I Am a Live-in Son-in-Law

Where was this? Hadn't I already been blown to pieces?

When Shen Lang opened his eyes again, he found himself in a completely unfamiliar environment.

He lay on a soft, carved canopy bed, surrounded by splendor and luxury.

The exquisitely crafted rosewood table, delicate silver candlesticks, and soft wool carpet—every detail proclaimed this to be the home of immense wealth.

Most crucially, everything in this room possessed an antique charm, without a trace of Modern Earth's home décor.

He lowered his head and looked at his clothes. They were made of fine Silk, yet the style clearly did not belong to Modern Earth. They looked more like ancient costumes from television dramas.

Beside the bed stood a large Mirror. It was not particularly clear, so it was probably a bronze mirror.

Shen Lang struggled to sit up, gathering all his courage before looking into the Mirror.

He could not be blamed for that. Ever since his disfigurement, every time he looked in a mirror felt like a nightmare, and even he would be frightened by himself.

When he saw the face in the Mirror, Shen Lang was first stunned, then tears streamed down his face.

Though pale and haggard, this face was Incomparably Handsome. It even bore an eighty or ninety percent resemblance to Shen Lang before his disfigurement.

Shen Lang became certain of one thing.

He had transmigrated. His soul had crossed into this unfamiliar world and entered the body of this unfamiliar yet familiar man.

How I've missed you, my handsome face.

Shen Lang gazed at the face in the Mirror almost greedily.

Heaven had truly given him a new life. It had truly restored his handsome face, even if he was now in a completely unfamiliar world.

This was wonderful. After his parents had passed away, he had no real attachment left to Modern Earth anyway.

The feeling of being reborn was simply amazing!

Just then, a mass of complicated information flooded into his mind. These were the memories belonging to this body's original owner.

This was a world both familiar and unfamiliar.

It was familiar because it closely resembled ancient China. It had a similar culture, used the same written language, and had similar peoples.

It was unfamiliar because this was not Earth, and its map was entirely different.

This world had the Four Books and Five Classics. The works of China's ancient sages and the foundations of Chinese civilization seemed all to exist here.

Yet not a single Chinese dynasty existed here. There was no Qin Dynasty, no Han Dynasty, no Jin Dynasty, and so on...

This was strange. The territory and history were different, yet the culture was the same.

That was because this world had once undergone a Great Nirvana, after which civilization was reborn. These books had been excavated intact and became the great key to this world's cultural revival.

Thus, books like the Four Books and Five Classics held an even more exalted status in this world.

Moreover, Martial Arts existed in this world, and individual martial strength was far more developed than in ancient China.

The dynasty Shen Lang currently lived under was called the Great Yan Dynasty.

It was a vast empire. Converted into familiar measurements, its territory exceeded fourteen million square kilometers, surpassing nearly every dynasty in ancient China.

This dynasty also differed from ancient China. Besides the central empire, it was surrounded by many feudal states.

They were feudal states, not tributary states—similar to the relationship between the Son of Heaven of Zhou and the lords of the realm. Yet this central empire was far more powerful than the Zhou royal house, and all these feudal states revered the Yan Emperor as the True Dragon Son of Heaven.

In terms of civilization alone, the Great Yan Dynasty far surpassed China's Spring and Autumn–Warring States period, and was roughly comparable to the Tang and Song dynasties.

The country Shen Lang was now in was Yue Kingdom, a major feudal state in the south!

Yue Kingdom possessed three provinces, forty-five prefectures, and one specially governed state. It covered more than 590,000 square kilometers and had a population of over ten million. Commerce flourished, the people were fierce, and martial culture was prosperous.

The Ning Family had ruled Yue Kingdom for over four hundred years.

The place where Shen Lang was located was Xuanwu City, Nujiang Prefecture, Tiannan Province, Yue Kingdom.

The original owner of the body he had transmigrated into was also named Shen Lang.

