In the third year of Hongjia, during the dead of winter, leaves had withered from the branches and the cold wind blew incessantly.
Outside a farmstead on the outskirts of the capital, a group of women gathered together in whispers.
“Ah, what a sin. How old is the one inside anyway, to be driven to take his own life? Look, this is the third time he has thrown himself into the river. He has not died yet, but he has a cat’s nine lives.”
“If you ask me, that child has a bitter fate. Cast off into this farmstead by the mistress of the house since he was little, left completely neglected. It is already a miracle that he managed to grow up, and now running into this kind of mess, how could he possibly see a way out? It is just pitiful.”
“Pitiful, my foot! A stroke of good fortune like this, people would pray for it for ten lifetimes and still not get it. For him, a disfavored concubine-born son, to be betrothed to that person is an absolute blessing from the heavens. Who knows, he might even rise to prominence because of it.”
“You can say that, but rumor has it that the Prince kills without blinking an eye and is a fierce god incarnate. Some even say he was born with a destiny that curses his wives and children; whoever marries him probably will not live long.”
“You said it yourself, they are just rumors. How much truth can rumors possibly hold?”
An elderly woman among them spoke up with displeasure: “You girls are still young, so you probably do not know the deeds of that Prince. Why, half of our Jing Kingdom’s territory was conquered by him single-handedly!”
“This Prince Chen is a towering figure in the Jing Kingdom, and furthermore, the current Emperor’s own imperial uncle, holding an extraordinarily noble status.”
“For a concubine-born son of a marquis’s estate to be granted a marriage to Prince Chen, it is a blessing accumulated over three lifetimes.”
“Well, since His Highness Prince Chen’s status is so noble, why would the Emperor bestow a concubine-born son of a marquis as his primary wife?”
“No matter how you look at it, the Marquis’s Seventh Young Master is not a match for Prince Chen. Besides, although men can marry each other in our Jing Kingdom, it is rare for princes and nobles to take a man as a primary wife. Once he marries into the Prince’s estate without any heirs to his name, his position as Prince Chen’s consort will not be safe for long.”
“This…”
“Why do you care so much? It is not like you are the one getting married. Let us go, let us go.”
The women outside dispersed one after another.
Inside the farmstead, in the bedroom of the eastern courtyard.
A fair-faced, clean-looking young page stood guard by the bed, weeping so heartbreakingly for the man lying there:
“Young Master, oh Young Master, you must not have anything happen to you! If you have even the slightest mishap, Wenxi will not want to live either.”
Crying out, Wenxi raised a hand to wipe away the snot and tears streaming down his face, preparing to continue his lament.
Rong Xun was given a headache by Wenxi’s howling, enough to make his head spin twice over.
“Stop.”
He raised a hand to stop Wenxi. “If you keep crying like this, even if I were fine, I would end up with a problem.”
The room was cold and damp, with only a single basin of charcoal fire sitting beside the bed.
Even that basin of charcoal looked mostly about to go out, and the air emitted a faint, choking scent of burning coal.
Rong Xun pulled the rather thin quilt on his body a bit higher, covering every part of him as much as possible, leaving only his head exposed.
Hearing his young master say this, Wenxi hurriedly choked off his tears.
He asked Rong Xun with a sob: “Young Master, how are you feeling now? Originally, I wanted to go fetch a doctor, but I…”
“I know, we do not have enough money.”
Rong Xun cut in. “Do not worry, I just caught a chill, there is nothing wrong with me at all. Just letting it pass in the covers will do. Let us save the silver we have left for a crucial moment.”
“I am sorry, Young Master.”
Wenxi lowered his head in shame. “If I had not fallen ill a few days ago, and you had not used the extra silver to fetch medicine, we would not be unable to afford a doctor right now.”
“It is fine. Matters have priorities; you were that sick back then, if I had not saved you, could you still be alive?”
Regarding his current predicament, Rong Xun did not feel despair.
