Chapter Summaries

The Earl of Suiping's Residence received the decree granting Zhao Ruxi marriage to the Prince of Qi, prompting celebration and mixed reflections in the second branch. Zhao Jing'an and Zhao Jingli resolved to work harder, while Zhao Yuanliang arranged to send news and pastries to Zhao Ruyu despite the difficulties of contacting her.

• Xiao Lingyan rewarded the eunuch and asked him to deliver the decree to the Earl of Suiping's Residence on his way to Nanyang.
• The household rejoiced at Zhao Ruxi's marriage decree and shared the news with relatives, while Lady Su was glad for her future prospects.
• Zhao Jingli praised Zhao Ruxi's hard work and contrasted her achievements with Zhao Rurui and Zhao Ruyu's choices, prompting Zhao Jing'an to resolve to study for the tongsheng examination and Zhao Jingli to work harder.
• Zhao Jing'an agreed that Zhao Rurui and Zhao Ruyu should hear the news, reflecting on his disappointment that Zhao Ruyu had become a concubine.
• Zhao Yuanliang ordered an old maidservant to take Zhao Ruyu pastries and the news, then gave her silver for a bribe after she explained that Prince Jingping's Estate restricted visits and deliveries.

Zhao Ruyu learned that Zhao Ruxi had been granted marriage to the Prince of Qi, a match that forced Prince Jingping's household to treat her more courteously. The news left Zhao Ruyu stunned and regretful as the chapter ended.

• Zhao Yuanliang decided to send Zhao Ruyu fewer things, and an old servant carried pastries and news to Prince Jingping's Estate.
• The old servant announced that Zhao Ruxi would become the Consort of the Prince of Qi, and the gatekeepers let her inside.
• The Consort of Prince of Jingping agreed to treat Zhao Ruyu courteously and allow the Zhao Family's visitors through.
• The old servant told Zhao Ruyu about Zhao Ruxi's marriage, and Zhao Ruyu struggled to congratulate her cousin.

Fushu tried to secure help for Zhao Ruyu, who was being mistreated and deprived of money in Prince Jingping's Estate. Old Maidservant Shi suggested Zhao Ruyu ask Zhao Ruxi for help, but Fushu doubted her proud young lady would agree to beg her estranged sister.

• Zhao Ruyu withdrew to the inner room, while Fushu secretly tipped Old Maidservant Shi and escorted her out past the two hostile maids.
• Fushu told Old Maidservant Shi that Zhao Ruyu received no allowance, was served spoiled or raw food, and was constantly tormented by the maids.
• Fushu asked Old Maidservant Shi to urge Zhao Yuanliang and Zhao Jing'an to send her to visit Zhao Ruyu often so the estate would treat them better.
• Old Maidservant Shi explained that Zhao Ruyu's family could not visit frequently unless something major happened, and that Zhao Ruxi could ask the fifth young lady for help.
• Fushu realized Zhao Ruyu was unlikely to write to Zhao Ruxi, but promised Old Maidservant Shi she would try to persuade her.

Zhao Ruyu despaired after learning Zhao Ruxi would marry the Prince of Qi, a match that seemed to put her own ambitions beyond reach. After Fushu urged her to write Zhao Ruxi, Zhao Ruyu regained her resolve to compete by winning Xiao Sijie's favor and bearing him a son.

• Zhao Ruyu wept over her miserable life as a concubine in Prince Jingping's Estate, where she lacked money and even decent meals.
• Zhao Ruyu recalled that she had entered the estate intending to become Xiao Sijie's principal wife after he inherited the title of General Who Protects the Nation.
• Zhao Ruyu learned that Zhao Ruxi would marry Xiao Lingyan, the Prince of Qi, and despaired at the prospect of having to defer to her.
• Fushu suggested Zhao Ruyu congratulate Zhao Ruxi and warned that Zhao Rurui might use the occasion to gloat and improve her own standing.
• Zhao Ruyu told Fushu that the maids would no longer make things difficult for them, then resolved to pursue Xiao Sijie's favor and bear him a son.

Eunuch Deng rushed to Nanyang to proclaim an imperial decree to Zhao Ruxi at the prefectural yamen, where the constables’ delay angered him. Zhao Ruxi finished her waterworks plan and went out to meet him, with the decree still to be read.

• Eunuch Deng hurried from the capital to Nanyang so Zhao Ruxi’s new status would be proclaimed at the yamen.
• A constable stopped Eunuch Deng and his Imperial Guards at the gate, alarming Liu Hongyu and Cai Yaozong.
• Eunuch Deng rebuked Liu Hongyu over the delay, and the constables knelt to beg his forgiveness.
• Eunuch Deng asked for Zhao Ruxi, and Cai Yaozong hurried to her room to announce the decree.
• Zhao Ruxi completed her waterworks plan, then went out to meet Eunuch Deng as the yamen prepared an incense table.

