Last night, rain pattered against the glazed tiles, sweeping away the last traces of summer's heat.
When the rain stopped and dawn broke, the sky cleared, bright and clean, and everything in the world looked fresh and lovely.
Yan Tongshu stepped onto the damp blue bricks and entered the Xianlin Academy. She opened the window of the manuscript-editing room, took a deep breath, and let the cool air, infused with the fragrance of grass and trees, seep into her lungs.
She looked up at the tallow tree outside the window. Not long ago, it had been lush and green, but now a faint hint of red had appeared at its tips, as if it were whispering, "Autumn is here."
Yan Tongshu turned back to her desk, took off her satchel, and pulled out the steamed buns, nuts, and milk tea inside.
She had made the milk tea herself before leaving home. After taking a carriage all the way to the academy to edit manuscripts, she figured the temperature would be just right by now.
Enjoying the view outside the window and the early autumn breeze, Yan Tongshu alternated bites of her steamed bun with sips of her milk tea.
Once she finished eating, she patted her belly, let out a small burp, cleaned up the mess, and grabbed a pillow as she headed to the reclining couch next to the editing room. She pulled out a comic book, whiling away the time while munching on some nuts.
When she got tired of reading, she set the comic aside, pulled a thin blanket over herself, rolled over, closed her eyes, and settled in for a nap.
After she'd dozed long enough, the bell rang.
Yan Tongshu sat up on the bed and yawned lazily.
Drowsiness welled up in her eyes, turning her vision blurry.
Still not fully awake, her mind felt as if it were shrouded in a layer of fog.
A bell?
Was class over?
She glanced around at the ancient, rustic buildings, then looked down at the red official robe she was wearing, and finally snapped back to reality.
Oh, she had forgotten. It had already been eight years since she traveled through time into this ancient dynasty called Wu, becoming the fourteen-year-old top scholar who had disguised herself as a man.
For eight years as an official, she had grown from fourteen to twenty-two, slowly climbing from a fifth-rank junior manuscript editor at the Xianlin Academy to a third-rank official by just coasting on seniority.
Yan Tongshu stretched.
Great, another morning successfully loafed through.
"Lord Yan," came a voice from the door.
"Lord Yan, your maidservant has brought your lunch," called the attendant.
Yan Tongshu yawned again. "Let her come in."
A moment later, Pearl entered with a food box. "Young Master, today the kitchen made your favorites: sweet and sour pork ribs, eight-treasure duck, and stir-fried lotus root slices."
Yan Tongshu scooped up the inkstone, brushes, paper, and the manuscript she was working on from her desk, dumping them onto the couch to make room for the meal.
Pearl set out the dishes one by one, handed Yan Tongshu her chopsticks and bowl, then took a pair for herself and sat down to eat with her.
Yan Tongshu picked up a piece of the sticky rice stuffed inside the duck. The rice was filled with ham, scallops, diced chicken, and other ingredients. After steaming, the sauce and duck flavor had soaked in, giving it a unique taste.
Pearl nibbled on a duck leg. "By the way, Young Master."
Yan Tongshu looked up. "Hmm? What is it?"
Pearl continued, "Lady Yan said she happened to run into Lady Zhou today, and they figured that since the late emperor has been gone and the new emperor has been on the throne for over two months, the period of mourning and taboos should be about over. Since they met, they decided to strike while the iron is hot and meet tomorrow to discuss the marriage arrangements for the second young lady and the Zhou family's young master.
"Lady Yan said that since you, Young Master, are the head of the household, you should take a leave from the Xianlin Academy tomorrow if there's nothing important, and stay at home."
Yan Tongshu swallowed the duck meat in her mouth and reached for the warm water flask under the table to brew some tea.
When she picked up the flask, she shook it.
Oh, it was empty.
She had just lazed around all day after starting work, never bothering to fetch any hot water.
Yan Tongshu picked up the flask and stood up. "Pearl, keep eating. I'll go borrow some water from Lord Jiang next door."
Pearl said, "Young Master, let me go."
Pearl snatched the flask from Yan Tongshu's hand and dashed off to the next room to borrow water.
Yan Tongshu had been an editing official at the Xianlin Academy for eight years, and Pearl had been delivering meals to her all that time. By now, Pearl was familiar with all the officials there.
