Wang Qianhu felt a mix of emotions, not knowing whether to call her foolish or naive. Was Uncle Wu the type of person who would return betrothal gifts?
Having reached this point, Wu Shi still harbored fantasies about her maternal family.
Wang Qianhu felt he had utterly failed as a husband. He had doted on his young wife so much, entrusted her with household management, never suspected her, and felt he had never wronged her in any way. But why did his young wife’s heart still lean toward her maternal family and not consider her husband’s family?
Originally, Wang Qianhu had still been somewhat hesitant. For the sake of his young son Wang Daqiu, he didn’t want to divorce his young wife, thinking that since the four thousand taels of silver debt would be forgiven anyway, he could just give her some punishment.
But seeing Wu Shi being so naive and confused, and the Wu family being so greedy and insatiable—like leeches clinging to the body sucking blood—if he didn’t divorce Wu Shi, this big leech would probably suck the Wang residence dry for life, bringing disaster to his descendants. So he made up his mind and accepted Wu Shi’s voluntary divorce letter.
Wang Qianhu ordered people to return all of Wu Shi’s dowry and her two dowry maids to her. The Wu family were military households of the Grand Secretariat’s Great Imperial Stables, raising horses for generations—a small, humble family. How much dowry could they have? When Wu Shi originally married over, it appeared she had forty-eight carries of dowry, but actually half were empty carries, just for show.
Moreover, during the four years Wu Shi had managed the household, she had constantly helped her maternal family and had never skimmed money for her own private account. She left the marriage the same way she entered it. Other married daughters were “brother-supporting demons,” while Wu Shi was a “brother-supporting demon” who gained no benefits for herself and ended up being neither fish nor fowl.
Wang Qianhu, considering their four years of marital affection and seeing her meager dowry, fearing her life would be difficult after divorce, added a hundred taels of silver and had Mu Baihu escort her back.
Seeing the two ingots of silver Wang Qianhu gave her, Wu Shi cried uncontrollably. This husband, except for being somewhat old, had no other faults. It was she who hadn’t cherished him, and now regret came too late.
Mu Baihu asked her, “Thousand-household says you can say goodbye to Daqiu, but don’t cry and wail to frighten the child.”
Wu Shi cried, “Forget it—I, his birth mother, have no face to see him. While he’s still young, in a few months he’ll forget me and not recognize me—that would be better. With me, this foolish mother dragging him down, his great-uncle… my big brother will definitely cling to him and suck his blood.”
Mu Baihu thought to himself: Now you understand? Unfortunately, it’s too late.
Halfway there, Wu Shi suddenly asked Mu Baihu to escort her out of the city. “If I return to my maternal family, I’m afraid I won’t even be able to keep my dowry. I have a small estate in the countryside that my mother gave me. I’ll live alone from now on.”
Mu Baihu escorted her away. Thinking that life wouldn’t be easy for a divorced wife who might be bullied, he greeted both the village head and neighborhood chief. The Northern District Military Commission wasn’t much in the capital, but it was quite intimidating in the countryside. Wu Shi, this small landlady, could establish herself in the countryside.
On Tianshui Lane, the hateful stepmother had finally left, but the family had also become an empty shell. Since they would have to live frugally from now on, Wang Daxia wasn’t happy. Wei Caiwei placed a chicken leg in his bowl. “No matter how tight your family’s finances become, you’re still much better off than ordinary families. Fortune and misfortune depend on each other—who knows if this isn’t a good thing?”
Wei Caiwei said this because in her previous life, the Wang family had encountered catastrophic disaster precisely because Wang Qianhu was the Commander of the Northern District Military Commission.
In her previous life, during the depths of winter, the Northern District Military Commission Commander cooperated with the Embroidered Uniform Guard to capture White Lotus Sect spies and destroy their spy nest.
The White Lotus Sect had originally been a folk organization of peasant uprisings resisting court rule. But by the Jiajing reign of the Ming Dynasty, the White Lotus Sect had changed its nature. Hating the court’s encirclement and suppression, the sect leader simply took his followers far away to the grasslands, submitting to the Mongol An Da Khan and becoming “Ming traitors.”
The White Lotus Sect was familiar with Central Plains geography and had numerous followers as eyes and ears. The intelligence about the capital’s weak defenses came from the White Lotus Sect. An Da Khan followed the White Lotus Sect’s advice, marching his army south. With the White Lotus Sect as guides, they were indeed unstoppable, encountering almost no resistance before reaching the capital and besieging the city.
The Great Ming Gengwu Rebellion of ten years ago arose from this.
