Xuanguo Estate

It was deep winter, and the biting wind was bone-chilling.

"Giddy up!"

A heavy carriage rumbled down the street. Its wheels crunched over the thick ice and snow. Suddenly, it hit a dip in the road, jolting violently and splashing snow water all over a pedestrian nearby.

The pedestrian gasped, frozen by the sudden chill. He glanced at the ostentatious carriage but dared not say a word, only repeatedly brushing the snow water off his thick cotton clothes.

A few steps further.

On one side of the street corner, several corpses lay in the ditch. Their clothes were tattered; they were beggars who had failed to survive the winter night and had frozen to death. They had been lying there for a while, and no one paid them any mind.

"This world... alas."

The pedestrian sighed, rubbed his frozen red hands, and headed home.

This was the capital of Da Yuan!

Right under the Emperor's nose!

Following the ice-covered street forward, the pedestrians gradually thinned out, but the road became wider and wider until a row of towering courtyard walls appeared ahead. In the center were two large vermilion gates, inscribed with:

Xuanguo Estate!

It was one of the Eight Dukes and Fourteen Marquises from the founding period of Da Yuan, and it had already passed through seven hundred springs and autumns.

Beyond that stretch of towering courtyard walls hung with icicles, all the way to the northwesternmost corner of the entire Xuanguo Estate, sat a small courtyard with only two sections.

The courtyard was desolate and cold. Thick snow deeply buried the flagstones. Only a few scattered footprints of varying sizes could be seen on the snow, imprinted there in isolation.

In the bedroom.

Chen Mu woke up feeling somewhat disoriented, only feeling a throbbing sensation in his brow.

He looked around the room blankly, gradually realizing that a string of memories that didn't belong to him had appeared in his mind and were beginning to merge with his original memories.

Chen Mu held his head, his body tensing for a moment, then gradually relaxing.

"Da Yuan..."

"Xuanguo Estate..."

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

Chen Mu exhaled a puff of white air, feeling a bit like laughing and crying at the same time.

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 weren't quite right, and his identity wasn't quite right either.

He was a young master, but he was a concubine's son, and his old man had passed away seven years ago due to excessive indulgence in wine and women. His status in the Xuanguo Estate was therefore imaginable.

Moreover.

This wasn't the big problem.

The bigger problem was that this world wasn't very scientific.

There were malevolent ghosts causing trouble, and demons running rampant. His predecessor had been weak and had encountered a ghost at night, getting frightened and catching a cold. As a result, he fell ill and never recovered until he was replaced.

Fortunately, thanks to the benefits of being a transmigrator, the cold and shock that afflicted this body have improved with his arrival. Currently, aside from feeling a bit weak, there are no major issues.

Just as Chen Mu propped himself up to sit.

He began to look around his room.

A series of footsteps came from outside, and then the door was pushed open. Someone walked in – a woman with a delicate and dignified appearance, around eighteen or nineteen years old.

Seeing the person who entered, Chen Mu quickly reacted and called out weakly.

"Sister-in-law."

The person who came was the original body's sister-in-law, Ning Shi.

The original body had an older brother from the same parents, who was excellent in martial arts and much stronger than him, his younger brother. He was even assigned a military official position, but unfortunately, he died last year during a demon uprising.

Ning Shi and his brother had no children. Originally, she couldn't continue living in Xuanguo Estate, but the old madam above, remembering their past relationship, said a word that allowed her to stay until now.

"Why are you up?"

Ning Shi was first surprised to see Chen Mu sitting by the bed, then she was overcome with joy and tears: "Uncle's complexion is much better today, heaven has taken pity..."

When she came to see him two days ago, Chen Mu's breathing was weak and his face was like gold leaf, as if he only had one breath left. She didn't expect him to improve so much today.

Uncle...

This address feels strange, Chen Mu grumbled inwardly, but on the surface, he forced a smile:

"I made it through."

"It's good you made it through, it's good you made it through."

Tears welled up in Ning Shi's eyes as she nodded repeatedly.

She approached the bed and saw a basin of water and a towel placed by the headboard. She reached out to take them, but the touch was bone-chillingly cold, making her quickly withdraw her hand.

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

Ning Shi was astonished.

Chen Mu thought to himself that given his status, it was good enough to even have a basin of water, but on the surface, he shook his head and said, "Perhaps the firewood room has been short on firewood lately."

If he remembered correctly, this basin of cold water seemed to have been sitting here for a day without being changed.

"How can they be so lazy and negligent!"

Ning Shi was both shocked and angry.

Shortage of firewood was no excuse. It was clearly the laziness and negligence of the maids and servants who served Chen Mu, and she hadn't seen those two since she entered the courtyard!

Although Chen Mu was a concubine's son, he was still a master and was served by two maids and one servant. But now, there was no one to be seen in the bedroom courtyard, and the accumulated snow in the courtyard hadn't been swept for who knows how long.

"How can they bully you like this, how can they bully you like this..."

Ning Shi bit her lower lip tightly, so angry that tears flowed down her face. She said, "Uncle, just wait, I'll go to the old madam's place now and seek justice."

Even though Chen Mu had just arrived in this world and was still a bit unsettled, Ning Shi's appearance made him feel a touch of warmth.

He sighed inwardly, Sister-in-law is really good, but on the surface, he weakly tried to stop her:

"No, sister-in-law. For you to be able to stay in Xuanguo Estate is already a sign of the Old Madam's compassion. These small matters of lazy servants, if I were to bother her with them, on one hand, it would show my incompetence as a master and make people laugh, and on the other hand, if it were to upset the Old Madam again, our situation would only become more difficult."

That Old Madam was the birth mother of the current Duke of Xuanguo. She was somewhat like Granny Jia from Dream of the Red Chamber, but Xuanguo Estate was much larger. As a concubine's son like him, there were dozens of them that he knew of alone. They were usually kicked out of the estate to establish their own households once they reached twenty years old.

That Old Madam probably didn't have any impression of him at all.

Ning Shi also knew that Chen Mu's words were right. She tightly gripped her handkerchief, her fingertips turning white from the pressure, and said tearfully, "Then... are we just going to let them bully you like this?"

"Sister-in-law, please rest assured."

"Now that I'm alive, they won't be able to bully me as they please."

Although Chen Mu's voice was weak, when it reached Ning Shi's ears, every word and sentence seemed powerful and resonant, as if containing a completely different kind of spirit.

Ning Shi couldn't help but be stunned for a moment. When she looked closely at Chen Mu, she saw his eyes, clear and bright, with an indescribable depth.

Although his whole body was leaning against the side of the bed, seemingly still weak and powerless, he inexplicably possessed a certain spirit, completely different from the Chen Mu of the past.

For a moment.

Ning Shi felt a little dazed, as if she saw Chen Mu's elder brother, who also had such confidence and demeanor, commanding respect without even needing to be angry just by sitting there.

This made her feel a little infatuated, and for a moment, she actually wanted to reach out and touch Chen Mu's face.