Eunuch Deng delivered the emperor’s decree betrothing Zhao Ruxi to Xiao Lingyan, the Prince of Qi, as his consort. Zhao Ruxi was allowed to remain in office until the wedding, and Eunuch Deng planned to travel to Gusu to inform her father.

• Zhao Ruxi welcomed Eunuch Deng and knelt to receive the imperial edict while the officials and yamen runners knelt alongside her.
• Eunuch Deng read the decree betrothing Zhao Ruxi to Xiao Lingyan, and those present bowed and congratulated her as the Prince of Qi’s consort.
• Zhao Ruxi asked whether she had to return to the capital, and Eunuch Deng said the emperor had permitted her to continue serving as an official until the wedding.
• Zhao Ruxi offered to host Eunuch Deng and the imperial guards, and Liu Hongyu suggested they dine at the Added Fortune Pavilion.
• Eunuch Deng accepted Zhao Ruxi’s invitation and said he would then go to Gusu to inform her father of the marriage decree.

Zhao Ruxi received two Imperial Guards from Xiao Ge, who clarified that they would answer to her until her marriage to the Prince of Qi. As the officials gathered around her, Chen Kang withdrew and quietly arranged to help care for the guards’ horses.

• Eunuch Deng introduced Zhang Tao and Guo Cheng as Imperial Guards bestowed upon Zhao Ruxi by Xiao Ge.
• Zhao Ruxi asked whose orders the guards would follow, and Eunuch Deng explained that they would serve her until her marriage, after which they would belong to the Prince of Qi’s Residence.
• Zhang Tao and Guo Cheng bowed to Zhao Ruxi as their master, changing how the prefectural yamen treated her.
• Chen Kang decided to seek Zhao Ruxi’s goodwill and left the crowd, followed unnoticed by Yang Jie.
• Chen Kang offered to bring the Imperial Guards’ horses into the prefectural yamen so they could be fed and watered while their riders dined.

After Zhao Ruxi received an imperial marriage decree naming her future princess consort, she left the prefectural yamen for home while Eunuch Deng and the officials prepared to follow her. An ambush waited along the road, but its members were surprised to see three people accompanying her carriage.

• Chen Kang brought the Imperial Guard and his horses into the prefectural yamen stables, where Yang Song kept watch over Zhao Ruxi's carriage.
• Yang Jie summoned Yang Song to drive the carriage, while Zhao Ruxi asked Liu Hongyu, Cai Yaozong, and Li to host Eunuch Deng and the Imperial Guards.
• Eunuch Deng urged Zhao Ruxi to return home and tell her mother about the imperial marriage decree, and she boarded her carriage after exchanging farewells.
• A woman disguised as a passerby approached the yamen with a child, spotted Yang Song's carriage, and returned to tell the ambushers that Zhao Ruxi was coming.
• Zhao Ruxi's carriage turned into view, followed at a distance by Eunuch Deng and the officials, and the ambushers noticed that three people accompanied her.

Assassins attacked Zhao Ruxi’s carriage, but her escorts fought them off before Eunuch Deng and his party arrived. Zhao Ruxi was injured, and the surviving attackers killed themselves rather than be captured.

• Three assassins ambushed Zhao Ruxi’s carriage, but teaware thrown from inside knocked down the pair attacking through the carriage.
• Yang Jie captured one attacker, while Zhang Tao and Guo Cheng fought the other two; Lu Yun reported that Zhao Ruxi was hurt.
• Yang Jie sent Yang Song to fetch a physician as Eunuch Deng’s party approached the scene.
• Xiang Ming and the imperial guards rushed ahead, prompting Eunuch Deng, Liu Hongyu, Cai Yaozong, and Li Li to follow.
• The two remaining attackers saw the approaching reinforcements and swallowed poison, dying before they could be captured.

Zhao Ruxi survived an ambush but was wounded, and Eunuch Deng took charge of investigating the attack. The sole captured assailant implicated the Crown Prince before dying by hidden poison, leaving the investigation without its key witness.

• Zhao Ruxi asked Yang Jie about the attackers, and he said the man and woman were dead while Zhang Tao confirmed one assailant remained alive.
• Eunuch Deng promised to report the attack, while Zhao Ruxi left Yang Jie to oversee the scene and went to seek medical treatment under Lu Yun's care.
• Eunuch Deng ordered Liu Hongyu to secure the area and had the surviving assailant taken to the prefectural yamen for questioning.
• The prisoner eventually said “Crown Prince,” then died after taking poison hidden on his person while the imperial guards briefly let down their guard.
• The imperial guards told Eunuch Deng that the bystanders they questioned were ordinary Nanyang locals with no martial arts skills.

