Xuanguo Estate

It was deep winter, and the bitter wind cut to the bone.

"Giddy-up!"

A heavy carriage rolled down the street. Its wheels crushed over thick ice and snow, then suddenly hit a dip in the road. With a violent jolt, it splashed the pedestrians beside it from head to toe with snowy water.

The passerby immediately hissed from the cold. He glanced at the ostentatious carriage, but did not dare say a word, merely continuing to slap the snow from his thick cotton clothes.

A few steps farther on.

At one side of the street corner, several corpses lay sprawled in a ditch. Their clothes were ragged; they were beggars who had failed to survive the winter night and frozen to death. They had lain there for quite some time, yet no one paid them any heed.

"What kind of world is this... Sigh."

The passerby sighed, rubbed his reddened, frozen hands, and headed home.

This was the capital of Great Yuan!

Beneath the Son of Heaven himself!

Following the ice-covered street onward, the pedestrians gradually grew fewer, but the road became wider and wider. At last, a row of towering compound walls appeared ahead. At the very center stood two vermilion gates, above which was written:

Xuanguo Estate!

It was one of the Eight Dukes and Fourteen Marquises established during Great Yuan's founding, and had endured for seven hundred spring-and-autumn cycles.

Beyond those towering compound walls hung with icicles, all the way in the northwestern corner of Xuanguo Estate, stood a small courtyard with only two sections.

The courtyard was bleak and deserted. Thick snow buried the paving bricks deep beneath it, leaving only a few scattered trails of footprints of varying sizes, marking the snow in lonely isolation.

In the bedroom.

Chen Mu awoke in a daze, feeling a swelling ache pulsing between his brows.

He looked around at the room in bewilderment. Gradually, he realized that a string of memories not his own had appeared in his mind and was beginning to merge with his original memories.

Chen Mu clutched his head, his body tensing for a while before slowly relaxing.

"Great Yuan..."

"Xuanguo Estate..."

"So... that's how it is."

Chen Mu exhaled a puff of white air, feeling both amused and helpless.

Before going to sleep, he had indeed made a wish to transmigrate to an ancient dynasty and become a young master. But the circumstances of this transmigration were somewhat off, and so was his identity.

He was a young master, all right, but a bastard son. Moreover, his old father had been so sunk in wine and women that he had died seven years ago. His position in Xuanguo Estate could therefore be imagined.

And besides.

That was not even the biggest problem.

The bigger problem was that this world was not particularly scientific.

There were Netherworld Ghosts causing chaos and demons and monsters running rampant. This body's former owner had been frail to begin with, then encountered a ghost at night, fell ill from fright and cold, and became bedridden—until Chen Mu replaced him.

Fortunately, the benefits of being a transmigrator meant that this body's cold and fright had both improved with his arrival. At present, aside from being somewhat weak, he felt there was nothing seriously wrong.

Just as Chen Mu propped himself up and sat down.

He began looking around his room.

A burst of footsteps came from outside. Then the door was pushed open, and someone entered—a pretty and dignified young woman of about eighteen or nineteen.

Seeing who had entered, Chen Mu quickly realized who she was and called out weakly,

"Sister-in-law."

The newcomer was the original owner's sister-in-law, Ning Shi.

The original owner had an elder brother born of the same father and mother. He was highly skilled in Martial Arts and far stronger than his younger brother. He had even been appointed to a military post, but last year, he encountered demons and monsters wreaking havoc and met an unfortunate death.

Ning Shi and his elder brother had no children. Ordinarily, she could no longer have remained in Xuanguo Estate, but the Old Madam above, mindful of their former relationship, had spoken a word that allowed her to stay until now.

"Why have you gotten up?"

When Ning Shi saw Chen Mu sitting at the bedside, surprise first flashed across her face, followed by tears of joy. "Uncle, your complexion looks so much better today. Heaven be praised..."

When she had come to visit two days earlier, Chen Mu had been breathing faintly, his face as pale as gold paper, seeming to have only one breath left. She had never expected him to improve so suddenly today.

Uncle...

The form of address felt rather strange. Chen Mu complained inwardly, but still forced a smile.

"I made it through."

"Made it through—that's good. That's good."

Tears glimmered at the corners of Ning Shi's eyes as she nodded repeatedly.

She moved closer to the bed and saw a basin of water and a towel placed beside it. She reached out to pick them up, only to find the water ice-cold to the bone. She instantly snatched her hand back.

"Why is there a basin of cold water?!"

Ning Shi was stunned.

Chen Mu thought that, given his status, having a basin of water at all was already pretty good. But outwardly, he merely shook his head and said, "I imagine the firewood room has been short on firewood lately."

If he remembered correctly, this basin of cold water had already been sitting here for a full day without being changed.

"How can they be so lazy and negligent!"

Ning Shi was shocked and furious.

Firewood shortages were no excuse at all. Clearly, the maids and servants assigned to wait on Chen Mu were lazy and negligent. Besides, from the moment she entered the courtyard until now, she had not seen either of them!

Although Chen Mu was a bastard son, he was still a master of the household. He had two maids and one servant assigned to serve him. Yet now, not a single person could be seen in the bedroom or courtyard, and no one knew how long the snow in the courtyard had gone unswept.

"How can they bully you like this? How can they bully you like this..."

Ning Shi bit her red lips tightly. She was so angry that even tears began to flow. "Uncle, just wait. I'll go to the Old Madam right now and demand justice."

Though Chen Mu had only just arrived in this world and his Soulmind was still unsettled, Ning Shi's appearance nevertheless filled him with a trace of warmth.

He marveled inwardly, My sister-in-law is really wonderful. Yet outwardly, he stopped her in a weak voice.

"No, Sister-in-law. The fact that you've been able to remain in Xuanguo Estate is already due to the Old Madam's mercy. The servants' laziness is a minor matter. If you trouble her over it, then on one hand, it will make me, the master, seem incompetent and invite ridicule. On the other hand, if it troubles the Old Madam again, our circumstances will only become more difficult."

That Old Madam was the birth mother of the current Xuanguo Duke. She was somewhat like Grandmother Jia from Dream of the Red Chamber, except Xuanguo Estate was far larger. As for bastard sons like him, there were dozens that he knew of alone. Most of them were driven out of the estate to establish their own households once they reached twenty.

That Old Madam probably did not even remember him in the slightest.

Ning Shi also knew that Chen Mu was right. Clutching her handkerchief until her fingertips turned white, she said through tearful eyes, "Then... are we just going to let them bully you like this?"

"Sister-in-law, rest assured."

"Now that I've come back to life, I'm not someone they can bully as they please."

Although Chen Mu's voice was weak, every word that reached Ning Shi's ears rang with sonorous force, as if carrying an entirely different kind of spirit.

For a moment, Ning Shi could not help but stare blankly. When she looked closely at Chen Mu, she saw that his eyes were clear and limpid, with an indescribable depth.

Though he was leaning against the bed and still seemed weak and powerless, he inexplicably possessed a certain force of presence, utterly different from the Chen Mu of the past.

For a moment.

Ning Shi grew somewhat dazed, as if she were seeing Chen Mu's elder brother. He, too, had possessed such confidence and bearing; merely sitting there, he commanded awe without anger.

This left her somewhat entranced. For a moment, she even wanted to reach out and touch Chen Mu's face.