Chapter 2

Home Fighting Is Worse Than Farming 2

The news of the Zhong family’s daughter’s return spread throughout the Renkang Lane of Xiao Xian Fang in just one morning.

No wonder the neighbors were talking about it. It was because the eldest daughter of the Zhong family followed her aunt who became a Taoist priest to a Taoist temple when she was six years old and there was little news about her. The others thought she was dead. Now that she has suddenly returned, the neighbors were aroused with curiosity and gathered at the door of the Zhong family to listen.

Zhong Chu Yuan, who was only six years old, became the best target for them to inquire about the gossip. When she went out, the people pulled her aside and asked, “Little lady, I heard that your eldest sister is back?”

Under her mother’s explanation, Zhong Chu Yuan already knew who her sister was. Her mother explained that she was the one who entered the house in the morning. Now that she was asked, she candidly said, “Yeah, Yuanyuan’s elder sister is back!”

That was her sister. She had no other family besides her mother! When she said that, she smiled brightly and was extremely happy.

The neighbors glanced at each other and continued to inquire, “So, what is she doing back? Is she returning for the sake of marriage?”

Zhong Chu Yuan tilted her head, “What’s marriage?”

Everyone found that they couldn’t get any useful information from the child. They also noticed that it had gotten late and that they still needed to work so they left one after another.

Zhong Chu Yuan ran home and asked her mother, “Mother, what is marriage?”

Meng was still so immersed in the joy of her eldest daughter’s return that when Zhong Chu Yuan asked, Meng was taken aback and remembered the incident.

Her daughter became a monk at the age of six, so why did she suddenly come back?

It’s not that she doesn’t want her daughter to come back, but her eldest daughter has been a monk for more than a day or two, and she has never been home for so many years. It was hard for her not to think about it when she suddenly came back at this time.

She got up and saw through the window that there was a long and thin figure in the courtyard carefully picking out the herbs and placing them in the medicine bag.

The hair under the hibiscus crown was a little yellow and her face was slightly pale. But it must be said that her features were well-shaped and gorgeous. If she takes good care of herself and in a given time, she will surely become a beautiful woman.

However, her attire, her dastardly temperament, her calmness in handling things without a trace of fireworks, make her seem to be outside of this world. It’s hard to imagine that she was a Taoist when she took off her Taoist uniform and wore a robe fitting for a wife and mother.

For a moment, Meng didn’t want her to return to the secular world, hoping that she would remain and not be disturbed by the secular world. But her realistic thinking followed, forcing her to give up on this impractical idea.

“Yuan’er,” Meng subconsciously called.

Zhong Qi Yuan looked up and responded, “Mother, what’s the matter?”

Meng asked, “What are you doing?”

“Oh, I’m checking the medicine that mother usually takes. The original prescription given by the doctor was for soothing the nerves and I can’t say that he was wrong, but it’s not enough to soothe the nerves for mother’s illness. I will select useful herbs from the prescription and prepare a new medicine. But there are a few missing herbs so I will go out and get them later.”

Meng was stunned once more and subconsciously asked, “Yuan’er, you know medicine?”

“When I was in the Taoist temple, I was either learning talismans or medical science, so I know a little.”

When Meng thought that the Taoists who made alchemy also seemed to know about medical principles, she no longer doubted. She said, “There is no hurry to get busy with those, you just came back. Take a rest first!”

“I’m not tired. “ Zhong Qi Yuan was used to her work in the barren space and naturally wants to complete the task quickly so she can go back and continue to build infrastructure.

That’s right. She wasn’t idle for more than 4,000 years of unemployment. She found a hobby in the barren space – farming and infrastructure.

She developed an empty space with nothing into the pre-industrial age and at a critical point, the newly appointed Lord God asked her to leave the barren space and return to the ‘after-sales’ center and return to work under the guise of caring for the unemployed.

She refused, “I am an unemployed person who has been out of work for more than 4,000 years. I have long been out of touch with the world. I’m afraid that I will not be qualified for the job of being a ‘host’.”

The Lord God slightly smiled, “The barren land also belongs to the main god space. I won’t care about your unauthorized transformation of the barren land. If you accept the re-employment arrangement, I can promise you that I will give you the right to manage the barren land.”

Zhong Qi Yuan didn’t like to give up halfway. Seeing that the barren space is still a foot short of entering the industrial age, if she were to give up now, she would definitely not be happy. She had no choice and could only accept the Lord God’s conditions.

As the first small world mission after returning to duty, the task is actually not too difficult. As the system says, the most direct way is to start with the reborn person. As long as the reborn person is eliminated, then the development of this small world will return to the right track.

But Zhong Qi Yuan doesn’t like being on ‘the right track’ nor does she like to stick to the rules. She likes to test the system or the bottom line of the main god space and likes to challenge the rules. Therefore, after accepting the plot, she already had a clear direction.

In the original plot, the son of luck, that is, the heroine Zhong Chu Yuan was the first daughter of the Zhong family. Her father, Zhong Zao, was the chief secretary of the Xuanwu Governor, the equivalent to the chief secretary of the local military commander.

Don’t look at him as an ordinary secretary. In this small world’s era, Xuanwu Governor is the more powerful side of the separatist forces in the feudal town. If Xuanwu Governor will take over the country in the future, then Zhong Zao, as the chief secretary, will inevitably become a minister.