Afterwards, tracking White Lotus Sect movements and capturing White Lotus Sect spies became an important task for the Great Ming’s Embroidered Uniform Guard, Eastern Depot, Five Districts Military Commission, and other offices.
During a night patrol, the Northern District Military Commission arrested someone who violated curfew. The next day, this person’s family came with fine money and household registration to claim him, but the careful Mu Baihu discovered the household registration was fake, and this person somewhat resembled a wanted White Lotus Sect spy.
Wang Qianhu immediately reported this to the Embroidered Uniform Guard. The Embroidered Uniform Guard officer responsible for capturing White Lotus Sect members at that time was Chen Qianhu—Wei Caiwei’s mortal enemy. In her previous life, she had killed Chen Dalang, but being too excited, she stabbed Chen Dalang over thirty times, none fatally, nearly getting captured alive. To avoid arrest, she entered the palace as a palace maid, so Chen Qianhu never died.
Chen Qianhu brought Embroidered Uniform Guard personnel and cooperated with the Northern District Military Commission, following the spy to find the White Lotus Sect’s nest in the capital—First Alley west of Jishuitan in the northern district (Note 1). The two offices cooperated to surround the nest.
But even the most careful plans have gaps. The spies had dug an underground chamber in their nest to secretly manufacture weapons and store large quantities of gunpowder. In desperation, the White Lotus Sect spies ignited the underground powder magazine, not only killing and injuring many Northern District Military Commission soldiers and Embroidered Uniform Guards, but also implicating the common people of First Alley.
Winter weather in the capital was dry with northeast winds. The wind fed the flames, making firefighting impossible. They could only knock on doors in the middle of the night to wake up the street residents and evacuate them. In the end, all of First Alley burned down.
Fortunately, the end of the alley was Jishuitan, and the lake water blocked the fire dragon, preventing this great fire from spreading to other alleys.
But innocent common people still died—a deaf-mute couple who couldn’t hear the sounds, and a paralyzed old man bedridden who was burned alive.
At the critical moment, Wang Qianhu pressed Mu Baihu under his body to protect him. His legs were blown off by the explosion, his back severely burned over a large area—he was gravely injured.
With such heavy casualties and destroying an entire street, accountability came down from above. Chen Qianhu of the Embroidered Uniform Guard had sent silver to Yan Shifan and was protected by him, so naturally no one dared touch him—he was only fined one year’s salary in the end.
But Wang Qianhu had no backing, no channels to send money, and was one of the direct responsible parties. So dismissal, title stripping, and property confiscation came down on Wang Qianhu’s head in succession.
Wang Qianhu was truly miserable—severely injured with excruciating pain from burns and broken legs, facing bitter cold outside, yet still being expelled from his home by the property confiscation team.
Wang Daxia removed a door panel, wrapped his father in bedding, and carried him out together with Mu Baihu.
Snow flakes drifting, north wind howling.
Wu Shi and Wang Daqiu only knew how to wail and cry. The Wang family moved into a house rented by Mu Baihu, and Wang Qianhu died from pain that very night.
After handling his father’s funeral, Wang Daxia castrated himself with a knife, swearing to rise in the world. Mu Baihu took out all his savings to pave Wang Daxia’s path into the palace.
Wang Daxia entered the palace and first studied in the Inner Academy for three years. Wei Caiwei, who had become a palace favorite, chose him as her companion husband, confidently entrusting her revenge to him. Besides his handsome looks, having the character “xia” in his name, and being a kept man, there was another important reason—Wang Daxia, like her, deeply hated Chen Qianhu and Yan Shifan who had shifted all responsibility onto his father!
If Chen Qianhu hadn’t bribed Yan Shifan and pushed all responsibility onto Wang Qianhu alone, the Wang family wouldn’t have been destroyed.
Having a common enemy would make the alliance between companion spouses solid.
Wang Daxia joined hands with her to eliminate Chen Qianhu, and together with the anti-Yan forces in court, they brought down the father and son Yan Shifan and Yan Song.
After Wang Daxia became Eastern Depot Director, he used various means to destroy the White Lotus Sect, avenging his father.
In the previous life, whether Wang Daxia or Wei Caiwei, both had eliminated all their enemies.
In this new life, Wei Caiwei protected Wang Daxia, not wanting him to experience that bone-deep pain and grief again.
She wouldn’t enter the palace because she wanted to find ways outside the palace to warn Wang Qianhu and the Embroidered Uniform Guard about the secret underground powder magazine in the White Lotus Sect nest in First Alley.