To the officials, the Xianlin Academy was no plum assignment. It was merely a place for editing books.
Just editing books. The late emperor hadn't cared about it, the court paid it no attention, and funding was thin. There was no profit to be made and hardly any power to wield.
Officials assigned to the Xianlin Academy would initially fume with indignation, running around to lobby and plead, hoping to escape this "cold palace" and return to the main track of their careers.
Of course, those with connections and resources all left.
Those who remained had no connections or resources, so they could only stay put. After long enough, their restless hearts gradually calmed.
Yan Tongshu's neighbor, Lord Jiang, was one of those without connections.
When Lord Jiang first arrived, he was a hot-headed young man who spent at least an hour every day cursing the court. Yan Tongshu had admired his boundless energy back then.
Now, with time, Lord Jiang had become despondent, drifting around all day like a soul drained of its life force.
Sure enough, when Pearl knocked on Lord Jiang's door, he opened it with a gloomy expression. After hearing Pearl's request, he drifted back into his room, then drifted back like an exhausted office worker who'd been ground down after ten years on the job, pouring his own water into Pearl's flask.
As a cold breeze brushed past, Pearl felt a wave of Lord Jiang's resentment hit her in the face.
Good heavens.
Pearl grabbed the flask and hurried back, patting her chest. "Young Master, Lord Jiang's aura of resentment is even stronger than it was half a month ago. What happened?"
Yan Tongshu shrugged. "How would I know?"
Pearl fished out the tea leaves. "Young Master, don't you think it's been five years now? Why can't Lord Jiang just get over it? This servant thinks that working at the Xianlin Academy is pretty nice. Less work, good pay, and plenty of freedom. It's such a good deal. I'd envy it if I could."
Yan Tongshu nodded vigorously in agreement.
Though others saw the Xianlin Academy as a "cold palace," in her eyes, it was absolutely perfect!
Four hours of work a day—just eight hours.
A private office.
No one to boss her around, no performance reviews, no unreasonable rules, no clocking in or out, no business trips, and no complaints to deal with.
Every day, all she had to do was leave home, sit down, brew a pot of tea, set out some snacks, grab a few comic books, and fritter away the day. When she felt like it, she'd edit a couple of pages. If she didn't feel like it, she'd just say today's editing work wasn't satisfactory, tear it up, and start over tomorrow.
After all, no one was supervising, and there were no performance metrics. It was awesome.
Her salary arrived on time every month without fail, and she automatically got promoted and got raises as the years passed.
This was the dream job for any office worker!
Thinking back to her life before the time travel—working twenty-four-hour shifts at the hospital, grinding away like a beast of burden—and comparing it to her current happiness, Yan Tongshu almost teared up.
Back then, to escape that soul-sucking job, she had heard that forensic medicine was less grueling than hospital work and even studied for the forensic exam on her own time. Then, juggling work and study, she overworked herself and died from exhaustion.
Heaven must have heard her desperate cries of pain and given her this perfectly carefree life to lounge in.
"Oh, gods! This faithful woman is willing to eat a balanced diet of meat and vegetables for the rest of her life in exchange for staying at the Xianlin Academy forever!" Yan Tongshu silently prayed with all her heart.
After finishing their meal, Pearl packed the bowls and chopsticks back into the food box. "Young Master, don't forget to ask for the day off."
Yan Tongshu nodded.
There was never anything urgent at Xianlin Hall, nor had there ever been any pressing matters; taking leave was as simple as submitting a note.
After seeing Pearl off, Yan Tongshu lay back down on the couch, crossed his left leg over his right knee, grabbed a handful of melon seeds, and started cracking them open.
Reading between the lines.
If Lady Yan deliberately emphasized that she had “bumped into” Lady Zhou by chance, then it definitely wasn’t a coincidence.
Back then, Lord Yan had been gravely ill, hanging by a thread. The physician said he wouldn’t make it through the night. Just then, Yan Tongshu’s mother, Lady Yan, was in labor. To give Lord Yan peace of mind in his final moments, she lied and told him the child was a son.
Unexpectedly, Lord Yan—who had long been troubled by having no heir and had fallen into a deep gloom—was so overjoyed at the news of a son that he miraculously clung to life for a full eight more years before finally passing away.
