The rain intensified in the dead of night, like a monstrous beast with a gaping, bloody maw, threatening to swallow Yecheng whole.
Yet, the Xie Mansion on the east side of the city was ablaze with light, as if not a single drop of rain dared to fall within its walls. Overwhelming wails and cries emanated faintly from the mansion, permeating every corner of Yecheng. Suddenly, every noble and wealthy family in the city was seized with terror, fearing that someone might come knocking on their doors that night.
The Xie family had embezzled military funds, causing the Second Prince, who led the army in the Southern Border, to suffer a crushing defeat and nearly lose his life. The Emperor, fully aware of the situation, was struck by imperial wrath and vowed to investigate the matter thoroughly. Anyone involved in the Xie family’s corruption case was to be apprehended and imprisoned by the Embroidered Uniform Guard (Jinyiwei) without official clearance.
This night was destined to be turbulent.
A sharp, silver-gleaming sword suddenly slashed across the top of the Xie Mansion’s main gate. With a resounding clatter!, the massive vermilion plaque that had hung for years fell to the ground. It shattered into several pieces instantly, its powdered wood shards mixing into the turbid, muddy water. This plaque had been bestowed upon Xie Lanyu, the grandfather of the Xie family, by the founding Emperor at the inception of the dynasty in recognition of his service. For three generations, the Xie family had taken immense pride in this plaque. But today, it lay shattered into dust, mirroring the fate of the Xie family cast into the filthy mud, never to rise again.
Lu Bingqiu, the commander of the Northern Administrative Office of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, held no deep grudge against the Xie family, yet neither did they share any friendship. He served the Emperor, while the Xie family had always served the Empress Dowager. Naturally, he would show no mercy.
Mounted on his horse, Lu Bingqiu slowly sheathed his sword, his gaze filled with disdain. He glanced at the chaos within the Xie Mansion and commanded his subordinates: “Kill those who deserve to be killed; send those who belong in the Jiaofangsi (Music Bureau) there. If even one member of the Xie family escapes, you will all be held accountable.”
Lightning, sharp and brilliant, streaked across the sky, accompanied by a deafening roar of thunder, as if the heavens themselves were coming for the lives of the Xie family. The night watchman on the street trembled under the eaves, not daring to move. However, the two rows of guards standing before Lu Bingqiu did not even blink. They stood with their backs straight, their rain-soaked uniforms clinging to their muscles, exuding an aura of solemn majesty.
They shouted in unison: “Understood!”
The people of Yecheng feared no vengeful ghosts, but they dreaded the arrival of these men in Feiyu uniforms, armed with embroidered sabers. Lu Bingqiu was the “Living Yama” among them; if he said not a single soul would remain, then not a single soul would be spared not even an infant in swaddling clothes.
Yet, these men could never have imagined that Xie’s Second Young Master, whom they had searched the entire mansion for in vain, was currently at the gates of the Grand Princess’s residence, three streets away.
Xie Zi’an slowly opened his eyes. All he saw was an unfathomable darkness, and in his ears, the sound of rhythmic, torrential rain. As he shifted his body, a searing pain flooded his limbs, as if he had been brutally beaten. The rain was so heavy that he could barely open his eyes. Xie Zi’an wiped the rain from his face, but even then, due to the lack of light, he could only barely discern his surroundings within half a meter. He lay on the ground, battered and drenched.
Xie Zi’an was a calm man by nature, but even he struggled to remain composed in this situation. Five months ago, he had celebrated his 35th birthday and made a decision that shocked the financial world: retirement. Ordinary people could not comprehend why this prodigy, who had dominated the financial circles for years, would choose to retire while still young. However, his American boss understood him well, often feeling that Xie Zi’an lived without warmth and encouraging him to find his own happiness.
The two were more than just employer and employee; they were friends. In truth, the only person Xie Zi’an could call a friend was this American man, who was a full forty years his senior. For over twenty years of their acquaintance, Xie Zi’an could have easily earned more by going solo, yet he worked for the American for fourteen years until his retirement, all because he owed him a debt of gratitude.
When Xie Zi’an was fifteen, his father died of alcohol poisoning, and his mother remarried immediately. Just when everyone expected him to drop out of school and live a bleak life, he ran to the entrance of a Shanghai securities firm and stopped the American, who was not yet a boss at the time. By demonstrating his unique investment acumen and analytical abilities, he won financial sponsorship. At the time, the American, though not a titan in the investment world, was already a centimillionaire, while Xie Zi’an was merely a naive boy. He had won the funding through luck, but not entirely. Before rushing to the firm, Xie Zi’an had already mastered the American’s preferences, temperament, and the volatility of the financial market.
