“Elder Sister, we should grab some gold, silver, and jewelry and run for our lives! I heard the Third Prince impeached the Duke. The officials will be here to seize the family’s assets soon!”
“But the Young Madam isn’t awake yet.”
“Do you want to live or not? Our eyebrows are on fire, and you’re still worried about that ugly woman? The Duke was defeated at the border, and all one hundred thousand of his soldiers were annihilated. His Majesty is furious and has summoned the Young Lord to the palace for a reprimand…”
Pain. It hurt so much!
The sky on this June day was gloomy, and the sultry air made one feel inexplicably oppressed and irritable.
Dressed in wedding attire, Shen Wan lay on the large, red bridal bed, feeling as if her head was about to split open. To make matters worse, her ears were filled with incessant noise.
Her eyes flew open. She saw two maids in pink silk jackets rummaging through chests and cabinets, stuffing jewelry into their clothes with abandon.
“Who are you?” Shen Wan was completely bewildered.
The two maids whipped their heads around.
In the dim light, a pair of dazed eyes flickered with a strange glow in the darkness.
“Don’t hit us!”
They screamed in terror and scrambled toward the door, wailing like ghosts.
Shen Wan’s face was a mask of confusion.
As a military doctor, she was clearly just bandaging a wounded soldier on the battlefield. How did she suddenly end up here?
A sharp pain suddenly shot through her head, and a flood of unfamiliar memories poured into her mind…
She had transmigrated into a book!
In the book, there was a vicious, ugly woman also named Shen Wan, the illegitimate daughter of the Xiangyang Marquis, whose family was of military renown. She had used despicable means to take her legitimate elder sister’s place and marry the book’s great villain—the Young Lord of the Duke of Zhenguo’s mansion, Xie Mufbai.
On their wedding day, Yumenguan Pass fell. The Duke of Zhenguo and his one hundred thousand soldiers died for their country.
The male lead, the Third Prince, used this as an opportunity to impeach them. The emperor, in a fit of rage, ordered the seizure of the Duke’s assets on charges of treason and colluding with the enemy. The servants were sold off, and the family members were exiled to the barren northwest.
Upon hearing the news, the original owner of the body had thrown off her red bridal veil and tried to run back to her maternal home, only to slip, fall, and hit her head on a stone.
Not long after arriving in the northwest, the original owner eloped with a man.
Who would have known that the man was a human trafficker? After making her consume Huagong Powder, he sold her.
The buyer was no good person either, constantly beating and cursing her.
In just a few short years, the original owner contracted a foul disease.
Seeing that she was on her last legs, the buyer had her wrapped haphazardly in a straw mat and thrown by the roadside.
As she lay dying, she saw Xie Mufbai, clad in fine silks and riding a tall horse, on his way to propose to the white-lotus female lead. She even vaguely heard others addressing him as Lord Grand Secretary…
Shen Wan wanted to cry.
It was one thing to transmigrate so nonsensically, but why did she have to become that incredibly stupid, ugly woman? And why was she about to be exiled the moment she arrived?
Suddenly, a white light flashed from her wrist.
Shen Wan was overjoyed.
It seemed her luck wasn’t entirely terrible; at least her personal Space had come with her.
She was a military doctor, so her Space was naturally stocked with a large quantity of medicine and medical equipment. There was even a pool of spiritual spring water that could recuperate the body. The only drawback was the scarcity of daily necessities.
Since exile was inevitable, she had to hoard supplies as quickly as possible.
With that, Shen Wan struggled out of bed and stored all the dowry from the side room into her Space.
She had to admit, that Xiangyang Marquis was a real cheapskate.
In that huge pile of dowry, there wasn’t a single valuable item. Most of it consisted of cheap things like cotton quilts and coarse cloth to pad out the numbers.
But things being as they were, she couldn’t be picky.
After collecting everything, Shen Wan hurried out the door.
The Duke of Zhenguo’s mansion was already in chaos. No one paid any attention to her, the newly-wedded Young Madam.
Just as she was about to head to the storehouse, she saw a young widow carrying a jade-colored bundle, running out in a panic.
Shen Wan remembered this woman.
The Duke of Zhenguo had five sons, with the heir, Xie Mufbai, being the youngest.
His four elder, illegitimate brothers had died for their country several years ago, leaving behind four widowed sisters-in-law.
The woman before her was Sun Shi from the third branch, the original owner’s mortal enemy since childhood.
Seeing Shen Wan approach, a flicker of panic crossed Sun Shi’s eyes.
However, she quickly composed herself and sneered with veiled sarcasm, “Well, well, I didn’t expect you, you ugly freak, to be so tough. I thought that fall would have killed you.”
Shen Wan hadn’t wanted to cause trouble, but since this woman had come looking for it, she couldn’t just tolerate it.
“You’re not dead yet, so how could I bear to go first?” She eyed the heavy bundle with ill intent and said with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, “But your bundle looks quite heavy. Why don’t I carry it for you?”
