On a heavy frost-laden night in October, as the east revealed its first light, the land of Qizhou was biting cold. Scarcely had the roosters crowed when the clear sound of reading could be heard from the household at the edge of Zaoyu Village, three li west of Dongxi Zhen, under the jurisdiction of Chiling Xian.
It was a square courtyard house with blue bricks and gray tiles. In the eastern side room of the main house, a girl named Ji An frowned at the noise. Tossing and turning, she eventually gave a light sigh, unable to escape the sound. she opened a pair of bleary, tear-filled eyes.
Did no one in the private school teach them silent reading?
As the rhythmic chants of “zhi” and “hu” burst into her ears, each louder than the last, Ji An gave up the struggle and decided not to sleep any longer. She took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and slowly exhaled.
She let out two consecutive yawns, her eyes welling with more tears. Rubbing her face with her hands, she wrapped herself tightly in the quilt and rolled twice on the kang. After a moment of silence, she resigned herself to fate and sat up.
Her thin nightgown was loose at the collar, faintly revealing her delicate and well-defined collarbones. Pulling a warm short jacket from the covers, Ji An draped it over her shoulders. She lifted the bed curtains and leaned against the headboard, quilt pulled close, quietly watching the pale light appearing outside the window.
Yesterday was her thirteenth birthday. Aunt Wang Er from the north of the village had come by with a small basket of eggs, using the excuse of celebrating her birthday to pull her mother aside for a long talk.
This Aunt Wang Er was a well-known midwife in the surrounding ten miles. Thirteen years ago, she was the one who had delivered Ji An for Ji Mengshi. She was a respectable person, only a bit biased toward her own maiden family.
When the two were talking in the inner room, Ji An had been just on the other side of the wall. Aunt Wang Er had mentioned her eldest nephew, who worked as a runner at the county yamen, praising him to the skies.
Her mother had agreed readily, calling him a young talent, but she simply would not take the bait. In the end, she accepted the eggs and returned a gift.
Ji An slightly narrowed her bright peach blossom eyes and pressed her cherry-red lips together in a bitter smile. Time flew; before she knew it, she was already thirteen.
In ancient times, a thirteen-year-old girl was of an age to discuss marriage. While she expected this, she still felt a start in her heart. Strangely enough, she had dreamt of her again last night.
The original Ji An.
The last time she had dreamt of her was when she was three years old. She remembered that during the day, she had been wondering: since she had come here through Taichuan, where had the original Ji An been reborn?
Unexpectedly, after falling asleep that night, a chubby girl who looked eighty percent like her appeared in her dream, wearing a very familiar kindergarten uniform.
The original soul had become Ji An’an, born in Taian in the 21st century—essentially, her own previous life.
Last night, Ji An’an had entered the dream carrying a bundle of “Three-Good Student” certificates and various honors.
Ji An flipped through them one by one, her eyes brimming with hot tears.
This time, “Ji An’an” was no longer the worst of the slackers. Her parents—Professor Ji and Doctor An—could finally relax a bit, no longer needing to rack their brains to scrape together money to build an estate for their slacker daughter.
Ji An told Ji An’an about Aunt Wang Er trying to matchmake for her. Ji An’an told her not to worry, saying that next year was the year of the Xiangshi, and until then, her mother would not settle a marriage for her only daughter.
She was well aware of this, of course. Not only that, Ji An also knew that her scheming third brother would become a Zhongju next year.
Though the two hadn’t met in ten years, they talked about everything like the closest of old friends. It was only a pity the dream was too brief.
Ji An’an was also a Taichuan, and she deeply admired her highly educated parents. She cherished everything she had gained in her second life and had sworn at the age of three to one day stand in the “Imperial Court” alongside men.
That bundle of certificates and honors proved she had been working hard for her dream for ten years. With her there, Ji An was not worried about her parents from her previous life.
Ji An also told her to be at ease, promising she would treat her parents in this life well.
When it was time to part, Ji An’an looked troubled. After hesitating, she offered a piece of advice: read fewer books when there’s nothing to do.
She said the ritual system of the Dajing Chao was harsh, especially for women, and the constraints were heavy. As a weak woman, Ji An must never rely on the strange knowledge in her head to give rise to delusions or challenge the feudal social order.
