The Great Qi Dynasty is about to welcome a joyous event.
In the capital, at the Mansion of the Marquis of Yin Nan, the Marquis had just returned from the palace and was immediately surrounded by Madam Luo and his eldest son Shen Minghong, who eagerly served him tea, massaged his legs, and rubbed his shoulders.
The Marquis of Yin Nan enjoyed the treatment and, under the expectant gaze of the mother and son, smiled: “It’s done.”
“His Majesty was greatly pleased. In three days, the imperial edict for the arranged marriage between Prince Qin and Ziqin will arrive at our mansion.”
The mother and son immediately beamed with joy.
Madam Luo: “Thank you, my lord!”
Shen Minghong: “Thank you, father!”
The Marquis, feeling comfortable from the massage: “Once Ziqin becomes a male consort, it would be inappropriate for him to continue holding the title of heir. At that time, I will request from the Emperor, and the position of heir will belong to none other than Minghong.”
Although marriage in Great Qi was not limited by gender, in the eyes of the noble families, being a male consort was considered lowering one’s status and not following the mainstream.
The Marquis sought the imperial edict precisely to have a reason to replace the heir, naturally delighting Madam Luo and Shen Minghong.
The current heir, Shen Ziqin, was born to the Marquis’s deceased wife, the County Lady of Pingyang. When the County Lady was alive, Madam Luo was just a concubine, and her son Shen Minghong, although the eldest son, was born of a concubine and couldn’t inherit the position of heir.
Now that the County Lady had passed away, she had been elevated to the position of primary wife, and her son would soon become the heir. Good days were finally coming.
Madam Luo, pretending to be concerned as the lady of the house: “I’ve heard Prince Qin is cruel and murderous. Ziqin has been sickly since childhood, I don’t know if he can withstand such a marriage.”
The Marquis showed no concern: “Hasn’t he been better recently? He should know about such an important matter. Someone.”
“Go call the heir to the front hall to dine with us. Tell him we have joyous news to share.”
Shen Minghong rushed forward, eager to personally deliver the news to Shen Ziqin: “Father, let me go.”
The Marquis smiled and nodded at him: “You… go ahead.”
Shen Minghong left happily.
It was early spring, and the scenery within the Marquis’s mansion was beautiful. The lush trees in the Marquis’s courtyard, the delicate flowers in Madam Luo’s chambers, and the plump fish in Shen Minghong’s courtyard all displayed a scene of vibrant life.
But upon entering the heir’s courtyard, the scenery abruptly changed, as if entering a different world.
It was desolate, completely at odds with the rest of the mansion.
Weeds grew unrestrained in the courtyard, a few unknown wildflowers drooped listlessly, and the only thing that could be considered scenery was a large tree that had fallen ill, turning yellow and withering in what should have been a lush spring day.
A person stood under the tree, leaning against the trunk coughing. The sick tree trembled with each cough, dropping leaves in a flurry.
The person coughed until the corners of his eyes turned red and tears welled up. He caught his breath and looked up, revealing a beautiful face-wow, he was indeed a beauty.
His pale skin had flushed from coughing, fragile yet beautiful, with an enchanting appearance that startled and evoked pity.
Unfortunately, the person himself only felt discomfort and would rather trade this beauty for a few ounces of flesh.
This person was Shen Ziqin.
The sickly heir, the mansion’s acknowledged waste who couldn’t carry or lift anything, but was undeniably beautiful.
After a round of coughing, Shen Ziqin pressed his painful chest. Because he had coughed until tears came out, he appeared tearful. His pale hand touched the withered tree bark; the two complemented each other, both beautiful and pitiful.
Shen Ziqin sighed and patted it: “We share the same affliction.”
In the flower-filled mansion, only the two of them were in a state of desolation.
The sick tree was quite responsive, dropping a couple more leaves. Shen Ziqin quickly withdrew his hand, not daring to touch it again, fearing the tree might soon become bald, leaving him with nothing to look at.
A series of light yet arrogant footsteps sounded behind him. Shen Ziqin turned around and saw the mansion’s eldest son, Shen Minghong, his half-brother from the same father but different mothers.
