This body’s original owner was named Yu Fanfan. Her grandfather had been a fifth-rank Commandant of the Cavalry under the Duke of Cheng. Thirty years ago, during a war, he had been mortally wounded while saving the third Old Duke of Cheng.
The old duke, a man of integrity, was determined to repay this life-saving debt. Before Yu Fanfan’s grandfather died, the duke had arranged a marriage contract between their families.
Unfortunately, the grandfather had only one son. For some reason, the Cheng Manor had produced a steady stream of sons but not a single daughter—not even one born to a concubine.
The marriage contract was thus left in limbo. After all, a man could hardly marry another man.
The arrangement dragged on for three generations. Fortunately, Yu Fanfan’s father was a man of ambition. Following in his father’s footsteps, he had risen through the ranks by his own merit to become a sixth-rank Commandant of the Cavalry.
After the birth of two sons, he was finally blessed with a daughter, Yu Fanfan, whom he cherished and spoiled beyond measure.
By all rights, the two families should have tacitly agreed to fulfill the marriage contract early on. But though Yu Fanfan’s father was a military man, he understood the saying: Once you enter the gates of a marquis, the sea is deep. He knew that a marriage should be between equals.
Despite the Duke of Cheng’s promise and the debt of gratitude owed to Father Yu’s grandfather, Father Yu had long since abandoned the idea of the marriage contract.
His own father had died years ago, and he was a low-ranking official with little influence. Moreover, the duke’s manor had never mentioned the arrangement again.
Father Yu had decided to let the matter drop. After nine generations of single male heirs, he had finally broken the streak in the tenth generation, first with two sons and then with his precious daughter, Yu Fanfan. He spoiled her without restraint.
Growing up on the Northwestern Frontier, Yu Fanfan learned to ride horses and fight. To the nobility, she was nothing more than a wild girl.
Her life would have remained comfortable if Father Yu and her two doting brothers had continued to rise in rank—or, more accurately, if they had simply survived. But fate had other plans.
A sudden, large-scale invasion by the Tartar barbarians devastated their family. Father Yu lost both his sons in the fighting and was himself gravely wounded. His wife, unable to cope with the grief, died shortly after her sons.
Even his eldest daughter-in-law, who was pregnant at the time, packed her belongings and returned to her parents’ home to remarry immediately after the eldest son’s funeral.
To protect his eldest son’s unborn child, Father Yu endured his grievous wounds, enduring the pain as he desperately plotted his family’s survival. Knowing his days were numbered, he gritted his teeth and gave most of their remaining wealth to his daughter-in-law, leaving only a small portion for his daughter’s future.
Dragging his broken body from its bed, he retrieved the token and letter bestowed upon his family by the old duke of Cheng years ago. Calling in favors his ancestors had spent generations accumulating, he requested a mourning leave—a dingyou—and escorted his father’s coffin back to the ancestral home.
After burying his father, wife, and sons, Father Yu’s first priority was to bring his fourteen-year-old daughter to the Capital.
There, they knocked on the heavy gates of the Cheng Manor.
Fate, for once, was on their side. The old duke of Cheng, while bedridden and gravely ill, was still alive.
The timing of Father Yu’s visit was equally fortuitous. His request for an audience fell into the hands of the old duke’s personal aide, who had served with him on the battlefield and had once received a great kindness from Father Yu’s grandfather.
Without a moment’s hesitation, the aide escorted Father Yu and his daughter into the manor.
When Father Yu finally met with the ailing old duke, he brought up the old marriage promise. The straightforward old duke agreed on the spot, decreeing that his eldest legitimate grandson, Xie Shiyan, would marry Yu Fanfan.
Aware that his own time was short, the old duke ordered the marriage to be arranged as quickly and lavishly as possible to prevent any interference. His command instantly thwarted the schemes of his wife, who had been plotting from behind his back, and ruined the secret arrangements Xie Shiyan’s stepmother had made for her stepson.
