Chapter 2
The fourth year of the He Li(和历, Harmony Calendar) era, Emperor Pingyang issued a proclamation, greatly promoting agriculture and animal husbandry, while suppressing commerce and trade...
Merchant families were not permitted to wear silk, purchase farmland, or ride in ornate carriages and horses into the market. Furthermore, the sons of merchant families were barred from taking the imperial examinations to enter officialdom.
Under the social hierarchy of scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants, the status of scholars and farmers rose, while the status of merchants once again plummeted sharply.
Merchant families, in order to consolidate their social standing, sought out impoverished scholars to form marital alliances. Both sides sought their own interests, and this phenomenon gradually became widespread among the common people.
Fang Yu rested in bed for three days before finally figuring out that he had truly transmigrated into a book. Moreover, he had caught the trend of poor scholars marrying into wealthy merchant families, unfortunately becoming one of them.
Back then, his little niece was engrossed in this book and even told him there was a villain in it with the exact same name as his. He took a casual look and found that although the book was about the imperial examinations, its setting was very strange—it actually had three genders: men, women, and ger. At the time, he thought it was inappropriate for children to read, so he confiscated the book and kept it for himself.
He never expected he would actually become the Fang Yu from the book—an important cannon-fodder supporting character in the villain's camp.
In the book, Fang Yu used his fulang's dowry to acquire property, took concubines, and bought maidservants. He also thought highly of himself and looked down on merchant families. After achieving a high rank in the examinations and becoming an official, he divorced his original spouse and promptly married a noblewoman. Meanwhile, his young fulang's family business went bankrupt, and he ultimately died of depression.
Yet Fang Yu continued to thrive and navigate the capital for over a decade, colluding with villains to exploit the people and treat human life as worthless...
Of course, that was still in the future.
For now, the Fang Yu who shared his name and identity was merely a scholar who had never even been to the capital and still pined for his childhood sweetheart.
In the book, Fang Yu came from a poor farming family. His father died early, and his widowed mother supported him and paid for his education by doing laundry and cooking for a wealthy household. Life was hard for the orphan and his widow mother, but the scholar was diligent and passed the imperial examination at the county level at the age of fourteen.
Fang Yu was talented in his youth, possessed good looks, and came from a simple and uncomplicated family background. He was soon targeted by merchant families in the city, with countless people coming to offer gifts and propose marriages. After much selection, Fang's mother settled on the Qiao family, a merchant household in the city, and held a grand wedding in the tenth month this year.
Although married, Fang Yu looked down upon the ger and solely missed his childhood sweetheart from Fangju Village.
Originally, after the marriage between the Fang and Qiao families, Fang's mother took charge and arranged for her son to take his childhood sweetheart, the cousin, as a concubine. However, the Qiao family objected to taking a concubine so soon after the marriage, fearing it would boost the concubine's arrogance and cause family members to look down upon and mistreat Qiao Hezhi. They insisted that if a concubine was to be taken, it must be at least three months later.
Fang Yu was deeply annoyed by this, feeling constrained by his wife's family and unable to be with his beloved. Consequently, he deliberately gave Qiao Hezhi the cold shoulder. Nearly a month into the marriage, they still had not shared a bedroom. Mother and son took turns making things difficult for him.
A few days ago, Fang Yu missed the cousin intensely. He secretly bought many trinkets that young girls like and went to visit her. However, he returned late after dark, and after some unpleasantness at the cousin's house, it was raining heavily and he accidentally fell into the river. The original Fang Yu had already died in the river, and now, with a needle prick, he had been replaced.
Fang Yu sighed, truly it was all the work of fate.
Transmigrating into a cannon-fodder villain was somewhat unwilling, but Fang Yu, who was passionate about history, found a silver lining in experiencing the ancient times firsthand. He got into character quickly, slipping into the archaic speech quite smoothly. After these few days, aside from the servants finding his temperament had become gentler, no one noticed anything amiss.
A shaft of light spilled through the window, falling upon the desk and teapot. The sunlight was particularly fine today. The shadows of the eaves layered with the patterns of flower branches. After several consecutive days of overcast rain, it was finally clear for a change.
