residence took nearly two hours. Considering the duke’s health, the steward dared not rush the carriage.

Qin Jingzhou used the time to better acquaint himself with this wreck of a body. For the two trash sons in the rear carriage, however, it was pure torment—they had been beaten ten strokes, crudely bandaged, not even given medicine.

The duke’s death had come suddenly. With the eldest son absent, the head steward—once the duke’s personal soldier—made a decisive call. He sent the second steward with guards to escort the two young masters and Third Miss to the temple, while dispatching a trusted aide to inform the eldest son. No corpse, no funeral.

Before sunset, the duke—unseen for years—finally returned. The fifty-something head steward silently praised his own caution, while tears streamed down his face, nearly collapsing him.

Qin Jingzhou stepped down from the carriage and helped him up. “Well done. You kept the household stable—thanks to you.”

That only made the steward choke up harder.

Matching fragments of the original owner’s memories with the novel’s plot, Qin Jingzhou saw clearly: Prince Jing’s rebel forces were already taking shape. Empress Xiao’s eyes held only the emperor; she spared no expense in battling Consort Qi for favor, draining the duke’s connections and resources. The original owner and his eldest son ignored worldly affairs, effectively letting the empress run wild. Talented as the head steward was, he had been barely holding on, suffering greatly.

So Qin Jingzhou praised him—and the man felt as if he’d finally been freed.

Once he’d calmed down, Qin Jingzhou pointed at the two concubine-born sons being carried down. “Lock them up. Don’t starve them.” Then to Third Miss in her mourning clothes, he said, “We’ll all go wash up, change, and eat something. Later, I’ll take you to the Marquis of Antai’s residence to see your sister.”

The Marquis of Antai’s household was Second Miss Xiao’s marital home.

In the original owner’s memories, the Marquis of Antai was mediocre—sweet-tongued and opportunistic. Though ennobled for military merit, aside from a few like-minded dandies, no real generals respected him.

The original owner himself didn’t think much of him either. But after persistent begging, he gave in and married his second daughter to the marquis’s eldest son.

The original owner truly had eaten himself foolish. Qin Jingzhou couldn’t be bothered to judge that decision.

He skimmed the original plot and caught a detail: around the time Consort Qi gave birth, the Marchioness of Antai had presented lavish gifts, and after the postpartum period, Consort Qi had specifically summoned her.

From this, he inferred that the Marquis of Antai’s household had likely thrown in with Consort Qi’s natal family, the Qi clan. Killing Second Miss Xiao was probably their pledge of loyalty.

Alright. It’s you, then.

Qin Jingzhou had just returned from the suburban temple in the duke’s body and identity. He needed a chance to properly display his methods and establish a new image. By all accounts, the Marquis of Antai’s residence was the perfect soft target.

Decision made, Qin Jingzhou patted Third Miss on the shoulder and, mimicking the original owner’s pre-idiocy tone, said, “Your father won’t watch you suffer injustice.”

Third Miss’s eyes lit up. She nodded hard. “Mm!”

The duke had truly returned!

The head steward felt like wiping tears again, suddenly thinking that those petty schemers provoking the duke might not have been such a bad thing.

After washing up and eating a solid meal, Qin Jingzhou called for Third Miss, brought along his personal guards, and specifically instructed them to carry a crescent-bladed halberd. With great fanfare, they headed straight for the Marquis of Antai’s residence.

The Marquis of Antai truly lacked ability—but not ambition. His information network wasn’t bad either. Almost as soon as the Duke Cheng’en and his daughter returned home, he learned that the duke was alive and well.

But he never imagined the duke would immediately come knocking!

He knew perfectly well what his son had done. The marquis cursed “unfilial brat” and tried to kick his kneeling eldest son—only to be restrained by his wife.

Helpless, he sat back down and hurriedly thought of a solution: how to face the duke, how to placate his fury.

At moments like this, he was grateful the duke cared about face—and that in recent years, he’d seemed increasingly muddled. As long as he begged desperately and flattered shamelessly, he should be able to muddle through.

At that moment, a steward rushed in. “The Duke Cheng’en’s carriage is arriving!”

The marquis sprang up, ordering his wife and son to quickly tidy themselves and prepare to receive the guest.

Almost simultaneously, Qin Jingzhou was already standing before the gates of the Marquis of Antai’s residence. He took the crescent blade from his guard, weighed it in his hand—it felt decent enough—and his gaze fell upon the main gate… specifically, the left hinge that looked ready to give way.

Silently calculating force angles, surface area, and the maximum impulse he could apply, he decided it would work. He raised the halberd and hacked down toward the side with the rotting hinge. Bang! A deafening crash. Half the gate flew off, slamming into the front courtyard and kicking up clouds of dust.

Just arriving at the courtyard, the Marquis of Antai saw his own gate flying toward him. He stumbled backward in panic, only to trip over himself and fall flat on his rear.

The scene fell utterly silent. The neighboring onlookers didn’t dare make a sound.

Dragging the crescent blade, Qin Jingzhou strode into the residence until he stood before the marquis. Smiling, he clamped a hand around the man’s neck. “Dare bully my daughter—did you grow an extra head on your neck?”

The Marquis of Antai… wet himself.

At that moment, the marquis’s eldest son rushed over. “If you dare touch my father, I—I—I’ll… divorce her!”

Everyone present: …

Qin Jingzhou calmly appraised the trembling eldest son, then asked the man in his grip in earnest, “Is he really your biological son? How did he get this stupid?”

The marquis couldn’t answer—his throat was still clamped shut.

With no reply forthcoming, Qin Jingzhou thought for a moment, then looked back at the eldest son. “Driving my daughter away—was that Consort Qi’s request? You want to fly off together with Consort Qi?”

The eldest son’s face, already flushed, turned deathly pale. He collapsed onto the ground.

Qin Jingzhou: Looks like I hit the mark.

A richly dressed man watching from outside finally changed expression and hurriedly whispered to his subordinate, “Go—quickly invite Lord Qi!”