Having experienced such a dramatic, soap-opera-like event, he felt that no matter how hard the storms of life hit him, he would not be afraid anymore.
Originally, he was a third-tier minor actor from the twenty-first century.
After struggling in the entertainment industry for many years and finally hitting it big through a political intrigue drama, he got into a traffic accident on the very night he was heading to an awards ceremony.
The moment he opened his eyes, he arrived in this ghost of a place.
Unbelievable as it was, his soul had most likely transmigrated into this person’s body, letting him survive in a completely different way.
Right when he first transmigrated, he had just been hauled out of the freezing river water by a few burly men near the farmstead.
Before he could even process what was happening, he was pointed at by those farmers and cursed at for being spineless, ready to throw his life away over some trivial matter.
After cursing for about a quarter of an hour, they still wrapped him up tightly and carried him back to the farmstead.
Seeing him in that state, Wenxi naturally threw himself over, hugging him and crying his eyes out all over again.
Though confused, Rong Xun quickly came to his senses.
He was indeed dead, but his soul had transmigrated into the body of Rong Xun, the Seventh Young Master of the Marquis’s estate.
Sometimes Rong Xun wondered if it was because both of them were named Rong Xun that he happened to stumble into this body by coincidence.
In any case, his life was not meant to end here. He had even inherited most of the original owner’s memories.
Simply put, the Seventh Young Master of the Marquis’s estate was a tragic figure.
His biological mother died of postpartum hemorrhage right after he was born. Later, because the Marquis’s current legal wife despised his birth mother, Rong Xun was dumped into a farmstead on the outskirts of the capital a mere six months after his birth, left to be raised by a couple who looked after the estate.
He had experienced a difficult birth, carrying a constitutional deficiency from his mother’s womb.
Seeing that Rong Xun held no favor with the Marquis’s estate, the couple at the farmstead paid him zero attention.
They called it raising him, but at best, they just made sure he did not starve to death.
Fortunately, Wenxi had stayed by his side since childhood; Wenxi was four years older than him.
Thanks to Wenxi’s care over the years, Rong Xun had managed to grow up with difficulty, avoiding an early grave in childhood.
The original owner himself was also quite driven. Knowing his awkward position, he had studied diligently from a young age, planning to earn an official title in the future and change his current circumstances.
Even though the couple at the farmstead treated him poorly, they never stopped him from studying, likely thinking that a disfavored concubine-born son would not amount to anything anyway.
The Jing Kingdom placed an extreme value on literature, setting up schools in every county and district. Moreover, children from humble backgrounds were not charged silver to attend school.
It was precisely because of this that Rong Xun was able to successfully complete his studies, but as the spring imperial examinations drew near, a piece of news from the Marquis’s estate, which had always ignored him, completely ruined his chance to take the metropolitan exam.
An estate nanny sent word instructing Rong Xun to prepare to return to the residence: the Marquis’s legal wife, Madam Chen, was going to adopt him into her name, and he would soon be married off to Prince Chen’s estate.
The original owner had always been prone to overthinking, sometimes a bit slow on the uptake.
Seeing his official career aspirations dashed and his biological father completely ignoring him, combined with the sorrow of reflecting on how hard these past years had been, he lost all hope in a moment of despair and threw himself into the river.
He was rescued by Wenxi the first time, but barely two days later, he went looking for death again, the second time he threw himself into the river, no one pulled him out.
And that was precisely when Rong Xun arrived here.
Falling into the river a third time was purely an accident.
For the half-month he had been here, Rong Xun had neither eaten well nor slept well. Although people from the Marquis’s estate had sent word that they would soon come to fetch him back, the couple at the farmstead treated him just as poorly as they always had.
Two meals a day consisted entirely of thin porridge and little else; occasionally getting a steamed bun was considered a luxury upgrade to their diet.
