If only from the perspective of personal achievement, the original self was undoubtedly successful.
Born in a humble family, he became the youngest number one scholar since the Jin Dynasty’s founding. He won the princess’ favor and became the emperor’s son-in-law of the Jin Dynasty because of his handsome appearance.
He was born slightly poor and knew what the people needed. When he was a regional official, he had the best political performance, also the most loved and respected official by the local people. It was from the compilation of the sixth-rank Imperial Hanlin Academy to the five-rank senior provincial government official, from the fourth-rank prefectural magistrate to the fourth-rank lacking marble high ranking official who transferred back to the capital city.
Others needed to spend more than ten years or even a lifetime on the road to promotion, but he only spent six short years, and among them, he had his own efforts and was inseparable from his identity as the emperor’s son-in-law.
His official career was successful, and he also had a lovely wife and daughter in his family. Apart from the honorable princess status, even if he was a husband and wife, he still had to be courteous to his princess, but he had almost no worries.
Except for one thing, the secret he tried to hide.
The original self had a wife, and that wife was not the current princess, but before he passed the examination as Xiucai56Xiucaia person who has passed the county-level imperial exam when he was only nine years old, the family appointed Fu Zhenzhen as his child bride.
If the original self and Fu Zhenzhen did not actually hold a wedding, they had a marriage deed. The other party fled the whole journey after a disaster in her hometown. Her parents died of illness on the way, and her only older brother also separated from her. She was sold to the Yan family by her aunt for the price of a bag of long-lived grain.
At that time, the Yan family was worried about the marriage of their eldest grandson Yan Duan. The seventeen-year-old Yan Duan was still just a child, and he could continue to read books, but the marriage really could not be delayed.
The elderly lady went to great pains to show her beloved eldest grandson, a daughter of a poor Xiucai’s family. The other lion opened her mouth and asked for thirty Liang just for the bride price. Ten taels of silver were secretly taken from her husband’s family by Yan Mudan.
At that time, the original self had not taken the test, and everyone did not know that he would have such an achievement in the future. The elderly lady was always biased. Although she treated the original self, her grandson, well, it was far worse than the eldest grandson of the main branch.
She was afraid that she would marry the daughter of the Xiucai family to her grandson. When the younger grandson grew up in the future, the second family was also arguing about it. On the way to the county to buy red silk cloth for the wedding, she got stopped by Fu Zhenzhen’s aunt. She saw that the little girl had a good appearance and was greedy for Fu Zhenzhen’s low price. She led her back home on impulse.
It was not long after she finished this stupid thing that Yan née Jiang regretted it. But the grain had already given, and the words had also spoken. For a moment, the elderly lady did not know how to accomplish it, especially after this little grandson was stronger than the eldest grandson. At the age of 12, he passed the county, the government, and the provincial imperial examinations in one breath became the youngest Xiucai in the local area.
Fu Zhenzhen, who was brought into the house as a child bride, acted more like a little maid in the following days. Since the original self became Xiucai, others no longer said that she was a child bride. After all, in the eyes of outsiders, such two people were no longer compatible.
She was very grateful to the Yan family. At least they gave her a full meal during the famine years so that she did not starve to death. So no matter what the Yan family did to her, with what kind of identity to treat her, Fu Zhenzhen did not complain.
Even if she indeed liked the original self, but because the Yan family suddenly changed their attitude, she endured the sadness and kept her distance from the other.
However, the mishap still existed. The night before the original self, who already became Juren57Jurena successful candidate in the imperial provincial examination, was about to go to the capital to participate in the imperial civil service examination, so perhaps he was confused and feeling enthusiastic. After the farewell banquet held for him by the Yan family, they laid on the same bed and did everything they should not do. They got caught by several older brothers and sisters in the big room.
Fortunately, only the family knew about this matter, and the people outside did not even know it.
