Chapter 21 of the Great Wei Dynasty, Shuzhou.
Spring was bright and beautiful, with a cloudless sky.
In a residence in the back courtyard of Marquis Dingyuan's manor, crisp counting sounds faintly drifted over.
"...Twenty, twenty-one..."
"Fifty-two."
"...Fifty-three, fifty-four... One hundred."
"Son-in-law, you've finished copying the family rules a full hundred times now, and it only took you fifteen days."
Looking at Xiao Die's admiring expression, Chen Yi knew she hadn't noticed the count fell short, so he held back a smile and suggested, "Why don't you count it one more time?"
"Mm-hmm, I'm the best at counting. Eldest Miss even praised me, and said she'd let me help her keep accounts in the future."
Those accounts would probably be very hard to balance correctly.
Chen Yi muttered inwardly, but seeing how earnestly she counted, he stopped making trouble and stood quietly to the side.
He wore a blue long-gown; his features couldn't be called especially handsome, but they lacked nothing in scholarly elegance and refinement.
Coupled with the unforced free-and-easy straightforwardness he unconsciously exuded, he possessed a gentle and composed demeanor.
In contrast, Xiao Die was dressed in a short jacket and mamian skirt, the two buns of hair at the back of her head making her oval face quite adorable.
After watching for a moment.
Perhaps afraid of being amused by Xiao Die's earnest counting, Chen Yi walked over to the window and looked at the character for "joy" on the red lantern not far away.
Fifteen days ago.
He transmigrated here, becoming a Xiao Family son-in-law, and moreover a son-in-law whose elopement failed.
When he woke up, he wasn't in this pleasant Chunhe Garden, but found himself in the Disciplinary Hall of the Xiao Manor.
In his daze, he only remembered that many people around him had stared at him with fierce and cold expressions.
Vague, ambiguous sounds drifted by his ears.
Some said to execute him with the heavy staff, some said to send him back to the Chen Family of Jiangnan, and others proposed drowning him in a pig cage.
Drowning in a pig cage was going way too far; he had merely elopped, not committed adultery and elopement with someone.
Until his wife-whom he only learned was his wife, Xiao Wan'er's second sister, Xiao Jinghong, after getting familiar with Xiao Die-said:
"Since he has already become my husband, everything will be decided by me."
Her voice was clear and clean, pressing down all the surrounding hustle and bustle.
Then he was punished by his wife to copy the Xiao Family family rules a thousand times and confined to quarters for a hundred days.
A thousand times, said so lightly; the entire family rule consisted of one hundred characters, and a thousand times meant one hundred thousand characters. Typing them on a computer would take ten-odd days, let alone having to write them with a writing brush here?
That was fine; there would always be a day when he finished writing them.
The crucial point was that after waking up, Chen Yi knew from his memories that he was a famous talented scholar of Jiangnan Prefecture, not only proficient in the zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting, and skilled in poetry, but whose calligraphy had even received praise from Master Juyi of Jinling Academy.
His public persona had been set very high, to the point that when he-an ordinary corporate slave-first started copying the family rules, he was almost discovered by Xiao Die as a replacement, and in the end, he had to brush it off using temporary amnesia.
Yet Chen Yi knew clearly that this was merely a delaying tactic.
Xiao Die had a simple disposition, but the others in the Xiao Manor were no fools.
Especially his wife-that female general Xiao Jinghong, who went to war for her father at age fifteen and sent the Barbarian Tribe fleeing in disarray at eighteen.
If she saw those dog-scratch-like characters, she would probably immediately have him dealt with by military law.
Fortunately, after more than ten days of effort, his calligraphy had improved quite a bit-
Name: Chen Yi
Way of Calligraphy: Minor Accomplishment (5/100)
Script: Wei Qing (Proficient)
Fortune: 0
[Daily Intelligence · Yellow Grade, Lower Rank: At noon, Eldest Miss Xiao Wan'er of the marquis's mansion will audit the manor's accounts and discover that the steward in charge of procurement is embezzling, whereupon she will expel him from the household. Can obtain a trace of fortune.]
Chen Yi glanced at the illusory screen, stood with his hands clasped behind his back, raised his head to look at the sky, and began counting down:
"Ten, nine, eight..."
Xiao Die seemed to hear his voice.
"Forty-three... Eleven, ten, nine, eight... Aish, son-in-law, stop messing around, you made me count wrong."
[Fortune +1.]
[Comment: Person has not arrived, voice not heard, scene not seen, fortune descends from the heavens yet is not taken, he is a person of lazy nature.]
Ignoring the "lazy" evaluation, Chen Yi skillfully added the fortune points to the Way of Calligraphy while turning to look at the pouty Xiao Die, and said with a smile:
"My fault, I was only thinking that it must be time for a meal."
