Great Wei's Lowborn Bastard

When Lin Ke first transmigrated, he naturally thought this was the Wei of history.

After all, everything in the books and everything about the people looked much like what he had seen in television dramas.

People addressed one another as "young master" and "young lady," those who came and went were "Grand Confucians" and "Commoners," and their writings were full of "enough" and "nothing more."

The houses, landscaped gardens, every blade of grass and every tree, green tiles and vermilion roof ridges, lofty terraces and broad pavilions-all brimmed with ancient charm and breathtaking beauty.

The people visiting his home wore feather fans and scholar's headcloths, brocade robes and embroidered jackets; fragrant garments mingled with gleaming coiffures. They were either handsome men and handsome older men, or beautiful women and beautiful older women.

His father was a great Confucian scholar of the court, the Minister of Rites, Principal Third Rank. He governed the realm's rites, sacrifices, and imperial examinations, and his every action placed him above ten thousand people and beneath only seven, eight, or nine.

Moreover, the Lin Family was wealthy, trusted by the sovereign, its brothers affectionate and respectful, its husbands and wives harmonious.

...All of that was wonderful. It could be called one of the dream scenarios for a transmigrator, with just one drawback.

No, two.

The first was that he was born of a concubine. His birth mother had been a courtesan, and for various reasons, she had already died of illness, suffering every hardship before she let go of life.

Although Lord Lin had fifteen or twenty sons and daughters, only his mother belonged to the debased registry-and hers was the lowest of the low, the very bottom of the nine professions.

The great Confucian scholar of the court had written the Miscellaneous Treatise on Market Regulations, which stated: "The Lower Nine Professions are storytellers, yamen runners, menial laborers, itinerant workers, servants, matchmakers, pardoned criminals, thieves, and prostitutes."

Prostitutes ranked last, and their household registration was the most debased. Like the descendants of pardoned criminals and thieves, their descendants could not enter the ordinary civilian registry.

The second drawback was that his father was a great Confucian scholar of the court.

And the Minister of Rites.

And a great Confucian scholar who demanded the utmost adherence to ritual propriety.

And a great Confucian scholar who revered the system of succession by the eldest legitimate son.

And...

His father really disliked him.

Or perhaps dislike was not the right word. It was more that he loathed him to the extreme, found the mere sight of him irritating, and wished he could devour his flesh raw-if only he could put righteousness before kinship and purge his household.

Because in Lord Lin's eyes, his birth was entirely a mistake. Or an oversight. Or an error.

In other words, he should never have been born.

Of course, none of that amounted to much. At least those two vexing points could not change Lin Ke's status as the Minister of Rites' son.

After all...Great Wei's laws were extremely strict and placed great weight on loyalty and filial piety. Casually destroying one's own bloodline was no different from defying one's ancestral shrine and betraying one's surname.

Lord Lin revered ritual propriety so deeply that even if his son was the offspring of a prostitute, he could not purge him from the household.

Even if Lord Lin could kill a great demon from beyond the realm with a single soft rebuke, he could not lay a hand on his own son.

But that was precisely the problem.

The Great Wei Dynasty was also known as the Great Wei Sacred Dynasty.

The Great Wei Emperor was also the Heavenly Sage Emperor.

The four seas and four domains, heaven above and earth below, mountains, rivers, lakes, and peaks-all prostrated themselves beneath the Sage Emperor's rule.

The Six Clans and Six Kingdoms, the Eight Paths and Thirteen Schools, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism, demons, monsters, ghosts, gods, and more-all feared the Sage Emperor's every word and deed, every syllable and sentence.

When the Sage Emperor rejoiced, heaven and earth flourished together; when the Sage Emperor raged, all things were annihilated.

Even setting the Sage Emperor aside, any one of the Three Provinces and Twelve Ministries could turn a thousand miles of scorched earth into rich, fertile soil, and transform a people struggling to survive into people living and working in peace.

If the Three Provinces and Twelve Ministries acted together, they could withstand the Sage Emperor's wrath.

In any case, after spending several days trembling through life in such a world, Lin Ke finally adjusted completely to ancient life in another world.

As for the knowledge his predecessor, "Lin Ke," had learned and left in his memories, he would not believe all of it.

An emperor, after all!

Naturally, he would paste anything impressive onto his own face.

He could hardly announce to the world that every foreign nation was powerful, while his own could not withstand even a single exchange of blows.