Whether through anonymous reporting or guiding Lu Ying and Wang Daxia to investigate First Alley and eliminate the powder magazine threat, in this life she was determined to prevent the tragedy from happening again.
But Wei Caiwei never expected that Yan Shifan’s sabotage of Wang Qianhu in the Beijing evaluation would, by a strange twist of fate, help Wang Qianhu escape his life-and-death crisis!
In the previous life, Wang Daxia hadn’t offended Yan Shifan, so Yan Shifan didn’t target Wang Qianhu in the Beijing evaluation, there was no usury matter, and Wu Shi was never divorced.
In this life, Wang Daxia had offended Yan Shifan, so Yan Shifan exploited Uncle Wu’s greed, sending people to tempt Uncle Wu to borrow money from Wu Shi for usury lending, conveniently pinning the crime of greed on Wang Qianhu and using the Beijing evaluation to eliminate him.
As a result, although Wang Qianhu lost the official position he had worked half his life for and four thousand taels of silver went down the drain, causing his family’s decline, he thereby stayed far from disaster. Without Wei Caiwei needing to worry and scheme, he could live peacefully.
Where there is fortune, misfortune follows; where there is misfortune, fortune follows.
So when Wei Caiwei learned of this, not only was she not sad, she was extremely happy. Next, she didn’t need to worry about the Wang family’s ruin—she only needed to find ways to guide the Embroidered Uniform Guard to destroy the White Lotus Sect nest and warn of the underground powder magazine’s existence to prevent First Alley from suffering disaster.
With the Wang family not suffering disaster, Wang Daxia wouldn’t castrate himself in grief and anger, keeping his manhood intact.
Today was Wei Caiwei’s good day of successfully becoming a palace female physician. Wang Daxia didn’t want to spoil the mood with family matters. Wei Caiwei also proactively gave him a chicken leg and gently comforted him that after extreme hardship comes happiness, that losing his position might not be a disaster. Wang Daxia immediately turned from worry to joy, saying, “I’ll take your auspicious words. Losing position to preserve title—this deal is worth it.”
Wei Caiwei thought: More than just preserving the title? Your father’s life and your manhood were both preserved, okay?
Those four thousand taels of silver were well spent!
But she couldn’t tell Wang Daxia this. Wei Caiwei pointed to the chicken leg in his bowl. “Eat it while it’s hot.”
Wang Daxia wasn’t polite, taking a big bite, then frowned and glanced at Ding Wu without saying anything, obediently eating the chicken leg.
Tonight Ding Wu seemed to have no appetite—he hadn’t picked up his chopsticks yet.
“Time to eat.” Wei Caiwei placed the other chicken leg in Ding Wu’s bowl.
Wei Caiwei habitually drank a bowl of soup first. When the chicken soup entered her mouth, Wei Caiwei almost spat it out but forced herself to swallow it like taking medicine. Now she finally understood Wang Daxia’s strange expression when eating the chicken leg earlier.
“Big Brother Ding, you forgot to add salt,” Wei Caiwei said.
“Ah?” Ding Wu had been thinking about the marriage discussion between the Lu family and Minister Wu Peng’s family, feeling that Lu Ying was going to marry into the Wu family. His mind was distracted, causing him to make mistakes in cooking.
Ding Wu tasted the soup. “Sorry, I’ll add salt and reheat it. Wait a moment.”
Ding Wu carried the iron pot to the kitchen to reheat the food.
Wei Caiwei asked Wang Daxia, “Why didn’t you say anything when you ate the chicken leg?”
Wang Daxia was somewhat embarrassed. “I thought Big Brother Ding deliberately cooked it with a light flavor. As a guest, how could I be picky? He buys groceries, cooks, and even plucks chicken feathers—quite tiring.”
When Wang Daxia first met Ding Wu, he had made several sarcastic remarks. In just two months, he had grown quickly, and his rogue temperament had restrained considerably.
Wei Caiwei looked at Ding Wu busy in the kitchen. “Big Brother Ding is a bit strange today.”
Wang Daxia nodded repeatedly, tattling to Wei Caiwei while taking the opportunity to act spoiled. “He was absent-minded. Today when plucking chicken feathers, he accidentally plucked my leg hair too. It hurt so much.”
Wei Caiwei: I just thought you had grown up, but you’re still the same…
Author’s Note: I finally completed the last piece of the puzzle from the previous life! The logical chain has formed a closed loop—sending 100 red packets to celebrate! Wishing everyone a pleasant weekend~
Note 1: West of Jishuitan there are three alleys, respectively First Alley, Second Alley, and Third Alley. Ming Dynasty capital street names were just this simple and direct.