Hearing the word "meal," Xiao Die's eyes lit up, and a trace of bashfulness appeared on her delicate and pretty face:
"Son-in-law, the manor's chef made flaky oil cakes at noon, and also stewed fish..."
"Fish meat is good," Chen Yi knew she was craving food again, and blinked mischievously. "Why don't you go urge them, and we'll eat together?"
"Alrighty."
As if afraid he would go back on his word, Xiao Die dropped the Yunsong Paper in her hand and ran out, not forgetting to remind the armored guards at the door on her way:
"Watch the son-in-law, you hear?"
"Yes, Miss Xiao Die."
Catching sight of an armored guard's thick arm, Chen Yi sighed, sat back down in his chair, leaned his back against it, and fixed his eyes on the crossbeam at the top of the side room.
His calligraphy was more or less passable, but he still lacked the zither, chess, painting, and poetry.
Poetry was fine; with the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties backing him up, he was afraid of no one.
He knew nothing about the rest, and to avoid exposing his flaws, he had to make up for them one by one.
Pondering for a while, the memories of this body surfaced in Chen Yi's mind.
Chen Yi, styled Qingzhou, born in the first year of Anhe, originated from the Chen Family of Jiangnan, and his father was the contemporary household head Chen Xuanji.
Though he was merely a concubine-born son of the Chen Family, his days since birth had been considered passable.
Since childhood, he studied under a teacher in the lineage school, reading poetry and books extensively from a young age, and later drawing inferences from one instance to master the zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting.
At age thirteen, when the Imperial Court dispatched troops to Guangyue Prefecture to suppress coastal bandits, he wrote "A Youth's Travels: Welcoming the Banners".
At age fifteen, his father received orders to go on a diplomatic mission to the Western Regions Buddhist Kingdom, and he wrote another piece, "Bidding Farewell to Chen Xuanji at Jinling," which drew high praise from Jiangnan Prefecture praising him as "loyal and filial, with outstanding poetic talent."
Yet from that time on, his circumstances began to plummet.
First, his mother fell ill and died, and then Second Uncle Chen Xuandu took up the post of Provincial Administration Commissioner of Beizhou and rarely returned, leaving all matters big and small in the household controlled by First Madam Cui Yu.
It truly made him live through two years of bitter days.
Not only was he confined within the household and unable to go out, but he was also forbidden from reading, lacking even paper and brush to write with, to the point that he missed the most important imperial examination.
To say he didn't resent it-Chen Yi didn't even believe it himself.
Yet what use was resentment? Chen Xuanji was not there, Chen Xuandu was not there, his mother had passed away, and no one in the household helped him.
He could only grit his teeth, endure, and wait.
As a result, he didn't wait for his father, but instead was arranged by Cui Yu to be married into the Xiao Family of Marquis Dingyuan as a matrilocal son-in-law a step ahead.
In fact, on the road from Jiangnan Prefecture to Shuzhou, he had entertained thoughts of ending his life more than once.
Yet in order to have an opportunity in the future to exact revenge and kill Cui Yu, he chose to accept the arrangement and marry into the Xiao Family as a son-in-law.
"Pity that in the end, he was still murdered by someone."
Chen Yi knew that on the day of the grand wedding, the predecessor had been manipulated by some bizarre method to elope, and had already died before being found by the Xiao Family.
If Chen Yi hadn't come here, the trajectory of the whole matter would never have been this "peaceful."
Perhaps the Chen and Xiao families would turn hostile because of this, perhaps the Xiao Family would be saddled with the reputation of an "evil household," and even Xiao Jinghong would find it hard to stand alone, figuring a "shrew" label was inescapable.
Thinking of these things, tightness and frustration involuntarily rose in Chen Yi's chest: "He was also a person with a bitter fate."
He straightened up slightly, picked up the wolf-hair brush, dipped it in ink, and wrote:
"Shuzhou Chant: Entering the Xiao Gate"
Desolate lands of Wushan and Chishui, a cast-off body in the twenty-first year.
Yearning for old times, I vainly transcribe the Marquis of Xiao's rhapsody; arriving in Shuzhou, I turn out like a free man.
A thousand sails pass by the side of the sunken ship, ten thousand trees spring before the diseased tree.
Today hear me sing a single song, to temporarily retain wine cups and nourish our great spirit.
Having finished writing, Chen Yi picked up the Yunsong Paper to blow the ink dry, looked it over once, and nodded with satisfaction.
As expected of me, truly overflowing with talent.
Yet Xiao Die had walked behind Chen Yi at some unknown moment, carrying a steaming basin of beef in her hands.
She looked at the poem, then looked at him.
She looked at the poem, then looked at him.
"Son-in-law..."
"Hm?" Chen Yi turned back.
Xiao Die stared blankly at him for a long time, and when she recovered her senses, she frantically turned and ran out again, carrying that basin of beef.
Running all the while, she shouted, "This is bad, Eldest Miss, this is bad! The son-in-law wants to run away again!!"
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