Before she finished speaking, her hand reached for the bundle.
Sun Shi’s expression changed drastically.
She quickly hid the bundle behind her back and cursed viciously, “Don’t even think about touching my things, you ugly freak!”
“Instead of wasting your breath here, you’d be better off preparing a coffin for that sickly Young Lord of yours to be buried in.”
With that, Sun Shi took several large steps and hurried away.
Shen Wan was certain that this woman hadn’t escaped the Duke’s mansion before the asset seizure; she had been exiled to the great northwest along with the original owner.
She nonchalantly stuck out her foot, sending Sun Shi sprawling face-first into the dirt.
The beautiful jade-colored bundle fell from her grasp, and gold, silver, and jewelry, glittering dazzlingly, scattered all over the ground.
“Shen Wan, you’re asking for death!”
Sun Shi was both furious and anxious.
She had just raised her head to curse when she saw that the ugly woman had already vanished.
Shen Wan had no time to waste; she had to gather more things before the officials arrived.
Fearing she would run out of time, she used instantaneous displacement and appeared in the storehouse in the blink of an eye.
The Duke’s mansion was truly poor. Aside from bulky items like grain, tables, and chairs, there was very little gold, silver, and jewelry.
Shen Wan took a look around and only stored the new rice and some of the silver into her Space.
If the storehouse was completely empty when the assets were seized, it would be strange if that old emperor didn’t get suspicious.
If he changed the sentence from exile to immediate execution in a fit of rage, the loss would far outweigh the gain.
After leaving the storehouse, Shen Wan also swung by the kitchen and took all the edible items, even stuffing a large iron wok inside.
Since the assets were going to be seized anyway, if she didn’t take these things, they would just fall into someone else’s hands.
Suddenly remembering that the original owner’s birth mother had been murdered by the Xiangyang Marquis’s wife, Shen Wan paid a visit to the Xiangyang Marquis’s Mansion and swept it clean of all its gold, silver, and jewelry.
Of course, she wouldn’t let off the dog emperor and that Third Prince who had framed the loyal and good, either.
To her utter surprise, the Third Prince, known for his integrity and frugality, had mountains of grain and money hidden in a secret chamber. It was practically a branch of the dog emperor’s National Treasury!
Heh, she had struck it rich this time. That bastard father-son duo could just wait and weep in each other’s arms!
Shen Wan didn’t hold back, and with a wave of her little black claws, she took what she could and burned what she couldn’t. She wouldn’t leave him so much as a single grain of rice!
In an instant, thick smoke billowed from the Third Prince’s residence as flames shot into the sky.
Shen Wan’s figure flickered, and she was already back in the rear courtyard of the Duke of Zhenguo’s mansion.
Seeing that it was still early, she lay back contentedly on a wicker chair in the small courtyard, sipping iced plum soup and waiting for the officials to arrive.
Suddenly, heaven-shaking cries erupted from the front courtyard.
Shen Wan knew clearly: the seizure of assets had begun!
She casually tossed the bowl into her Space and then walked toward the front courtyard.
By now, the front courtyard was a complete mess. Clothes, fabrics, and other items were strewn about haphazardly, and the family members were crying their hearts out.
Shen Wan scanned the scene.
As expected, Sun Shi hadn’t managed to escape. Even the two little maids who had been stealing jewelry in her room had not been spared.
The Duchess had passed away long ago, and the concubine, Aunt Zhou, was not one to have her own ideas.
Seeing the officials arrive with gleaming broadswords to seize the assets, she had already collapsed to the ground in fright, not even glancing at her two grandsons who were crying their throats hoarse beside her.
On a stretcher in the middle of the courtyard lay a man covered in blood.
That must be my cheap husband, Shen Wan thought.
She walked over curiously, and one look was enough to leave her stunned.
The man’s face was a sickly pale, his two sword-like brows slanted up toward his temples, and his beautiful phoenix eyes tilted up slightly at the corners, adding an indescribable touch of romantic charm.
Even his blood-soaked clothes couldn’t conceal the noble and refined aura that emanated from him.
So, the great villain from the book was this handsome!
Acting on her military doctor’s instinct, Shen Wan subconsciously bent down to examine him.
The moment her warm fingertips touched his bloody leg, Xie Mufbai’s entire body trembled violently from the pain, and his smooth forehead was covered in dense beads of sweat.
She had to admit, that old emperor was ruthless, to have actually broken his leg bone!
“Get lost!” Xie Mufbai slapped her dark hand away, his weak voice trembling with extreme rage.
It seemed now wasn’t the right time to treat his injuries.
Shen Wan shrugged and said no more.
Xie Mufbai was in no mood to speak further either, merely glaring at her with loathing.
His gaze was so sinister that a single look made Shen Wan feel as if she had needles on her back.
“Have all the stolen goods been tallied?”
Just then, a sharp, thin voice came from not far away.