The original self did not know how he left home. He knew that his family would not agree with Fu Zhenzhen to marry him. In the Yan family’s opinion, he who already became Juren had a promising future. It was appropriate to marry an official’s daughter. One of them was the cloud in the sky, and the other was the mud in the ground. They did not match at all. They would not do too much toward Fu Zhenzhen, but they told Fu Zhenzhen to recognize her identity so that she should not try to cling to their Yan family’s most outstanding child in a vain attempt to show her love overnight. That was for sure.
As for what happened after he entered Beijing, everyone also knew.
A curious coincidence, when the emperor asked him if he had a wife, the original self shook his head, and then he got married. He also became the emperor’s son-in-law of the Jin Dynasty and had a prosperous official career.
He tried his best to conceal this past. He was afraid that his family members would leak it and gave them a lot of gold and silver jewelry but forbade them to visit him in the capital, including his older sisters, who had once given him heart and lung. He was unwilling to meet them.
But the paper could not contain the fire. No matter how perfect a lie was, it would be exposed sooner or later.
The original self did not know, and it turned out, that night when Fu Zhenzhen was pregnant with his child. The Yan family might have all kinds of problems, but they were definitely not the kind of cruel people. In the face of Fu Zhenzhen and the descendant of the Yan family in her belly, no one thought of killing the child in it.
They sent Fu Zhenzhen to the county and asked Yan Mudan to take care of her. There were few of the Yan family’s acquaintances.
The day that the news of the original self married the princess was also the day when Fu Zhenzhen gave birth to his son, Yan Yujun.
The grandson married the princess, but Fu Zhenzhen gave birth to a grandchild. If this news spread, it was a crime of deceiving the emperor, and the whole family was going to behead. The Yan family was afraid. Without Fu Zhenzhen’s consent, she was directly registered under Yan Duan’s household registration, becoming Yan Duan’s concubine. And the child she gave birth to for the original self became Yan Duan’s concubine-born.
When the original self got the news, everything had settled.
He was a little easy to Fu Zhenzhen, but those friendships could not compare with the glory and wealth, so he chose to agree tacitly and gave Yan Duan many benefits, let him keep this secret forever.
People were greedy. Yan Duan was the most valued child of the Yan family since he was a child. He was proud and arrogant. When he got forced to be a scholar, his cousin next door became the top scorer in the palace examination and married a noble princess. Said no more the gap in Yan Duan’s heart.
He envied the original self, yet he could not do anything to the original self. Even if he wanted a superior life, he had to flatter the original self, so he vented his anger on Fu Zhenzhen, and the rest of the Yan family part indeed did not know, part pretended not to know. Fu Zhenzhen suffered humiliation and torture. She never thought that she could be in hell while alive.
She wanted to die, but Yan Duan threatened her with her child. She could only live in pain and humiliation until she could not survive any longer because the wound on her body was rotted and festered, and there was no timely treatment. In the best years for a woman, she died.
Yan Duan was a little panicked when he saw that Fu Zhenzhen was dead. He hastily buried Fu Zhenzhen on the grounds of sudden malaria and bribed all insiders, letting them hold the secret to the original self.
No one knows that Fu Zhenzhen’s elder brother, who had been separated for many years, would actually come to the door. And the other party was indeed the guerrilla general who defeated the Tuyou people in the north, the significant man in front of the current emperor.
The Yan family’s affairs were concealed tightly. But it was not impossible to find out if someone wanted to investigate.
His younger sister died so unjustly that Fu Yugui risked the world’s heinous crime and chose to open the coffin. At that time, it was not long before Fu Zhenzhen got buried. He witnessed the deep and shallow scars on his younger sister, and his guilt and resentment reached the peak.
What the original self had concealed was quickly exposed. The Jin Dynasty folkways were open-minded, and it was not unusual for a princess to remarry. The princess was merely infatuated with his outer appearance. After a long time, one was a beautiful girl raised by Jin Zunyu, and the other was a farmer who had to do farm work since childhood. A peasant whose copper coin wishing to become some flowers, no matter how good the original self concealed it, the “rusticness” that his peasant-part gave could not be hidden.