She was truly overthinking it. Ji An nodded repeatedly and solemnly swore to her that she would absolutely follow the mantra that a woman’s lack of talent is a virtue. She would obey the Three Obediences—to her father at home, her husband after marriage, and her son after her husband’s death—as well as the orders of parents and the words of matchmakers.
Naturally, she also urged Ji An’an to study hard and make progress every day.
Knowing each other was well, they parted easily despite the lingering attachment. They did not mention their respective past lives, only silently wishing each other the best.
After savoring the dream, Ji An suddenly found it funny.
The life of Ji An in the farming and studying novel The Splendid Rebirth of Xinran and her own life in the 21st century seemed to have been swapped from the start.
Yes, she had undergone Chuanshu.
The original Ji An’an in the 21st century—that is, herself—was born into a family of high-level intellectuals. Her father was a mathematics professor at a 985 university, and her mother researched molecular mechanics. Such a high-IQ couple had somehow produced a beautiful slacker.
She worked hard at her studies, but she just couldn’t learn. She was the typical case of “understanding everything in class but failing every question on the test.”
Under her parents’ painstaking guidance, she barely managed to get into a bottom-tier undergraduate college. She thought she was finally free, only to be assigned to a Public Service Management major.
Who could tell her why such an indistinct-sounding major required Advanced Mathematics? More importantly, Advanced Mathematics was a core requirement.
In four years of university and eight semesters, she had taken the makeup exam for Advanced Mathematics four times and failed every single one. The professor teaching the course was her father’s student. She had considered going through the back door but feared ruining her father’s lifelong reputation. In the end, she died of exhaustion on the way to her fifth makeup exam.
As for the Ji An in The Splendid Rebirth of Xinran, news of good fortune arrived the very day she was born: her third brother, Ji Yan, placed twenty-second in the Qizhou Fu Yuanshi and became a Xiucai.
This overjoyed the couple Ji Zhongming and Ji Mengshi. Since Ji An was a daughter born late in their lives and was associated with “good fortune,” they doted on her even more. Compared to the female lead, Ji Xinran, who was born two days later, they were worlds apart.
Ji An had three older brothers—Ji Cheng, Ji Yu, and Ji Yan—all of whom were scholars. In terms of talent, Ji Yan was undoubtedly the best; he was the father of the female lead, Ji Xinran.
However, while Ji Yan was the most capable scholar, he was not the most favored son in front of the Ji elders. To be more precise, he had once been the one the Ji elders pinned their highest hopes on, but he had fallen from favor after insisting on marrying Huangshi Yanshu.
Huangshi, the second daughter of the manager of the Xianke Shusi on the west street of Dongxi Zhen, had been immersed in books since childhood and loved literature and refined speech. Her looks were elegant but not stunning; however, she had somehow learned a “knitted-brow” habit. Though her body was healthy, she wore a miserable expression all day long, her eyes constantly brimming with water, looking the very picture of melancholy.
The Huang family in town was well-off, but not to the point of employing servants.
The Ji family was a “farming and studying” household with a hundred mu of fertile land and two shops, all saved bit by bit by the Ji elders through their frugality.
With family members pursuing the imperial examinations, the matriarch Ji Mengshi did not dare misspend a single copper. Whenever she had a spare moment, she sat at her embroidery frame, her needle flying. Naturally, she would not buy people to serve the household.
After Huangshi married into the Ji family, she was expected to manage household chores after half a month, just like the eldest sister-in-law Zhushi and the second sister-in-law Hongshi. Her constant brow-knitting and weeping put Ji Mengshi at the center of gossip in Zaoyu Village.
Ji Mengshi had grown up in the Qianxiu Xiufang of Chiling Xian. She was quick-handed, sharp-eyed, and had a sweet tongue, making her a favorite of the old embroiderers. She was determined to learn; though the old embroiderers didn’t intentionally teach her, they didn’t hide their work from her either. Through long-term exposure, she actually managed to grasp the essence of Suxiu.
After marrying Ji Zhongming at sixteen, she never lacked for good work or earnings thanks to her skills and the connections she had built at the embroidery workshop.