More importantly, the two even resembled each other by seventy or eighty percent. This could hardly be a coincidence, but the complicated reason behind it was completely unknown for now.

Yet after reading this body's memories, he felt that this Shen Lang of another world was nothing less than a thoroughgoing tragicomedy.

Shen Lang had grown up in Maple Leaf Village, Hanshui Town, Xuanwu City.

His family were outsiders who had only moved to Maple Leaf Village when Shen Lang was a little over two years old.

His parents were the most ordinary self-farming peasants. Nujiang Prefecture had many mountains and rivers but little farmland. Shen Lang's family of four possessed only two mu of fields and two mu of mountain land altogether. His parents worked tirelessly, but their yearly harvest barely kept them fed.

Though born into a farming family and not even an only child, he had been spoiled by his parents from childhood. They could not bear to scold him or make him work. Though the family was poor enough to rattle, his parents still sent him to school, so in a sense, he could be considered a scholar.

However, he was exceptionally poor at studying. After ten years of schooling, he recognized fewer than a thousand characters in total.

It was not because he was lazy—on the contrary, he was very diligent. His poor grades were due to his low intelligence. He was not quite at the level of being mentally disabled, but he was probably like Forrest Gump from Forrest Gump: slow-spoken, blank-faced, and dull-witted.

Aside from his handsome face, he was almost good for nothing. Within several hundred li, he was synonymous with uselessness.

His Younger Brother Shen Jian, meanwhile, was a wastrel. After practicing Martial Arts for years without achieving anything, he had now fallen into being a complete hooligan.

As his parents gradually grew older, the family's circumstances worsened by the day. They were already so poor they could not even lift the lid off the cooking pot, with truly nothing but bare walls around them.

This year, he had turned eighteen. He had studied at the Town School for a full nine years, yet his learning remained abysmal. Some of his classmates had even earned academic degrees, while he was still in the beginner's class, attending lessons every day with a group of ten-year-old children.

It was as if everyone else had gone to university while he had not even graduated elementary school.

This was the shame of Hanshui Town Academy. Even the teachers at the Town School no longer wanted to teach him, because he was simply too stupid and too foolish—a rotten piece of wood could not be carved.

So, he was expelled.

His parents had spoiled him too much since childhood. His shoulders could not bear loads, his hands could not lift things, and he barely had the strength to truss a chicken. He could not even chop firewood, much less do farm work.

So after returning home, he spent every day drawing and scribbling in the mud outside the door with a wooden stick, eating for free at home day after day.

His parents did not despise him and still fussed over him with warmth and concern. Though his Younger Brother Shen Jian was a hooligan and a rogue, he treated him very well too. Every day, he came home battered and bruised after earning a few copper coins outside, yet never complained about supporting his useless older brother.

As these scenes from memory surfaced, Shen Lang's heart felt wave after wave of warmth.

When Shen Lang was little, he ate white rice at every meal, while his parents and Younger Brother could only drink corn porridge.

Whenever his father caught a wild rabbit in the mountains, he would take it to the market to sell for money. Yet every time, he would save one rabbit leg and let Shen Lang eat it alone, while Younger Brother Shen Jian drooled as he dryly shoveled corn rice from his bowl.

His parents were truly biased. They cherished Shen Lang, this dim-witted child, as though he were a treasure, while Younger Brother Shen Jian was treated like wild grass.

Moreover, because Shen Lang had been slow-witted since childhood, people often bullied him. To protect him, Younger Brother Shen Jian had fought who knew how many battles with others.

How happy and warm it was.

So, up to this point, the memories had all been beautiful. Though the family was desperately poor, they had truly been happy.

But if Shen Lang was so poor, why was the room he currently lived in so luxurious?

Because he had married a super-rich wife. More accurately, he had married into a wealthy family as a Live-in Son-in-Law.

Note: Please add me to your bookshelf and raise me well. Thank you for Amitabha Buddha's holy grace and boundless ten-thousand-coin reward, thank you.