Chapter 1
Chapter 1
The early-summer sunset spread across half the sky.
In the cornfields of Sanjiacun…
Low moans drifted, broken and intermittent, into Jin Bao’s little ears.
The tiny girl paced back and forth outside the cornfield, her dirty little face twisted in distress.
Every now and then, she would peek inside and sneak a glance toward the place where the sounds were coming from.
“Auntie may not be nice to me. She doesn’t let me eat, and she makes me do lots and lots of work, but she’s still my auntie.”
“Right. I can’t let Auntie get bullied.”
Listening as the moans from inside the cornfield grew louder and louder, Jin Bao put on a look of heroic resolve. She clenched her little fists to cheer herself on, then charged into the cornfield without hesitation.
The first thing she saw was two pale bodies tangled together.
“Let go of Jin Bao’s auntie, or Baby won’t be polite!”
The illicit pair inside were so startled by the sudden appearance of the little girl that they sprang apart at once.
The man stared at the dirty little girl holding up a firecracker.
“You little bastard! You scared me so badly I went soft! I’ll skin you alive today!”
Seeing the man reach out to grab her, Jin Bao panicked. She hurriedly lit the firecracker in her hand and threw it at him.
By sheer coincidence, it landed right in the crotch of the pants he had only managed to pull up halfway.
“Boom-”
The loud crack of the exploding firecracker, mixed with the man’s shrill scream, drew quite a few villagers working nearby.
Realizing she had caused a huge disaster, Jin Bao’s little face went deathly pale. She turned and ran.
“Oh no, oh no! Jin Bao killed someone!”
“You little brat! Stop right there!”
Aunt Liu, who had hastily thrown on her clothes, had no time to care about her lover. She chased after Jin Bao with everything she had.
In her previous life, Jin Bao had been a little zombie king, so she could run incredibly fast.
As she ran, she even turned her little head and begged Aunt Liu for mercy.
“Auntie, Jin Bao was wrong! Please stop chasing Baby, okay? Next time Baby won’t save you! I’ll let Uncle save you!”
At that, Aunt Liu’s legs nearly gave out, almost sending her sprawling face-first into the dirt.
Her face turned livid. This little bastard really couldn’t be allowed to live. Today, she had to get rid of her.
Aunt Liu looked at the tiny black dot disappearing in the distance, and her expression darkened even more. Couldn’t she at least run a little slower?
Who knew what this brat had eaten? Every time Aunt Liu tried to beat her, she ran like the wind. Back when she couldn’t even walk yet, she had crawled all over the courtyard faster than a dog, always staying just out of reach.
After she learned to walk, it got even worse. She ran all over the village, letting everyone know that Aunt Liu, her aunt by marriage, was abusing her.
What made Aunt Liu even angrier was that she simply couldn’t catch her.
Usually, that was one thing. But today, she had to catch her and kill that little brat.
Three years ago, Aunt Liu and her husband had been gathering firewood in the mountains when they happened upon a woman holding an infant.
The woman was on her last breath. Before she died, she entrusted Jin Bao to the couple and even gave them one hundred taels of silver as a fee for raising the child.
The woman had also been afraid the couple would abuse the child, so she left herself a safeguard.
She told them that if they raised the child to adulthood, then brought the jade pendant and the child to Quanfu Restaurant in the capital, they would receive a large sum of money.
The couple had never seen that much silver before and agreed on the spot.
At first, they did raise Jin Bao with care, keeping her plump and fair. Whenever they met anyone, they said she was the orphaned child of a distant relative, earning themselves a good reputation in the village.
Later, however, they discovered that the woman had been lying to them.
They had gone to Quanfu Restaurant to ask around, but the people there had never even heard of anyone like that. They even threw the couple out. Only then did the two realize what had happened.
From then on, they abused Jin Bao every day, giving her only one meal a day, just enough to keep her alive.
