Bai Fei Wan stroked her chin in thought. It seemed Jin Wang truly had difficulty siring heirs. At twenty-three, he had only two children.
While twenty-three was still young in modern times, with some people still in school, it was considered old in this ancient era where people commonly married at fifteen or sixteen.
Could it be that this Jin Wang was impotent? Otherwise, why would a man in his prime have trouble producing offspring? Or perhaps Jin Wang suffered from asthenospermia.
At this thought, Bai Fei Wan looked at Ziyu. “Ziyu, what does the Prince look like? Is he physically strong?”
Ziyu recalled the Prince’s appearance. “Replying to Master, His Highness is very handsome. It’s said that among all the imperial sons and grandsons, he is the most handsome. Many noble ladies in Jingdu secretly admire him.
“His Highness has practiced martial arts since he was young. He went to the military barracks at thirteen and led the grand army to repel the Northern Di in a series of defeats at sixteen. So, His Highness’s body should be very strong.”
If he was physically strong yet had difficulty siring children, then it was highly likely asthenospermia.
“What about the other princes? Tell me what you know, just a simple overview. I wasn’t in Jingdu before, so I’m not very familiar with these things.”
Seeing that her master truly knew nothing, Ziyu shared the simple facts she knew. “The current Emperor has nine sons and seven daughters.
“Our Prince is the ninth prince, born to Noble Consort Chen.
“His Highness the Crown Prince was born to the Empress.
“The second prince was born to Shen Gui Fei, but he passed away at birth. The third prince was born to Shen Guiren and is now raised under Shen Gui Fei’s name. He has been enfeoffed as Prince Heng.
“The fourth prince was born to Liu Xianfei and has been enfeoffed as Prince Rui. Prince Rui also has a full-blooded younger sister, the fifth princess, who has been enfeoffed as Yongning Gongzhu.”
…Ziyu was still talking.
But Bai Fei Wan could no longer listen. She felt that everything Ziyu was saying was incredibly familiar. Had she heard it somewhere before? That shouldn’t be possible; she had never concerned herself with imperial affairs before.
As for Jin Wang, she had only sent people to inquire about him after becoming his concubine, and one couldn’t find out much about imperial matters from the outside.
So where did this damnable sense of familiarity come from? Jin Wang, Prince Heng, Virtuous Consort, Prince Rui, Yongning Gongzhu.
Ah!
Wasn’t this a novel she had read on the passenger tablet provided on the plane when she went to Tibet to see the snow-capped mountains? She had opened it out of boredom.
Thinking of this, Bai Fei Wan grabbed Ziyu’s hand. “What is Prince Rui’s name? How many sons does he have, and what are their names?”
Faced with this barrage of questions, Ziyu didn’t quite understand why her master was suddenly so interested in Prince Rui’s affairs, but she still answered, “Prince Rui’s name is Xiao Xingjian. He currently has five sons. The eldest imperial grandson is the heir apparent, Xiao Chenghong. The others are, in order, Xiao Chengming, Xiao Chenglin, Xiao Chenghao, and Xiao Chengyu.”
“That’s it, it all matches,” Bai Fei Wan murmured.
Ziyu watched her master muttering to herself. “Master, what did you say?”
Coming back to her senses, Bai Fei Wan said, “It’s nothing. I understand now. There’s nothing else for me here, Ziyu, you can go attend to your duties.”
Seeing that her master truly had no other needs, Ziyu took her leave.
To think she had actually transmigrated into a novel. No, she had to go back to her room and sort this out properly. “Zi Zhu, you go about your business too. I’m going back to my room to rest. Tell everyone not to disturb me unless it’s important. As for what was just said, just keep it to yourself and don’t spread it around.” With that, she turned and went back to her room.
Back in her room, Bai Fei Wan took out the charcoal pencil she had made and began to sketch out the character relationships from the novel she had read on a piece of paper.
The novel was called “The Concubine’s Unfading Favor in Stratagems.” The male lead was Prince Rui’s fifth son, Xiao Chengyu. Prince Rui had bided his time, reaping the rewards as his elder imperial brothers fought for the throne, and eventually seized the emperorship for himself. His sons then began their own struggle for succession.
The female lead was Lin Wanrou, the legitimate daughter of Pingyuan Hou. In her previous life, because she was in love with the youngest legitimate grandson of the Prime Minister’s residence, Ye Siyuan, she married into the Prime Minister’s mansion and began her tragic life.
After Pingyuan Hou’s family helped Ye Siyuan assist the Crown Prince in ascending the throne, they were betrayed and framed, leading to the execution of the entire Pingyuan Hou household.