After an assassination attempt on Zhao Ruxi, Eunuch Deng arranged to take the witnesses and the corpses to the capital to report the attack to the emperor. Zhao Ruxi survived with a minor wound, and Lady Zhu demanded justice as Eunuch Deng visited her residence before setting out.

• Eunuch Deng ordered the witnesses and corpses sent to the capital and asked Liu Hongyu to arrange escorts and transport.
• Li Li volunteered to accompany the party, choosing to commit himself despite the danger and political uncertainty.
• Xiang Ming brought food from Zhao Ruxi and reported that she had only suffered a cut on her left arm.
• Eunuch Deng ate, then went with Xiang Ming to the Zhao Residence before the group departed for the capital.
• Lady Zhu demanded that Eunuch Deng report the attack and secure justice, while Zhao Ruxi apologized for her mother's outburst.

After an assassination attempt injured Zhao Ruxi, she pressed the imperial household to investigate while preparing her servants for the dangers of her marriage to the Prince of Qi. Xiao Ge learned what happened and ordered an investigation, but the identity of the person behind the attack remained uncertain.

• Zhao Ruxi asked Eunuch Deng not to report her mother's remarks to the emperor and said she expected the imperial family to deliver justice for the attack.
• After Eunuch Deng left, Lu Yun treated Zhao Ruxi's wound while Zhao Ruxi urged Qingfeng to grow stronger for the dangers ahead.
• Eunuch Deng returned to the capital and told Xiao Ge and Kang Shilin that Zhao Ruxi was safe but had suffered a deep arm wound.
• Xiao Ge questioned Eunuch Deng about the surviving attacker, who had implicated the crown prince before dying, then summoned Li Li and instructed the imperial guard commander to investigate.
• The commander reported that the guards' accounts matched and recommended having a kind woman or child approach the traumatized little beggar to learn what he might have overheard.

Xiao Ge ordered an investigation into the assassins while Xiao Lingyan visited the wounded Zhao Ruxi in Nanyang. Their conversation revealed that Xiao Lingyan and Zhao Ruxi had staged the attack to turn the princes against each other, and they expected the scheme to keep her safe.

• Xiao Ge ordered portraits made of the dead assassins and told his men to investigate their identities, while Xiao Lingyan asked to visit Zhao Zhiwei.
• Xiao Lingyan arrived at the Zhao residence with two imperial physicians and medicinal herbs, and Nanny Lin treated Zhao Ruxi using medicine he had brought.
• Xiao Lingyan and Zhao Ruxi were left alone in the inner hall, where they reflected on the plan behind the assassination attempt.
• Xiao Lingyan and Zhao Ruxi had arranged for death-row prisoners to frame the third prince and implicate the crown prince, while Zhao Ruxi had thrown the teapot and teacup herself.
• Xiao Lingyan reassured Zhao Ruxi that the attack was unlikely to happen again, and she agreed.

After recovering from her injury, Zhao Ruxi learned how the attempted killing had thrown the capital into political turmoil and began setting up a winery outside Nanyang. She returned to the government office with the winery underway, where the officials cautiously welcomed her new venture.

• Xiao Lingyan apologized to Lady Zhu, gave Zhao Ruxi two martial maids, and later sent Zhao Ruxi news that Xiao Ge had punished the Third Prince and used the resulting turmoil to weaken rival factions.
• Zhao Ruxi spent ten days recovering, completing painting assignments and studying information about modern agricultural equipment.
• After Zhou Chun reported that the winemaking supplies were ready, Zhao Ruxi got Lady Zhu's permission to visit the winery site with household guards and Nanny Lin.
• Dianjiang volunteered to study medicine, and Zhao Ruxi decided to ask Xiao Lingyan to find her a teacher for several years of training.
• Zhao Ruxi oversaw the installation and testing of the winery equipment, then began brewing wine from Nanyang's glutinous rice.
• At the government office, Zhao Ruxi refused Cai Yaozong's offer to hand over the salt affairs, warned him against greed, and told the officials she was opening a winery; they responded with cautious approval.

Zhao Ruxi introduced new farming tools she had designed for reclaiming wasteland and arranged for Ministry of Works officials to assess them. The next day, she arrived at the test site, where Liu Hongyu, Cai Yaozong, and Li Li had come to watch.

• After Zhao Ruxi revealed her background, village heads, local gentry, and merchants handed over their grain without resistance, relieving Cai Yaozong.
• Zhao Ruxi showed the government office a hundred new tools: spike hoes and spiked shovels she had designed for land reclamation.
• Zhao Ruxi told Liu Hongyu that she had reported the tools to the emperor, who had sent Ministry of Works officials to test their effectiveness in Nanyang.
• Zhao Ruxi kept an awkward earth-turning tool back for further improvement and planned to promote it after refining its design.
• The next day, Zhao Ruxi reached the wasteland test site and found Shi Jingcheng waiting with the tools, while Liu Hongyu, Cai Yaozong, and Li Li had come to observe.