The two formidable matriarchs of the inner residence secretly looked behind them at the cousin young ladies they had each invited into the household, their teeth itching with resentment. The two young ladies also twisted their handkerchiefs to shreds, weeping as sorrowfully as if their own biological parents had died.
Strictly speaking, the ill-fated Yu Fanfan could be considered a daughter of an official family. Yet, she could not overcome the fact that her grandfather and father held humble ranks, while the Duke of Cheng’s Manor was of far too lofty a status.
Moreover, having grown up on the frontier, Yu Fanfan led a rough life, had a rough appearance, was accustomed to unfettered freedom, and had not been properly schooled in etiquette. Her straightforward nature, so like that of her father and elder brothers, made the women of the duke’s manor feel that pairing their family’s legitimate jade-like young master with such a barbaric village woman was an utter waste—how could any of them look upon her favorably?
However, no matter how much they looked down on her, once the old duke gave the order, the matter was set in stone and could not be altered under any circumstances. For the sake of the family’s reputation, they could only yield to the old duke’s authority.
And so, less than two months after arriving in the capital and just three days after Yu Fanfan celebrated her fifteenth coming-of-age ceremony, she was carried off in a bridal sedan chair.
Bringing along half of her family’s remaining wealth in a dowry of thirty-eight carried chests, she married into the Cheng Manor and became the wife of the eldest legitimate son of the heir apparent.
Father Yu, already gravely ill, finally let go of his last reserves of strength after seeing his daughter safely married. He held on just long enough to see her return to her parents’ home for her first visit, only to collapse the moment she departed. He never rose again.
Fate had been cruel to the original owner of this body—cruel and malicious.
Yu Fanfan had barely seen her father off, the white mourning flower still pinned to her hair, when she discovered she was pregnant.
She had no time to rejoice that heaven had granted her a child—a precious gift conceived on her wedding night—before the old duke, already bedridden with a terminal illness, heard the news of a fourth generation heir. He died with a final, joyous laugh, his eyes closing abruptly.
How could heaven be so unjust?
Yu Fanfan, already despised for her low birth, was now branded a jinx who brought death to her father, mother, and kin. The two mothers-in-law in the duke’s manor nailed her to a pillar of shame. Worse still, the old duchess cursed the unborn child in her womb, calling it a demon that had caused the old duke’s death.
The original Yu Fanfan, no matter how strong or lively she had once been, was broken by these relentless blows. She grew sharp-tongued and volatile, refusing to yield an inch to anyone. Yet it was precisely this desperate, defensive nature that the manor’s schemers exploited.
The world was a harsh and unforgiving place for a fatherless daughter. With no protection, she would be preyed upon by anyone and everyone. Like any parent who loves their child, Father Yu had desperately planned for her future.
He had swallowed his pride and humbled himself, knowing how difficult it was to enter the duke’s manor, let alone survive in its inner court. He knew his daughter was no match for the young master, but he had gone through with the match regardless.
His only hope was that the manor would remember the debt of gratitude they owed him, ensuring his daughter a lifetime of security.
He had reasoned that even if his daughter and the young master could never share the love of a devoted couple, the old duke’s own reputation and the life-saving favor he owed them would compel the family to treat her with respect. After all, a great house would prioritize its honor above all else.
Father Yu had personally vetted the young master. He was a true gentleman—upright and refined, a master of both letters and martial arts, and a man of his word. He was certainly not the sort of dissolute scoundrel who would ignore propriety.
And even if the worst came to pass—even if the young master never grew to love her, or if his heart already belonged to another—she was still his legal wife. A noble house like the duke’s manor, no matter how slighted she became, could surely spare a single bowl of rice for her.
Even if the servants turned against her and the matriarch withheld a bowl of rice, she still had half the Yu family’s fortune to fall back on. She would never starve.
As long as the Cheng Manor stood, it would serve as a protective mountain for his daughter. No matter how bitter her life became, it would still be better than drifting alone in the world, without a single branch to lean on.
Father Yu had meticulously planned every detail for his precious daughter’s future. Yet, for all his calculations, he had failed to secure her the lifelong peace and security he had so desperately sought.