It was known that the relationship between the brothers was poor. Shen Minghong usually looked at Shen Ziqin as if he were seeing something dirty, but today he was in high spirits, smiling at him.
Shen Ziqin’s gaze suddenly sharpened, his vigilance at maximum: A weasel paying New Year’s respects to a chicken, something’s very wrong[mfn]Literal translation: “A weasel paying New Year’s greetings to a chicken, something’s very wrong.”classic Chinese idiom meaning that someone with bad intentions is pretending to be friendly-clearly up to no good[/mfn].
Shen Minghong, seeing his sickly appearance, raised an eyebrow with a bit of crocodile tears sympathy, putting on a pleasant expression: “Ziqin, father wants you to come to the front hall for a family meal.”
Shen Ziqin thought not even for a moment: “I’m not going.”
Shen Minghong’s smile gradually faded: “What?”
Shen Ziqin picked up a withered leaf and waved it casually, saying nonchalantly: “Four people at the same table, your behaviors often spoil my appetite; but your thoughtless words might also prevent me from eating.”
“Repeatedly affecting a sick person’s appetite is not good. For the sake of my fragile body, staying away from you all means happiness and health.”
Shen Minghong: “…”
It was strange for someone to call themselves frail, but Shen Ziqin was a well-known sickly person, so what he said wasn’t wrong.
Shen Minghong didn’t understand what “spoil the appetite” meant, but whatever came after couldn’t be anything good.
A few days ago, a servant reported that the young heir’s temperament had changed drastically. No one paid it any mind at the time, thinking that after years of being tormented by illness and unable to go out, Shen Ziqin had finally lost his mind from being cooped up.
No one expected that the once quiet and reserved sickly heir had turned into a sharp-tongued hedgehog.
Whoever he met, he pricked-always hitting where it hurt.
Shen Minghong was about to lose his temper, but remembering why he came today, he forced himself to hold it back. His tone also lost its previous fake friendliness: “Father has good news to tell you.”
“Oh.” Shen Ziqin remained unmoved. “If it’s good news for you, it’s definitely bad news for me. I’m not interested.”
“If he’s so eager to tell me, he can come himself. I can just barely listen.”
Half mocking, half sarcastic, his words were full of barbs.
So much so that Shen Minghong was stunned, staring in disbelief: Daring to talk back to father like this-has he grown wings?
His finger trembled as he pointed at Shen Ziqin. Shen Ziqin said, “Hey, don’t get worked up-if you get sick, no one’s going to take your place.”
That almost sounded like a normal thing to say, so Shen Minghong calmed himself and took a deep breath.
But halfway through his breath, Shen Ziqin’s voice sounded again: “Ah, but don’t get me wrong, I’m not worried about you.”
Then he followed up with another blow: “If you want to get angry, do it outside. Don’t spit blood and dirty up my courtyard.”
Otherwise, his birth mother Madam Luo would come wailing in the courtyard, disturbing everyone.
Too much trouble.
Shen Minghong’s breath caught in his throat, and he coughed so violently it shook the heavens and earth, startling the sick tree into dropping two leaves onto his head-ptui, bad luck!
“Shen-cough cough cough! Shen Ziqin-!”
Shen Minghong glared, raising his hand high at Shen Ziqin. Shen Ziqin narrowed his eyes, watching as he clenched his fist and then-punched himself in the chest.
“Thump thump”-two hits to steady his breath, so he wouldn’t actually cough up three liters of blood from anger.
Shen Ziqin raised his eyebrows: Oh? He can even hold back from hitting me?
That meant his own status in the household had changed. Shen Minghong was wary now, not daring to act rashly.
Judging by Shen Minghong coming to find him personally today, well, Shen Ziqin could pretty much guess what this so-called good news was.
The next moment, Shen Minghong finally exploded: “In three days, His Majesty will issue an edict to marry you to Prince Qin. Just wait!”
He finally said it. Shen Ziqin understood: so it really was an imperial marriage.
You ask how Shen Ziqin knew? Simple-because he was a transmigrator.
Shen Ziqin, a modern person, age twenty-one, woke up seven days ago to find himself in a novel he’d read, as a character with the same name.