Of course, he did believe in those supernatural arts.

Because in his predecessor's memories, his mother had grown weak after giving birth to him, and then the Frost Demon had invaded her body. In the end, Lord Lin had crushed that great demon to death with a single word: "Suppress."

That great frost demon, capable of freezing mountains and waters and making snow drift from the sky, had left an indelible impression in his predecessor's memories.

His predecessor had been even more fearful and terrified of his own father.

At fifteen, the son feared the father, the father hated the son, the mother had died young, friendly brothers kept their distance, and servants bullied the lowborn.

Why? Lin Ke had spent these past ten-odd days trying to figure it out.

Then he concluded that it came down to just two reasons: his mother and his household registration.

His status was far too lowly!

Lord Lin had a left wife and a right wife, as well as sixteen concubines. The household was divided into the Left and Right Residences and the Common Residence. Both wives lived in the Left Residence, the sixteen concubines lived in the Right Residence, and everyone else-servants, maids, and their ilk-belonged to the Common Residence, managed by a steward.

And he and his mother had been placed in the Common Residence.

If the master of the household loathed him, then those two wives could hardly like him, and their children certainly would not regard him as their younger brother.

Three parts indifference from above could buy five parts contempt in the middle and ten parts arrogance below.

So, naturally, the household servants hardly treated Lin Ke and his mother well.

And when his mother had died in misery just a few days earlier, even her remains could only be buried behind their little courtyard.

Their little courtyard had not originally been the Firewood Shed. Later, because a horse belonging to one of his brothers wanted a different place to live, they had been moved into the Firewood Shed.

The Firewood Shed was, as its name suggested, the place where wood for burning was stored.

His mother's cenotaph stood behind the Firewood Shed. In life, she had watched the shed's servant boy split wood alongside her son every day; in death, she did the same.

Perhaps his predecessor had been so overcome with grief and anger at his mother's death that he had finally been "angered to death" inside the Firewood Shed?

"Young Master Lin Ke, still clutching that book? Come split the wood!"

While Lin Ke was still pondering, he heard a servant boy come over and call to him.

At that moment, Lin Ke was sitting in front of the Firewood Shed's door, holding a book covered with scrap paper.

Written on it were the words: "Royal Regulations."

Lin Ke had delicate, handsome features. He had inherited Lord Lin's sanpaku eyes, which made him look cold and unfeeling, yet when he smiled, he showed the same gentleness as his mother's peach-blossom eyes.

However, he wore a blue robe that had yellowed somewhat from repeated washing and a pair of ragged cloth shoes, making him look more like a young man from a poor family that had fallen on hard times.

"Chop wood?" Lin Ke did not refuse. After standing, he carefully placed the book on his stool, then picked up the blade beside him and walked over.

By rights, his food, clothing, and other necessities should all have been supplied by the household steward, and as a son of the Lin household, his allowance should have been substantial.

But under the Common Residence's steward, his food, clothing, and other necessities had become things he had to earn himself.

In the past, his predecessor's mother had supported him by washing clothes for money. After he turned six, he had begun splitting firewood to supplement their income.

The steward neither dared nor had the authority to drive mother and son out, but he did have enough power to make them work to support themselves.

After all, everyone in the Common Residence was under the steward's management.

Mother and son had lived in the Lin household like two servants, with none of the standing of a lady and a young master.

"Firewood, every day, you and the plum tree are all I have left to keep me company!"

Lin Ke picked up an eighteen-centimeter length of wood, gently stroked it, and sighed.

Wood for burning was simply firewood.

Crack!

Crack!

Crack!

Sitting in front of the woodshed's door, he began bringing the woodcutting blade down on the logs fiercely, forcefully, swiftly, and furiously.

Under Lin Ke's powerful blows, the firewood let out one wooden whimper after another, then burst apart into neatly cut pieces.

Hearing him split wood, the person outside could not be bothered to come in and check, and simply left.

Only the crack, crack, crack from the Firewood Courtyard remained, mingled with the sound of splitting firewood. It had quite a rhythm and cadence, like the tide, wave after wave.

Meanwhile, Lin Ke stared fixedly at the wood, beads of sweat dripping down one by one.

Like chestnuts bursting in a fire, or a hundred-meter layer of ice on the verge of shattering.

Today, Lin Ke turned sixteen.