The only reason Jin Bao had survived this long was because the villagers had taken pity on her and fed her now and then.
By the time Aunt Liu chased her all the way to the official road, she could no longer even see Jin Bao’s back. Exhausted, she collapsed onto the ground.
On the official road, inside a low-key yet luxurious carriage, sat two women.
One was graceful and richly dressed, with an extraordinary bearing, though her brows were heavy with anxiety and gloom.
The other had a calm expression, her brows and eyes filled with respect.
“Nanny, when do you think the noble person the Master spoke of will appear? Could our carriage have gone too fast and missed them?”
The noblewoman was Pei Wanqing, the mistress in charge of the Mansion of the Marquis of Loyalty and Bravery.
Lately, she had always felt uneasy, and at night she was plagued by nightmares.
Ever since two years ago, when the marquis Xiao Che returned to court in triumph after a great victory over the Southwest Yue Kingdom…
Not long after, the Marquis’s Mansion had begun to decline.
First, the Old Madam inexplicably fell into a coma and would not wake. Then the Marchioness, three months pregnant, suddenly miscarried.
After that, the marquis’s old injury relapsed, leaving him unable to stand on his legs.
On the surface, the Emperor summoned many imperial physicians to treat the marquis’s legs, but the moment he turned around, he stripped the marquis of his military power.
The Heir Apparent was plagued by misfortune as well. He could bump his head getting into a carriage, nearly have his skull smashed by a falling flowerpot while walking down the street, and even get something stuck in his teeth while drinking cold water.
The second young master had once been clever and quick-witted, preparing to take the imperial examinations and become a civil official, but he suddenly grew muddleheaded.
All day long, he had no heart for studying. Even if he did read, he could not remember a thing.
The third young master was mischievous and unruly, and he suffered the most for it. He was always breaking bones for no reason.
He had only sprained his foot last month, and just yesterday Madam had finally let him out again.
In a mere two years, the noble family that had enjoyed a century of inherited glory had lost all its former splendor. Now, it was already a gravely ill giant on the verge of collapse.
Recently, Pei Wanqing had been plagued by nightmares. Her mind was often in a daze, and though she was only in her thirties, silver strands had already appeared at her temples.
Nanny Chen heard that Master Huiyuan, who spent most of the year traveling as an itinerant monk, had recently been lecturing on scripture at Fahua Temple.
So she suggested that her mistress visit Fahua Temple to offer incense and ask Master Huiyuan for a divination while they were there.
Who would have thought that Master Huiyuan would take one look at Madam and say only one thing?
“Madam, please return. All conditioned things arise from the convergence of causes and conditions. When conditions gather, they arise; when conditions end, they return to nothing. That is all there is to it. Madam, your benefactor is on the road.”
“Madam, the Master said to let everything follow its natural course. Our carriage is already moving very slowly.”
Nanny Chen glanced out the window and replied respectfully in a low voice.
It usually took an hour to return to the capital from Fahua Temple. Today, however, their carriage had been traveling for an hour and had not even covered half the distance.
This old woman’s own legs would be faster than this carriage.
Pei Wanqing lowered her eyes, hiding the anxiety in them, then suddenly looked up at Nanny Chen again.
“Nanny, it must be because we’re moving too slowly. Perhaps we’ve already missed my benefactor.”
Nanny Chen felt that Madam’s words were not without reason, so she raised her voice and instructed the driver outside, “Uncle Zhou, drive the carriage faster.”
“Right away.”
Uncle Zhou lifted the long whip in his hand, and the horse instantly broke into a trot. Dust billowed across the official road.
“Whoa-”
As Uncle Zhou urgently reined in the galloping horse, the two people inside the carriage nearly tumbled into a heap.
Pei Wanqing grabbed the carriage seat with one hand while Nanny Chen supported her other arm. Only then did she barely avoid being thrown out.
“Uncle Zhou, what are you doing? You nearly injured Madam.”