With that funding, he studied at Harvard Business School and successfully obtained his master’s and doctoral degrees. Without that support, Xie Zi’an’s life would not have been as brilliant. Hence, he remained loyal, working diligently for his benefactor for fourteen years.
Once the debt was repaid, Xie Zi’an felt unburdened. Yet, he felt like an elderly man at twilight, unsure of how to exist. After twenty years, the only things that hadn’t changed were his impulsive, free-spirited nature and his stubbornness. The decision he made at 35 was just as impulsive as the one at 15 for example, moving into a psychiatric hospital after retiring.
No normal, wealthy person would choose to visit a mental institution for fun; they were usually perceived as having a mental illness themselves. In the second month of his retirement, Xie Zi’an received a report from a private hospital: [Medical Report: Patient #66, Xie Zi’an, is a high-risk sociopath with severe emotional recognition disorder. He exhibits tendencies toward self-harm and violence against others. Currently, his condition is unstable; urgent transfer to Ward 313 for mandatory treatment is required.]
He possessed five or six such reports. As long as he refused, no hospital dared to force him into a psychiatric ward. He had long known that he suffered from emotional detachment when competing with rivals, he would not stop until he had completely uprooted them, causing them to steer clear of him on sight. Xie Zi’an had pondered these issues carefully; he acted not out of malice, but out of pure instinct. Once a situation reached a certain point, he could not control himself into making “humanistic” decisions.
However, his decision to check into Ward 313 was not due to an epiphany regarding his twisted nature or the harm he caused others. It was simply because, having left the high-stress environment of his career, he had failed to find the happiness and comfort he had imagined. On the contrary, the blandness of life constantly suppressed the dwindling warmth of his existence. He wanted to receive treatment to try and awaken his passion for life.
When poor, he wanted wealth; when wealthy, he wanted happiness. He was simply too greedy. After all, greed is an inherent desire in human nature.
Liliya, his boss’s young daughter, sent him a gift upon learning he was entering the hospital. Coincidentally, he received it on the day of his admission. It was a Chinese novel titled Planning the Realm. Liliya, having grown up in China, was deeply fond of Chinese literature, much like her father, and loved sharing interesting finds with him. This particular novel was a poignant Boys’ Love story.
Xie Zi’an flipped through the book; amusingly, he shared a name with a cannon-fodder character. In the book, the “Xie Zi’an” was a cowardly, spineless young marquis who was wiped out as soon as he appeared. He was pure, kind, and righteous; to avoid betraying the protagonist group, he took his own life in the notorious prison. He appeared for less than three chapters the ultimate cannon fodder.
Xie Zi’an disliked him; he was too foolish. If he had been given the script of the young marquis, it would certainly be a different story. Because he would never bleed for others. He favored the words of Cao Cao: “I would rather betray the world than allow the world to betray me.”
“Audacious! Who dares to act recklessly at the Grand Princess’s gates in the middle of the night?!”
Xie Zi’an’s recollection was interrupted by this sudden accusation. He started, looking up to see a man in ancient attire holding a lantern, glaring at him with a fierce expression. He subconsciously shrank back, his head hitting the wall with a loud thud!. Xie Zi’an gasped in pain. As the sensation reached his brain, he remembered what had happened after he finished the novel Liliya sent.
The business car he was riding in had collided with an old truck, flipped over the guardrail, and plummeted off a cliff. He had fallen into a coma, and when he woke up, he was here. It was too bizarre. Shouldn’t he be in the hospital? Where was this? And who was this person?
The guard, seeing Xie Zi’an refuse to speak, thrust his gauze lantern toward his face. The candle inside flickered violently, nearly extinguishing before flaring back to life. The dim, yellowish light gradually illuminated the face stained with blood and rainwater.
“Xie… Xie Second Young Master!” The guard was so shocked that he dropped the lantern, causing it to fall and splash in the water. He retreated two steps, his face filled with fear and disbelief.
Just as Xie Zi’an was about to ask what was happening, the half-open gate swung wide. Three or five maids holding lanterns stepped out first, followed by a woman of noble bearing, trailed by a maid holding an oil-paper umbrella for her. She should have been asleep at such a late hour, but Yecheng was in turmoil tonight. Too many people were dying, and blood mixed with the rain, staining the stone steps of the Grand Princess’s residence. No matter what, she could not rest.
The woman’s gentle, moving face looked slightly anxious. She had hurriedly draped a dark green cloak over her shoulders, the jade pendant at her waist clinking in rhythm with the rain a pleasant sound. Seeing the frail youth lying on the ground, she froze. Clearly, she had not expected to find Xie Zi’an there.
“How did you escape?” the woman asked, frowning.
Xie Zi’an, confused by the situation, did not answer rashly. The woman continued, her voice low: “The Xie family was wiped out today by the Emperor’s own decree, carried out by the Embroidered Uniform Guard. Do you think I can save you?”