When Ji Zhongming was twenty-five, he passed the exams to become a Xiucai. Having become a Xiucai’s wife, Ji Mengshi became extremely concerned with her reputation and maintained it carefully for over a decade.
Huangshi’s behavior made her blood boil. At first, she suppressed her anger and called Huangshi to her side to teach her the family rules for a few days.
But Huangshi was incorrigible. Seeing the rumors outside spreading like wildfire while her youngest son refused to say a harsh word to Huangshi, Ji Mengshi grew to detest this youngest daughter-in-law even more.
Over time, friction was inevitable.
After Ji An was born, Ji Mengshi kept her by her side, teaching her to identify and hold needles at the age of two. Ji Zhongming also adored his only daughter, personally teaching her to recognize characters and hold a brush whenever he had time.
In the book, Ji An knew a thousand characters by age six and could recite the Three Character Classic, the Thousand Character Classic, and Standards for Being a Good Pupil and Child backwards. Ji Zhongming sighed more than once, lamenting that Ji An was not a boy.
Ji An was eager to learn, and Ji Zhongming doted on her even more, allowing her free access to the study, the most important place in the house. When she was fourteen, her third brother Ji Yan became a Zhongju.
After the celebratory banquet, Ji Yan proposed taking Huangshi and their three children to live in Qizhou Fu. Ji Mengshi could no longer contain her rage and cursed Huangshi in front of the whole family for being a manipulative fox.
Huangshi and her daughter—the reborn female lead Ji Xinran—wept piteously. Seeing his wife and daughter like this, Ji Yan’s resolve hardened, and he even risked his reputation to demand a family split.
From then on, there was no peace in the Ji family until Ji Yan got his wish and the family was divided.
Ji An’s marriage was a connection intentionally made by Ji Yan. She was to marry Tan Dong, the youngest son of the Qizhou Zhizhou. The Tan family had originally wanted to betroth Ji Yan’s own daughter, Ji Xinran, and the original Ji Xinran had indeed married Tan Dong.
But after her rebirth, Ji Xinran carefully orchestrated the family split. As she wished, she took her mother and two younger brothers to live at Sanlin Shuyuan with her father, Ji Yan.
At Sanlin Shuyuan, she met the male lead, Zhan Yunhe. When the Tan family expressed interest in a marriage alliance, Ji Yan and the Zhan family had already made a verbal agreement regarding their children’s marriage. Thus, the opportunity fell to Ji An.
Ji Mengshi was reluctant about this marriage. Because Tan Dong’s first wife had passed away, leaving behind a son and a daughter, Ji An would enter the household as a step-wife, and her future children would be of lower status.
However, Ji Yan repeatedly emphasized that Tan Dong acted with integrity, was quick-witted and eager to learn, and had the support of his father and brothers, ensuring he would eventually rise in the world.
Though Ji An was beautiful, her family background was what it was; marrying Tan Dong was a stroke of good fortune. Ji Zhongming weighed the options repeatedly, and though his heart was full of reluctance, considering his daughter’s situation, he eventually agreed to the marriage.
But Ji Yan had misjudged the man. Tan Dong was indeed upright in his conduct, but he was extremely pedantic. Ji An was beautiful and learned, with a mind of her own—traits that he disliked immensely.
With her extensive knowledge, Ji An was proud and could not bring herself to bow and scrape to please others. The couple drifted apart, and mutual resentment grew. Under Tan Dong’s intentional neglect, no one in the Tan family respected Ji An, and she died of melancholy within a few years.
After Ji An’s death, Ji Zhongming fell gravely ill and soon followed her. Having lost all her hope, Ji Mengshi cast aside all restraint and turned completely against her youngest son Ji Yan, who had already become an official. She went so far as to sue Ji Yan before his superior on the grounds of unfilial piety.
The Dajing Chao placed immense importance on filial piety and brotherly duty. How could Ji Yan fare well after being sued by his own mother?
However, thanks to the mediation of Ji Xinran’s husband, Zhan Yunhe, who was then serving as the Libu Zhushi, he escaped severe punishment. A few years after finishing his mourning period, he was promoted exceptionally under Zhan Yunhe’s management.
As for Ji Mengshi, the biased and muddled “wicked mother-in-law” of the book, she naturally did not meet a peaceful end.