During these days, Fang Yu's mother, who lived in Changshou (长壽, longevity) Hall, would come to his room every now and then to weep. Her peasant family's voice was loud and boisterous. She would either endlessly lament that she couldn't live without him, or curse the Qiao family for not knowing their place and obstructing their taking of a concubine. It gave him a headache. Now, finally having some peace, he threw on an outer robe and decided to go out for a walk.
The Fang family relied on the support of his in-laws. Upon marriage, they received a two-courtyard residence as a dowry, complete with furniture, items, maids, and servants. Fang Yu and his mother were thus able to move from their dilapidated rural earth house into the city, transforming overnight into a prominent and wealthy family.
Now, in the bleakness of winter, the garden mostly presented a desolate scene, though a few evergreen plants and some large chrysanthemums were still somewhat pleasant to look at.
There was a pot of bird feed on the stone table in the small pavilion. Just as Fang Yu was about to go over and take some to feed the birds, he saw a young maid in the corridor carrying a small rush cushion, wiping her eyes as she walked forward.
"Siyu?"
Fang Yu recognized this maid. The past couple of days when Qiao Hezhi came to pay his respects and deliver medicinal soup, she had been accompanying him. That beautiful young man would call him husband this and husband that, making him feel extremely uncomfortable. So, whenever he heard he was coming, he would lie in bed pretending to be asleep and send him away. After three to five times like this, the young man indeed visited less frequently.
"Master, greetings."
"Where are you going with that cushion?"
Siyu stammered, "It's cold in the room in winter. The young master has caught a chill. This servant is taking the cushion for the young master to sit on to keep warm."
Hearing that the person was ill, Fang Yu couldn't help but ask, "Has a physician been called?"
"He's been seen several times. He's taking the medicine, but he's just not getting better."
Fang Yu thought for a moment and then said, "Is he in his room? I'll go see him."
Knowing the contents of the book, he felt a certain degree of sympathy for Qiao Hezhi.
Moreover, he was now his fulang. Although he was very reluctant to admit it and resisted it inwardly—as the saying goes: the mouth that eats from others is soft, the hand that takes from others is short. Now, the Fang family ate from the in-laws' resources and used the in-laws' possessions. Any normal person would be ashamed and want to hold their fulang up high in reverence. Yet the original host could actually bully Qiao Hezhi while relying on him.
[吃人嘴軟，拿人手短 (chī rén zuǐ ruǎn, ná rén shǒu duǎn): lit. The mouth that eats from others is soft; the hand that takes from others is short.; fig. Being indebted to others makes it difficult to refuse their requests or criticize them.]
In any case, he couldn't be that shameless. Even if he wanted to avoid the Qiao family's young master, since they were under the same roof, pleasantries had to be observed.
Unexpectedly, Siyu then said, "The young master... the young master isn't in his room!"
Siyu thought Fang Yu had seen through the purpose of the cushion and was deliberately looking for fault.
What bad luck.
She had just quarreled with some servants who were gossiping about the young master behind his back, and now, turning a corner, she actually ran into the master. She had no choice but to confess, "The young master is still in the ancestral hall. This servant wanted to take the cushion there. It's truly too cold there, and the young master already has a cold constitution... so this servant thought to send a softer cushion..."
Her voice grew smaller and smaller.
Fang Yu didn't understand at first and frowned. "The weather is good today. If he's sick, he should come out to get some air. Since you know the ancestral hall is cold and damp, why did he go there?"
Siyu looked puzzled. She couldn't quite figure out the master's behavior today. If he meant to criticize indirectly, there was no need to say so much.
Could it be that he truly didn't know why the young master went to the ancestral hall because he had been ill?
She tentatively said in a small voice: "The old lady said that the young master hasn't been diligent enough recently, and his negligence led to the master encountering a mishap. He should go serve the ancestors properly."
Fang Yu glanced at the cushion, thought of the tense relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law in the Fang family, and suddenly understood. "Preposterous!"
He turned and hurriedly went to the ancestral hall.
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