Before his transmigration, Rong Xun was at least a minor celebrity who did not have to worry about food or clothing. After transmigrating, his quality of life plummeted drastically, and naturally, he was not used to it.
Yet, dragging this sickly body of his, it was completely unrealistic to go pick a fight with that harsh couple.
Yesterday, he had originally intended to go down to the river to catch a few fish to improve his diet, but who could have expected his weak frame to turn out this frail.
After standing for barely ten minutes, the world began to spin before his eyes.
Before he knew it, he slipped and fell right into the river.
Luckily, it was winter, and the river water was bone-chillingly cold. The instant he fell in, the shock sobered him up, and he mustered every ounce of remaining strength to crawl back up, barely managing to salvage his life.
Perhaps having died once made Rong Xun cherish his life that much more. Even though he was trapped in this godforsaken place, he was determined to live.
Never mind being betrothed to a prince, even if he were sold off to a wealthy household as a laborer, he could accept it without changing his expression.
You only live once, and besides, heaven had not treated him too badly, granting him a second chance at life. Naturally, he had to treasure it.
As long as he stayed alive, anything was possible.
Coming back to his marriage partner:
In his memories, the original Rong Xun had a certain understanding of this Prince Chen.
The original owner loved to read, and books happened to record many of this Prince’s exploits:
This Prince Chen was named Tan Tai Si, the current Emperor’s own imperial uncle.
Back when he was still an imperial prince, he had been the reigning emperor’s most favored son.
At age thirteen, Prince Chen marched off to war across all directions; at fifteen, he took command as general for the western campaign; at seventeen, he crushed the Xiongnu, routing an army of one hundred thousand from the Wusu Kingdom with a force of just thirty thousand.
He became a legend in a single battle and was immediately titled a prince upon returning to the capital, the first among the four imperial princes to receive a title back then, enjoying boundless glory for a time.
Tan Tai Si had countless military achievements to his name; saying that half of the Jing Kingdom’s territory was conquered by him was no exaggeration.
As the common folk whispered among themselves: if not for the ancestral rule of the Jing Kingdom that the throne could only be passed to the legitimate eldest son born of the primary empress, who knew whose hands the current throne would have fallen into?
Regrettably, merely half a month after Tan Tai Si was granted his title, Emperor Longxi, Tan Tai Honghan, passed away, and the throne was inherited by the then-Crown Prince, Tan Tai Hao.
Tan Tai Hao was eighteen years older than Tan Tai Si, already thirty-five when he ascended the throne.
At that time, the realm was in chaos with the smoke of war rising everywhere. Learning that Tan Tai Si had returned to the capital, the Wusu Kingdom’s ambitions flared once more, igniting warfare along the borders of the Jing Kingdom.
For a time, the common people on the borders suffered terribly.
Tan Tai Si could not even wait for his investiture ceremony to be held before he led troops northward, fighting once again for the Jing Kingdom. Afterward, to secure peace along the frontiers and ensure no future troubles for the country, Tan Tai Si remained stationed at the border indefinitely.
He did not return to the capital even through the reign of Emperor Chongwen, Tan Tai Hao, all the way until the new Emperor’s ascension.
From the age of thirteen up to the present, twelve years had passed as Tan Tai Si fought for the country and guarded its borders.
Complying with the late emperor’s last will, once the borders stabilized, Tan Tai Si was summoned back.
Now, with the four seas at peace, the current Emperor, Tan Tai Yao, issued an imperial decree calling Tan Tai Si back to the capital.
Accompanying this decree was another one: an imperial edict bestowing a marriage.
After coming here and sorting out the cause and effect of the situation, Rong Xun felt there was something fishy about all of this.
If that Prince Chen was truly the young hero, formidable warrior, and extraordinarily noble figure described in books, someone even the current Emperor had to respect by a few degrees, how could the Emperor betroth a concubine-born son of a marquis to him? Wasn’t that practically a slap in the face?
Besides, did the imperial palace even know he, Rong Xun, existed?