The proud princess was bored with him, and naturally, she wanted to make an excuse to divorce him and took away their little princess.
In the second year after he left, the princess married the newly third-ranked Jinshi59Jinshia successful candidate in the highest imperial civil service examination, who was as handsome and outstanding as he was. The princess did not hide her superficial love as always.
As for their daughter, the Empress Dowager took pity on her and brought her up by herself.
The original self did deceive the emperor in front of the palace and concealed his marriage. Even before he married the princess, he had an illegitimate son. He got deprived of fame. The Yan family’s three generations got sentenced to exile. Yan Duan, who killed Fu Zhenzhen, came to the worst end. On the way to expulsion, he was killed by wild wolves in the forest.
The client of this mission was Fu Zhenzhen’s son. When the Yan family was exiled, as the original self’s son, he should have been in it, but Fu Yugui was a minister who had given outstanding service. Although Yan Yujun was a descendant of the Yan family, he was also Fu Yugui’s only relative.
After the Yan family accident, Yan Yujun got renamed Fu Yujun. Fu Yugui was his nephew, and to redeem his sins of failing to find his sister to protect her in time. He never married all his life. He often chatted with his nephew about his mother and told him how beautiful and gentle she was.
Fu Yujun was full of expectations for his mother. He had two wishes. The first was to hope that her mother could live and find someone who truly loved her.
The second was that he felt that the original self did not receive enough lessons and retribution. Because in the previous life, although the other party was a sinner, he was still the princess’ former husband, and there was also a daughter who got granted the title of a princess and relatives in Fan Country. He was worried about the diplomatic relations between the two countries. In the end, he had a happy ending, which was unfair.
The former was honestly simple, but the latter was-
Yan Chu could not understand. Now he was the scumbag. Should he punish himself?
Since he already came, Yan Chu looked at his small arms and legs, not thinking about that complicated issue for the time being.
“Mother, Second Treasure is about the same age. When Big Treasure was his age, he got praised by those masters. Second Treasure is Big Treasure’s little brother. No matter what, he won’t be worse than Big Treasure. Should you and Father send Second Treasure to study?”
“It’s not that Mother doesn’t want to give it away. It’s just that it’s hard enough to provide Big Treasure. Besides, you forget that Little Treasure is as old as Second Treasure. It doesn’t make sense that both of your elder brother’s children have gone to school. If you do this, your second brother’s family won’t support you anymore. No matter how honest he is, he’s going to fight with me.”
“Second Brother is so stupid, and Little Treasure is his son. Can he still study well?” The young female voice was quite disdainful.
When Yan Chu followed his eldest sister into the house, he heard the conversation between his aunt and grandmother.
Looking at the second branch’s siblings coming in like this, and perhaps hearing their conversation just now, Yan Mudan’s face was a little red. Looking at his little nephew’s penetrating eyes, she was embarrassed.
“Meihua, you’ve just come back from cutting fish wort. You’re a sensible child. Here, the cake Aunt bought for you. Take it to the sweet mouth.”
With a stiff smile, Yan Mudan took out two cakes from the exquisite box on her side. The cakes were not much bigger than the fingernail, and she handed them to the two siblings, one for each, and then tightly closed the box again.
“Grandma, Aunt, I just heard you talk about studying. Little Treasure’s getting old this year, and it’s this year’s commemorative book that Eldest Cousin got back then.”
Yan Meihua spoke softly, and her eyes were bright and sullen. Yan Mudan felt a little hairy in her heart. After all, she just said that her second brother’s family were all idiots, and this second niece talked about learning at this juncture. Wasn’t that slapping her face?
But Yan Mudan thought again. There was nothing wrong with what she said. The eldest brother was smart, so his child was too, and the second brother was an idiot, so naturally, his child was also stupid.
Although this little nephew Yan Chu had the best appearance, it was not a matter of looking at his face when writing articles. It did not mean anything being good-looking. And she was an elder, so it made no sense that she should be afraid of the two children in front of her.