When the late emperor heard that Lord Yan had overcome his illness because of “the joy of gaining a son,” he sent envoys with gifts to express his concern for his minister.
And so, Yan Tongshu was forced to continue the charade, dressing as a man, through a twist of fate.
Later, Lord Yan had a daughter, Yan Liangyu, with his concubine Chen Meirong. When Yan Liangyu was two years old, Lord Yan passed away.
At that time, Lord Yan had been a high-ranking official of the third grade.
The Zhou family, meanwhile, had only been of the fifth grade.
The original Yan Tongshu had been just eight years old.
No one had anticipated that, after surviving that first crisis, Lord Yan would suddenly fall ill again eight years later and die without warning.
Once Lord Yan was gone, the Yan household consisted of Lady Yan, the original Yan Tongshu, her older sister Yan Liangrong, and her two-year-old sister Yan Liangyu.
A family of widows and orphans.
The Yan family had only Lord Yan as a court official, and their family foundation was not deep or strong. From that point on, the Zhou family gradually reduced their interactions with the Yans.
Later, at just fourteen years old, the original Yan Tongshu came top in the imperial examinations, gaining fame throughout the capital. Her future seemed boundless. Suddenly, the Zhou family grew warm toward the Yans again and revived the offhand marriage agreement the two families had once casually mentioned.
Lady Yan disliked the Zhou family’s opportunism and used the excuse that the children were still too young, putting the matter on hold.
Then, Yan Tongshu transmigrated into this world.
By then, the original Yan Tongshu had already offended many in the court due to her upright nature and blunt advice to the throne. Seeing that the court was teeming with wolves and tigers, all eyeing the Yan family menacingly, and aware that she herself carried the tail of “the crime of deceiving the emperor,” Yan Tongshu felt she couldn’t outfight these old foxes who had spent decades immersed in the world of officialdom. So she came up with a plan.
Taking advantage of the fact that the late emperor, in his old age, increasingly valued the reputation of being a virtuous ruler, she deliberately sought out trivial, petty matters and, at fixed times every day, impeached imperial relatives, high-ranking officials, and military commanders. She gambled that the emperor wouldn’t want to earn the name of a tyrant who drove his ministers to death. So, following the original’s path as an official, she crafted a persona for herself: a man of integrity, extreme integrity, and above all, integrity. She frequently threatened to smash her head against a pillar, demanding that the late emperor harshly punish all the court officials.
Before long, the late emperor grew tired of Yan Tongshu, found an excuse, and banished her to Xianlin Hall.
Yan Tongshu was happy to coast along.
As long as she quietly kept her head down at Xianlin Hall until retirement, letting everyone forget there was someone like her, no one would expose her identity as a woman. Then both the Yan family and she would be safe.
But just like being cast into a “cold palace,” the Yan men’s loss of prospects made the family’s future bleak. The Zhou family turned cold toward the Yans once more.
Years later, Lord Zhou was promoted to the fourth-grade position of Grand Master of Central Compliance.
Neither the Zhou nor the Yan families ever brought up the old marriage agreement again. Both assumed that the matter was over and done with.
No one expected that Zhou Zhengxun and Yan Liangyu had secretly grown attached to each other. At that time, Zhou Zhengxun was fourteen, and Yan Liangyu was only thirteen.
Yan Tongshu tossed the melon seed shells into the trash bin and picked up a plate of peanuts.
Only thirteen years old.
Converted to modern terms, that’s a first-year middle school student.
Textbook early love.
First-year middle schoolers, at the most stubborn age. No matter how the Zhou family opposed it, Zhou Zhengxun refused to give up on being with Yan Liangyu, going so far as to plan an elopement.
With no other option—neither family wanted the elopement scandal to blow up—they had to accept the situation and formally settled the engagement.
Though the engagement was fixed, the Zhou family insisted that the two were still too young and should wait a few more years. Yan Tongshu wholeheartedly agreed.
They were only in junior high.
Thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds getting married was far too shocking for her worldview.
It wasn’t appropriate, not at all.
When Yan Liangyu was fifteen, marriage discussions began, a date was set, but Lady Zhou fell ill, and the plan was postponed.
When she was sixteen, again they tried to settle on a date, but Lady Zhou’s old illness relapsed, and everything stalled once more.