Even more bizarrely, Prince Chen was still on his way back when this marriage decree was already issued.
Was the Emperor really that anxious to find a wife for his own imperial uncle? Just how terrified was he that his imperial uncle would remain a bachelor for life?
Thinking up to this point, Rong Xun had asked Wenxi to find a way to inquire about the details.
And sure enough, Wenxi went to the capital and actually dug up some information.
Actually, investigating this matter wasn’t difficult; news regarding the bestowed marriage had long since spread throughout the capital.
On the day the imperial decree arrived at the Yong’an Marquis’s estate, all of the Marquis’s household knelt at the gates to receive it.
The head eunuch’s voice reading the decree had been extremely crisp and loud:
The gist of the decree was that the Emperor felt deep gratitude for Prince Chen’s hard work guarding the borders over the years; seeing that he was still single at twenty-five, the Emperor was bestowing the Marquis’s son upon Prince Chen as his primary consort, as a token of comfort for his decades of hardship and toil.
The Marquis’s grandfather had followed the Grand Progenitor Emperor in conquering the empire, and their status and standing were among the highest of all officials. Given the current standing of the Yong’an Marquis’s estate, this match could still be considered a fitting one.
What left people chattering incessantly, however, was why the Emperor had bestowed a male wife upon Prince Chen.
Although men could marry in the Jing Kingdom, and even the current Emperor had several male favorites in his inner palace, none of the current princes or imperial sons had taken a man as a primary wife.
The moment the imperial decree was handed down, the capital instantly erupted; within half a day, the news had spread through every corner of the city.
After Wenxi did a little snooping, he found out the general contents of that day’s decree.
When he returned and told Rong Xun, Rong Xun remained silent for a long, long time.
The imperial decree stated that the Marquis’s son was being bestowed to Prince Chen as his consort, but it did not explicitly specify which son.
The Marquis’s estate had a flourishing lineage with many children, just the sons alone numbered seven, though three had died prematurely.
Still, anyone thinking of a match matching Prince Chen’s status would naturally assume the person granted in marriage was the estate’s eldest legitimate son, the legitimate heir, Rong Zhe.
At first, Rong Xun could not figure out why the target of the bestowed marriage had suddenly changed to him.
But when the estate’s nanny mentioned that Madam Chen, the Marquis’s wife, was adopting him into her name, Rong Xun pretty much guessed it:
Although this Prince Chen held immense power, standing second to none under heaven, and possessed a vast following of admirers, rumors questioning Tan Tai Si’s reputation were also numerous.
The most widely circulated ones were that he was bloodthirsty and exceptionally cold-blooded, with a destiny so harsh that he brought disaster upon his wives, children, and parents. Anyone who married him would not come to a good end.
Most importantly, nobody knew who started the rumor that he was hideously ugly, possessing a face full of jagged ravines that could terrify a three-year-old child into crying uncontrollably, making anyone who looked at him want to retch in disgust.
The lady of the Marquis’s estate was likely terrified that her precious darling son would go over there and suffer. Remembering that someone like him still existed in the farmstead, she concocted the vicious scheme of having him take his older brother’s place in marrying into Prince Chen’s estate.
Originally, not many people knew of Rong Xun’s existence anyway. Madam Chen could simply claim to the outside world that she had a seventh legitimate son who had been sickly for years and kept hidden away in a deep courtyard, and the substitution would be covered up soundly and silently without a trace.
In the dead of winter, days without a charcoal fire were truly difficult to endure.
By the third day of Rong Xun resting in bed to recover, their charcoal ran out.
Wenxi was at his wit’s end; the young master’s illness had not yet fully healed, and if they did not have charcoal soon, it was doubtful the young master could survive this winter.
The Marquis’s estate had claimed they were coming to pick them up, but watching over half a month pass by, there wasn’t a single shred of news.
Just as Wenxi was about to head out to dig up information, people from the Marquis’s estate finally arrived.