Zhao Ruxi arranged for one team of corvée laborers to test unfamiliar tools while another used ordinary hoes to clear wasteland. Wang Fugui discovered that the pronged hoe worked better than expected, while the men holding spiked spades still struggled to understand how to use them.

• Zhao Ruxi told Shi Jingcheng to begin the work before the Ministry of Works officials arrived, and he divided the laborers into two teams with different tools.
• Team A's laborers complained that they had been given strange tools and feared they would be punished if they could not clear the assigned thirty mu.
• Wang Fugui tried the pronged hoe and found it dug deeper and lifted more soil with less effort than a long-bladed hoe.
• Zhang Niu'er doubted the tool's advantage, but an experienced farmer explained that the ground was hard and the pronged hoe worked better.
• Several men holding spiked spades asked how to use them, and Wang Fugui suggested they try digging up a spadeful of soil.

Wang Fugui and the other farmers tested Zhao Ruxi’s new farm tools and praised how well they worked. Officials from the Ministry of Works, Gong Cheng, and Xiao Lingyan arrived to compare them with team B’s tools, and both teams began a timed digging trial.

• Wang Fugui used a spading fork, and the farmers took turns testing both new tools and praising their efficiency.
• The yamen runner reported the farmers’ approval to Zhao Ruxi, while Liu Hongyu and the others praised her ingenuity.
• Gong Cheng and Xiao Lingyan arrived, and Zhao Ruxi greeted her senior brother before respectfully paying her respects to the Prince of Qi.
• An official explained that the teams would dig for half a shichen so the observers could compare the areas cleared with each set of tools.
• Team A and team B began digging in earnest, with team A determined to help Zhao Ruxi earn recognition.

Zhao Ruxi’s improved farm tools proved dramatically more efficient in a reclamation trial, convincing the Ministry of Works officials that they should be promoted nationwide. The officials and local leaders returned to the prefectural yamen to discuss how to roll them out.

• Team A reclaimed two or three times as much wasteland as Team B using Zhao Ruxi’s new tools in the first contest.
• Team B’s men explained that their tools were inferior, and the officials arranged a second trial after the teams exchanged tools.
• Zhao Ruxi realized the laborers might need instruction, and Team A demonstrated how to use the new tools to Team B.
• Team B reclaimed two or three times as much land as Team A in the second contest, confirming the tools’ effectiveness.
• Lord Shi praised Zhao Ruxi’s tools and said they could be promoted throughout the country.
• Gong Cheng suggested returning to the yamen to discuss promotion, and the officials and Zhao Ruxi’s party headed back together.

Zhao Ruxi proposed that the court distribute her new farming tools rather than let her profit from them, and Xiao Ge rewarded her for the inventions. The chapter ended with Xiao Ge announcing her estate and permission to grow glutinous rice at court, where the ministers raised no objections.

• Gong Cheng asked Zhao Ruxi how she planned to distribute her farming tools, and she suggested sending drawings to local authorities so they could be made for land reclamation.
• Xiao Lingyan approved Zhao Ruxi's plan, and after the visitors returned to the capital, Gong Cheng reported her answer to Xiao Ge.
• Xiao Ge offered Zhao Ruxi an estate, and Xiao Lingyan explained that she wanted one in Nanyang to grow glutinous rice for her planned wine business.
• Xiao Ge granted Zhao Ruxi an eight-hundred-mu Nanyang estate, gave Xiao Lingyan a smaller estate, and approved her plans to grow glutinous rice.
• At court the next morning, Xiao Ge announced Zhao Ruxi's reward, and the ministers did not object.

Zhao Ruxi received an imperial reward for her work and continued improving Nanyang’s irrigation system. In Gusu, news of her achievements reached Zhang Shun and the old madam, who celebrated how she had restored the Earl of Suiping’s Residence to prominence.

• Eunuch Deng delivered an imperial edict granting Zhao Ruxi an estate, money, pearls, silk, and permission to grow glutinous rice.
• Zhao Ruxi sent Zhou Chun to take charge of her estate and organized laborers to clear land and improve Nanyang’s irrigation works.
• Xiao Ge dispatched Zhao Ruxi’s farming-tool designs to the provinces, and Wu Zong received them before they reached Gusu.
• Zhang Shun recognized Zhao Ruxi as the creator of the Zhao Nail Hoe and Zhao Nail Spade and told Zhao Yuanxun about her achievements.
• Zhao Yuanxun told the old madam the news, and she celebrated Zhao Ruxi’s marriage to the Prince of Qi and asked about the wedding date and dowry preparations.