That single sentence contained a massive amount of information. Xie Zi’an recalled the man calling him the “Second Young Master,” and amidst the wind and rain, he shivered.
He had transmigrated. He was in the novel Liliya had sent, in the body of the young marquis who shared his name. It was unclear if this was a blessing or a curse. If he hadn’t transmigrated, he would certainly have died in the car crash. Yet, arriving in this feudal, backward era, he was not greeted by a glorious path, but by a cannon-fodder fate of immediate family annihilation.
How could he survive here on his own?
A feeling of fear and suffocation, usually reserved for the deep sea, now wrapped tightly around Xie Zi’an.
Seeing the youth remain silent, the woman assumed he was merely naive and had been frightened into stupidity by the tragedy. Her heart felt a mix of emotions. She sighed deeply and looked toward the brightest spot in Yecheng—the Xie Mansion. Everyone in the Xie family would be dead today.
Contemplating something, she suddenly walked over to Xie Zi’an and crouched down. Xie Zi’an was in a low-lying spot where water had pooled, and the woman’s gold-embroidered hem and shoes were thoroughly soaked. Her tone shifted from cold to gentle: “Do you want to live?”
The swift change in attitude made Xie Zi’an skeptical. He had not fully accepted the fact of his transmigration, but he instinctively nodded.
The woman who wished to save him was, without a doubt, the Empress Dowager’s own daughter the Grand Princess, Zhu Yue, the Emperor’s half-sister. The original book had little to say about her, noting only that she was thirty-two, unmarried, and worked by the Empress Dowager’s side to cultivate influence. Xie Zi’an vaguely remembered that Zhu Yue’s ending was tragic; when the ultimate villain slaughtered the city, she set fire to herself and the Empress Dowager.
“There is only one person in this world who can protect you, and that is the Empress Dowager,” Zhu Yue said, her eyes bright. “If you can provide the ledgers the Empress Dowager desires, I will exhaust every effort to beg her to save you. There is no other way.”
Xie Zi’an quickly sorted out the events in his mind. The Xie family was executed for embezzling military funds, leading to the defeat in the Southern Border. Everyone knew that embezzlement of this scale was too large for the Xie family alone. The most critical player was the Empress Dowager’s natal family, the Xiao clan, who were the primary beneficiaries. The Xiao clan was a century-old aristocratic family with vast influence. They had been instrumental in the founding of the dynasty.
But anyone sleeping beside a tiger would feel terror, let alone the Emperor. Thus, the Emperor wanted the ledgers to suppress the Xiao clan, while the Empress Dowager wanted to destroy them to protect her kin.
When the young marquis’s father had sent him out of the mansion, he had stuffed three ledgers into his arms, strictly ordering him not to trust anyone else. This was his only way to survive. Yet, the naive youth had given the ledgers to his “good friend,” the protagonist Shou, for safekeeping, naively believing he could use the ledgers as a bargaining chip to beg the Grand Princess to save his family.
In truth, by the time he left the mansion, his father, brother, and mother had already perished under the sabers of the Embroidered Uniform Guard. No one in Yecheng could or would save the Xie family. The Xie family were the dogs of the Empress Dowager, and she would readily sacrifice them to save her power. The Emperor, meanwhile, needed a scapegoat for the defeat in the Southern Border and the loss of three cities.
The two most powerful factions in Yecheng wanted the Xie family dead. Who dared to save them?
The young marquis had not understood these intrigues. Fortunately, the Grand Princess was willing to intercede. If he handed over the ledgers, the Empress Dowager would intervene. With the Xiao clan still secure, the Empress Dowager held the upper hand, and the Emperor would be forced to show her respect.
However, thinking that his family was already dead and that living would be nothing more than a lingering, dishonorable existence plus the fear that revealing the ledgers would implicate his “friend” the young marquis chose to end his own life in the prison. After his death, the protagonist Shou voluntarily handed the ledgers to the Emperor, marking his own first shining moment in the book. The political situation in Yecheng shifted; the Empress Dowager’s faction declined, and the Emperor’s faction flourished.
It could be said that while the young marquis was just a cannon fodder, he was a pivotal one.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
A burst of urgent hoofbeats suddenly arose, growing louder and louder. It seemed they were galloping straight toward the Grand Princess’s residence.
“Princess, they have arrived,” the maid holding the umbrella behind Zhu Yue whispered a warning.
“Once Lu Bingqiu arrives, even I will not have the power to protect you. Xie Zi’an, have you decided?” Zhu Yue asked softly.
Xie Zi’an pressed his lips together. If leaning toward justice meant death, but siding with the villain offered a chance at life, he had no other choice.