Meanwhile, she was locked in a secret chamber in the scumbag and his vile woman’s bedroom, forced to watch them be lovey-dovey every day. Ye Siyuan even allowed Xu Wen to torture her until she miscarried at five months pregnant, preventing her from taking her own life.
They tormented her daily, claiming that because of her, they, who were in love, had to be separated for so long, so she deserved to suffer.
It turned out that Ye Siyuan had long been involved with his cousin, Xu Wen. They only needed the military power in Pingyuan Hou’s hands to aid their rebellion, so they had schemed for her to fall in love with Ye Siyuan and marry him. In the end, they blamed her for it all.
After being tortured by them for five years, her body finally gave out, and she was at last able to find release.
Unexpectedly, she was reborn after death, returning to the moment just after the scumbag had staged a “hero saving the damsel” act, when she was just beginning to develop feelings for him. There was still time to change everything.
She wanted revenge. With her foreknowledge from her past life, she knew that the third prince, Prince Heng, was cruel and inhumane, and that General Shen behind him was also wildly ambitious. The Emperor would not let him inherit the throne.
The Emperor most wanted to pass the throne to the ninth prince, Jin Wang, but Jin Wang’s consistent lack of an heir ultimately cost him the throne.
So, after her rebirth, the female lead chose Prince Rui’s faction to help her get revenge. In her past life, if the Crown Prince hadn’t rebelled, the Emperor had intended for Prince Rui to succeed him.
Perhaps the Ye family had also seen the Emperor’s intentions, knowing that the Crown Prince was mediocre and intolerant, unsuitable to be a monarch. That was why they wanted to use the Pingyuan Hou’s military power to rebel.
In her past life, she had feigned illness to avoid this year’s Imperial Harem Draft because of her love for Ye Siyuan.
Seeing how the powerful and influential could fearlessly refuse to participate in the draft, while she would implicate her family if she didn’t go… the comparison was truly infuriating.
After her rebirth, she participated in the draft. Prince Rui was too old; she wanted to marry Prince Rui’s fifth son, Xiao Chengyu.
This was because in her past life, it was only after the Crown Prince was brought down that Prince Rui began to show his true capabilities. Moreover, the imperial grandson Xiao Chengyu was brilliant, and the Emperor regarded him highly, which in turn made him even more pleased with Prince Rui.
After becoming Xiao Chengyu’s side consort, she used her foreknowledge to help Prince Rui ascend the throne smoothly.
Then, she joined forces with Xiao Chengyu to help him claim the throne, becoming his Noble Consort. The novel was very long, and she hadn’t had time to finish it during the five-hour flight, but judging by the title, it was surely a story of the two of them holding high positions and being deeply in love. Besides, the novel was still being serialized.
She remembered that after Lin Wanrou became the Noble Consort, she would reminisce about the past and feel great pity for the ninth prince, Jin Wang. He clearly had the talent to govern the world, yet in both lifetimes, he was not tolerated by his imperial brothers.
The Emperor favored Jin Wang the most. Although he couldn’t pass the throne to him, he gave him half of the nation’s military power to protect him and Noble Consort Chen.
But the Emperor had underestimated the hatred the other princes held for Jin Wang and Noble Consort Chen. With military power in his hands, Jin Wang was not an easy target. To kill him, both the former Crown Prince and Prince Rui, after he took the throne, colluded with the Western Rong, sending Jin Wang to battle and working with the enemy from within to assassinate him.
Moreover, she had accidentally overheard a conversation between Virtuous Consort and Prince Rui. Jin Wang’s difficulty in siring children was because the Empress, Shen Gui Fei, and Liu Xianfei had all poisoned him. Although the Emperor had summoned a divine physician to cure him, saving his life, it would be difficult for him to have children in the future.
Heavens, what kind of death script had she transmigrated into? No matter which prince ascended the throne, none of them would tolerate Jin Wang. That meant that all of them, the family members in the prince’s mansion and their families back home, would have to die.
Her family was so good, yet they were still going to be implicated by her? If she had known, she would have faked her death.
Now that she was in the prince’s mansion, as an ordinary commoner, there was nothing she could do.
Should she try to use her beauty to seduce the Prince into fighting for the throne? He could adopt an heir from the imperial clan if he had no children. The priority was to stay alive.
That didn’t seem very feasible either. According to Ziyu, the Prince rarely visited the rear courtyard, so he probably wasn’t a man whose judgment was clouded by lust.
Sigh, forget it. There were still seven years until Prince Rui’s ascension. She would take it one step at a time. If things went south, she could try to escape during the chaos of their struggle for the throne.
Having thought things through, Bai Fei Wan stopped agonizing. She gathered all the papers she had been scribbling on and burned them.