He’d skipped grades, graduated university at twenty, worked a year as a 007 corporate drone just to pay off his gambling father’s debts. Life was all pressure, not worth living. So when he realized he’d transmigrated, his first reaction was happiness.
Retiring and lying flat at twenty-one, finally free from endless overtime-what a joy!
He was happy, but not immediately.
Because the current situation of Young Heir Shen was also quite miserable.
Born frail and sickly, lost his mother early, had a useless father, no parental love. Madam Luo and Shen Minghong bullied him at every turn; life in the Marquis’s household was awful.
Not only did the heads of the house look down on him, even the servants didn’t treat him as anyone important.
For some reason, the Marquis’s household didn’t dare kill him outright, but wanted the heir title back. So the Marquis came up with this nasty trick: marry him off, then use “unfit for the position” as an excuse to make Shen Minghong the heir.
In the original novel, the young heir was just a side character. His biggest plotline was marrying Prince Qin, so Shen Ziqin knew this fate well.
After transmigrating, everything was a challenge. The only good news was that after his soul entered this body, it seemed to be slowly healing, getting a little better day by day.
Shen Minghong finally delivered the news and waited eagerly to see Shen Ziqin’s reaction. Surprise, sadness, anger-anything would do, so he could finally vent his frustration.
But after waiting a while, Shen Ziqin didn’t even furrow his brow.
Shen Minghong: ?
He was confused. “Why aren’t you reacting?”
Shen Ziqin was about to lower his eyes to ponder this major life event, but looked even more confused than him: “What reaction?”
“You-you’re not angry… not scared?” He almost slipped up.
Shen Ziqin: “Oh, not at all.”
Shen Minghong raised his voice, emphasizing: “Prince Qin! That violent, ruthless Prince Qin!”
Shen Ziqin’s long eyelashes drooped lazily, looking completely calm.
All that talk about Prince Qin being violent was just slander spread by the emperor.
The original Shen Ziqin was indeed pitiful.
But the Prince Qin he was about to marry, Chu Zhao, was even more so.
At least as a side character, Shen Ziqin survived to the end, but Chu Zhao was cannon fodder who lost his life.
Prince Qin Chu Zhao joined the army at fifteen, became a general at seventeen, went to war young, drove out invaders, and made a name for himself. Because his achievements were too great, the emperor grew wary and disliked him.
The reason for marrying Prince Qin to a man as his main consort was because the royal family had an old rule: anyone who took a man as their main consort could not inherit the throne.
The emperor, a straight-laced man, hadn’t even remembered this rule until the Marquis of Yin Nan dug it up and brought it to his attention. The emperor was delighted and immediately agreed to the marriage.
This solved both Shen Ziqin’s heir position and Chu Zhao’s right of succession-a double win.
Chu Zhao wasn’t actually a violent or bloodthirsty person; it was all rumors spread by the emperor to ruin his reputation, and Shen Ziqin knew this.
In the original novel, Chu Zhao never showed any interest in political struggles, but was inexplicably dragged into intrigue and died an unclear death.
After his death, the prince’s household wasn’t affected, and Shen Ziqin became his sole heir.
Promoted, got rich, and lost a husband.
Who knows what the original Shen Ziqin thought, but the current transmigrated Shen Ziqin was definitely not happy.
After all, who would be happy to suddenly marry a stranger?
But the marriage was already set in stone-there was no way to escape it.
With his current sickly body, no power or influence, and living in a feudal era, even if he tried to run, he wouldn’t get more than a mile or two before either being caught or fainting in some corner, left to die unnoticed.
It’s already been seven days since he transmigrated, and being familiar with the plot, Shen Ziqin had long since mentally prepared himself for the wedding. Now that the imperial decree had really come, he only had one question left.
Shen Ziqin didn’t care, but Shen Minghong was completely thrown off: “How can you not be afraid, you have to-mmph!”
Shen Ziqin was annoyed at being interrupted, so he casually shoved a dead leaf at Shen Minghong’s mouth. “Shh, don’t make noise, I’m thinking.”
Thinking about the most important question right now: How to avoid consummating the marriage on the wedding night?
T/N : new novel ◝(ᵔᗜᵔ)◜
same author as After Becoming The Protagonist’s Inner Demon!
Same author? Cool!