Zhong Zao himself is also quite talented. He was a scholar in his twentieth and was awarded the eighth grade of the imperial court. The Xuanwu Governor, Shi Hong, was interested in his literary talent and tried every possible way to get him to be his advisor.

Although he had no official position and had no salary, Zhong Zao was treated as an honored guest by Shi Hong. In order to pay Shi Hong, he joined his banner.

Of course, in Zhong Qi Yuan’s opinion, the high salary and generous pay were some of the reasons why he gave up his status as a civil servant and became the chief secretary of the local army commander. After all, he was born in a poor family and was married to his wife, Meng, at the age of sixteen and relied on the Meng family as well as Meng’s dowry to have money to study. He then passed the Xiucai selection and became a scholar at the age of twenty-six.

In those days, the imperial examinations were divided into many subjects. Among them, Xiucai, Jinshi, Mingjing, and Junshi, were popular subjects, but Xiucai was the most difficult subject in the imperial examinations and the number of successful candidates was only in single digits each time.

It took Zhong Zao ten years to pass the exam for Xiucai with his real ability, but he has the same problem as Sima Xiangru [1], that is, once he became rich, he began to fool around. His wife, Meng, gave birth to his eldest daughter and after becoming rich, he started accepting concubines on the grounds that Meng had no children after ten years of marriage.

Later, when Zhong Chu Yuan was born, he threw Meng and his two daughters at his hometown in the name of serving the elderly, while he spent his nights in his concubines’ room and took care of himself.

Even when he became the secretary of Xianwu Governor, he never thought of bringing his wife’s first daughter with him, but his concubine’s son and daughter followed him in his new place of employment and received so much love from him.

It was under such an environment that Meng died of illness in the old Zhong family home. Zhong Chu Yuan was left alone before she was taken to Zhong Zao’s side – as for the eldest daughter Zhong Qi Yuan, she died in a Taoist temple long before Meng’s death.

Zhong Sao soon married Shi Hong’s righteous sister as his step-brother, and since she had no children, she took the young Zhong Chu Yuan as her own and raised her.

In order to survive in the back house, Zhong Chu Yuan was forced to participate in the house fight. She fights with her concubine siblings and her father’s concubine and also has to find ways to gain the love of her father and stepmother.

During these years of fighting, Zhong Chu Yuan became acquainted with Shi Hong’s youngest son, Shi Xuanwei, because of the Shi Clan. The two grew up as childhood sweethearts and were very close to each other. At the age of seventeen, Shi Xuanwei proposed to marry Zhong Chu Yuan.

Since then, the couple began their legendary life of supporting each other, seeking the world, and becoming the emperor and the empress. . .

If there is no intervention from the reborn person, the original plot would flow as such.

But somehow, something went wrong. Zhong Chu Yuan’s concubine sister Zhong Que Yuan was reborn. She knew that Shi Xuanwei would eventually ascend to the throne as the emperor and she also knew that her most annoying elder sister would become the empress. In order to prevent all of this from happening, she preemptively met Shi Xuanwei first and then manipulated the Shi family to adopt her.

After Zhong Chu Yuan was picked up, she set up a trap at every turn, making Zhong Zao – who originally felt guilty for Meng and her daughter’s situation – more and more disgusted with the only remaining first daughter.

In addition, Zhong Zao, in order to win over his colleagues, betrothed Zhong Chu Yuan to his colleague’s son, the sickly second male lead. But before Zhong Chu Yuan could get married, he died of illness and Zhong Chu Yuan was given the reputation of being a bad wife.

Zhong Chu Yuan’s suffering did not stop there. She was then manipulated by Zhong Que Yuan to have a fling with Shi Xuanwei’s eldest prince brother and was eventually carried into his backyard where she was tortured by the prince.

After Shi Xuanwei killed the crown prince and seized the throne, Zhong Que Yuan became the empress while Zhong Chu Yuan was included in the harem only to be humiliated in every turn.

Under this endless torture, Zhong Chu Yuan blackened.

It must be said that even though the son of luck has blackened, as long as she perseveres, she will still be the son of fortune.

Not only did she turn her defeat into victory step by step in battle, but she also regained Shi Xuanwei’s love and pulled Zhong Que Yuan down from her position. But she also became the evil concubine who confuses the emperor to ignore the government and indulge in sensuality.

Under the debuff of the emperor’s lasciviousness and disregard for imperial affairs, the dynasty that was so easily established naturally declined rapidly and the various forces for succession fought again.

Although the evil concubine was killed in the end, it could not prevent the arrival of a century-long era of chaos. The small world failed to turn in a good direction and finally collapsed.

After reading through the plot of the two lives, Zhong Qi Yuan asked, “House fighting, palace fighting? At this time, I might as well do something interesting.”

She raised her hand and beckoned the little turnip head, Zhong Chu Yuan.

“Sister is looking for Yuanyuan?”

“Do you want Mother’s illness to be cured?” Zhong Qi Yuan asked.

The little turnip head’s eyes lit up like stars, “Want!”

Zhong Qi Yuan nodded. She really deserves to be the son of luck. She has a high level of awareness!

“If that’s the case, then you have to work hard to treat Mother.”

Zhong Chu Yuan, “?”

———-

Sima Xiangru was a Chinese musician, poet, and politician who lived during the Western Han dynasty. Sima is a significant figure in the history of Classical Chinese poetry and is generally regarded as the greatest of all composers of Chinese fu rhapsodies.