He had overestimated the Duke of Cheng’s promise and underestimated the depths of human nature.
Yu Fanfan, with no kin to turn to, had just turned twenty-nine. She had endured until the mourning period for the Old Duke of Cheng was barely over by three months. Her father-in-law, the newly appointed Duke, had only just secured a position and left the Capital—and her husband, who treated her with polite respect—had only just departed with him half a month prior.
He had been gone only half a month when the new matriarch of the household, the recently elevated duchess Li Jiayu, struck.
Li Jiayu, now arrogant in her new position, conspired with her two cousins—who had spent the three-year mourning period refusing to leave the manor, instead tormenting Yu Fanfan with their coquettish antics and constant harassment.
They staged a performance, falsely accusing Yu Fanfan of being a jealous woman—one of the seven grounds for divorce—and threw her out of the manor. They showed no mercy, ignoring the fact that Yu Fanfan was delirious with a high fever, and utterly disregarding the three-year-old child she had just borne.
Clutching her divorce letter, the original Yu Fanfan was carried half-dead onto a blue-cloth mule cart and driven out of the city to her scum stepmother’s estate.
There, she was abandoned in a dusty side courtyard. With no one to tend to her illness, she faced a midnight terror when a masked man broke through her window.
Had she not hidden her own strength since marriage—as her father had commanded—she would have been defiled by the assailant, nailed to a pillar of shame, and cursed by the world.
Even after fleeing through the night, she could not escape her fate. She died a wrongful death in the desolate mountains, her body claimed by a scavenger.
Yu Fanfan could only imagine that if she hadn’t arrived, the original owner’s remains would have been devoured by Four-Eyes, leaving nothing of her existence in this world.
Now possessing the original Yu Fanfan’s eighteen years of memories, she felt both pity and a sharp frustration at her predecessor’s weakness.
She had been so spirited and free-willed back on the Northwestern Frontier. How did she become such a mute, helpless creature in the duke’s manor, unable to defend herself against false accusations and bullying?
Even after the sudden loss of all her family, leaving her heartbroken and despairing, she should have found the strength to fight.
They always said a mother’s love makes her strong. For the sake of her poor little son, Yu Fanfan’s original body should have risen up, not bowed her head to fate.
Watching these scenes in her dreams—the original owner, stripped of all her former confidence and grace, looking utterly defeated and pathetic—Yu Fanfan slammed the table in fury.
What the hell were you thinking? she cursed. You had martial arts skills, your own property, and a son. Your husband might have been cold, but you were still the legitimate wife. What were you afraid of? If you couldn’t win with words, you could have won with your fists! Go on, fight back!
More importantly, though she was a modern woman who had never read any Admonitions for Women or Women’s Precepts, she was a frequent reader of web novels.
She vaguely remembered the ancient rules about the “Seven Grounds for Divorce” and the “Three Grounds for Refusing Divorce.”
Let’s see… she thought. Right!
Divorce is not permitted if the husband has taken a concubine but has no heir.
Divorce is not permitted if the wife has observed a three-year mourning period for her parents-in-law.
And if the husband rose from poverty to wealth after marriage, he could not divorce the wife.
Given Yu Fanfan’s original body’s circumstances, she met two of the three protections against divorce! That meant she had every right and reason to reject the divorce letter drafted by that stepmother-in-law on her stepson’s behalf. She did not have to accept it at all.
A heavy feeling settled in Yu Fanfan’s chest. After her anger cooled, she realized her own words had been unfair.
“Never mind,” she murmured. “I shouldn’t judge. I haven’t tasted your bitterness, so my words are just empty taunts. If it were me, I might have fared worse than you.”
She paused, her voice soft. “Yu Fanfan, I’m sorry. Forgive me.”
The dream’s memories had jolted her awake, and she now swore a solemn oath to the original owner.
“Yu Fanfan, since I have taken over your body, I owe you,” she continued. “Since fate has bound us, rest assured: I will seek justice for your grievances and repay your enemies. I’ll also take good care of your Little Bun. Go now, and reunite with your parents and family…”