Nanny Chen’s face was full of anger as she sharply scolded him.
Uncle Zhou’s panicked voice drifted in from outside.
“Madam, there was a little child up ahead. This old servant panicked and stopped the carriage in a hurry. I beg Madam’s forgiveness.”
Before Uncle Zhou had even finished speaking, Pei Wanqing had already darted out of the carriage with surprising agility, completely unlike the elegant noblewoman from moments ago.
“Madam! Slow down. Let this old servant help you.”
Nanny Chen was beside herself with worry. Did Madam still think she was sixteen years old?
She was already the mother of three children, yet at times she still acted so recklessly.
Nanny Chen sighed inwardly and hurried after her.
After Pei Wanqing got down from the carriage, she saw at a glance that a ragged little child was crouching only a foot away from the horse’s hooves.
The child had lowered her little head. Her two thin arms were crossed over her head, and her bony little body was trembling faintly.
“Child?”
Pei Wanqing crouched down, wanting to examine the child’s condition more closely.
Jin Bao heard a gentle voice and lifted her small face in panic.
Her large, damp eyes were filled with terror, like a startled fawn, and Pei Wanqing’s heart clenched hard.
This child? Why did she look so familiar?
Her features bore quite a resemblance to an old acquaintance of hers.
Counting the years, if that child were still alive, she should be about this age too.
But Pei Wanqing quickly dismissed the thought. That noble lady had died together with her child during a difficult birth several years ago. This child could not possibly be hers.
Pei Wanqing stared blankly at Jin Bao.
Jin Bao’s big eyes, meanwhile, were fixed above Pei Wanqing’s head.
Back in the apocalypse, Jin Bao had awakened a special ability. She could see the past and future of all things, not just people.
At that moment, she saw an image appear above Pei Wanqing’s head.
[“The Imperial Guard is handling a case. All unrelated persons, stand aside.”
A group of soldiers in armor, holding long spears, surrounded the Marquis’s Mansion on every side.
The Imperial Guard Commander held a bright yellow imperial edict and stood on the steps in the front courtyard of the Marquis’s Mansion.
The rest of the soldiers quickly dispersed.
Throughout the entire Marquis’s Mansion, screams, shouts, sobs, pleas for mercy, and the sounds of smashing and looting tangled together, plunging the place into chaos.
Before long, all the masters of the Marquis’s Mansion were roughly dragged into the front courtyard by the Imperial Guard.
The leader of the Imperial Guard unfurled the yellow imperial edict.
“By the mandate of Heaven, the Emperor decrees:
The Xiao clan has enjoyed the grace of the state for generations, inheriting the title of Marquis of Loyalty and Bravery over successive generations. We had hoped that they would fulfill their duties with loyalty, safeguard the nation, and bring peace to the realm.
Yet recently, after a joint and thorough investigation by the Court of Judicial Review and the Ministry of Justice, the evidence is irrefutable.
Xiao Che, Marquis of Loyalty and Bravery, secretly colluded with spies from an enemy state, passed along military intelligence, and leaked confidential border defense deployments.
All property of the Mansion of the Marquis of Loyalty and Bravery is to be confiscated at once, registered, and turned over to the state treasury.
Xiao Che and his direct relatives are stripped of all official ranks, noble titles, and honors, reduced to commoners, and exiled to the bitterly cold lands of the far north. They are never to return to the capital for the rest of their lives.
Any collateral relatives involved in the matter shall be severely punished according to the law.
By imperial command!”]
Jin Bao blinked, not understanding what it meant. However, among those people, she had seen this beautiful auntie.
This auntie was going to be taken away by bad people.
Jin Bao grew anxious. How was she supposed to tell Auntie? Would Auntie believe her?
Before, when she had seen her aunt being bullied at her uncle’s house, she had told her uncle, only to be beaten by both her aunt and uncle together. After that, she no longer dared tell anyone about the things she saw.