“Ning Chen! Get out here!”

“Second Young Master, you can’t go in — the Fourth Young Master’s come down with a chill. You wouldn’t want to catch it.”

“Out of my way, you damn dog. You’d block me? Tell that bastard to quit playing dead and get out here.”

A slap cracked through the cursing.

Ning Chen woke.

He looked around the cramped little room, dazed.

A square table, a round stool, one broken-down cot. Nothing else.

Where was he?

He was still puzzling over it when fragments of memory forced their way into his head. The pain nearly knocked him out.

It came fast, and it left fast.

Ning Chen wiped the cold sweat off his forehead, a strange look on his face. He’d actually transmigrated.

Back on Earth he’d been the commander of a special forces unit. In a firefight, a stray round had found something vital, and he had died for his country.

And after dying, he’d woken up in the body of a man with the exact same name?

This was the Great Xuan Empire.

A dynasty that had never existed in history.

The previous owner of this body, though, had it rough.

His father, Ning Ziming, was the sitting Minister of Rites — Second Rank, Senior Grade (TL Note: the imperial civil service had nine numbered ranks, each split into senior and junior grades. Second Rank Senior puts him near the very top of the court.).

Yet in this house, Ning Chen lived worse than the servants did.

Ning Ziming and Ning Chen’s mother had been childhood sweethearts.

Back then, before Ning Ziming left for the capital to take the imperial examinations, he had promised her that once he’d won his rank, he would come back and marry her.

She waited five years.

The truth was that he had placed second in the palace examination (TL Note: the final, empire-wide stage of the imperial exams, personally overseen by the emperor. The top three finishers became instant celebrities and were guaranteed high office.) five years earlier. The Left Chancellor took a liking to him, and he married the Chancellor’s daughter. Three children already.

The Great Xuan Empire put filial duty above all else, and Ning Ziming had only come back that time to make offerings at the ancestral graves.

Ning Chen’s mother knew none of it. She thought he had come to bring her to the capital, to a good life.

But after one night together, that animal brushed himself off and walked out. Gone, and he never came back.

Afterward, she found she was pregnant.

When Ning Chen was seven, the grief turned to sickness, and she died.

After that he begged for a living, raised on whatever scraps a hundred different households would spare.

When he was twelve, Ning Ziming sent men to find him and bring him back to the Ning estate.

Only later did Ning Chen learn it hadn’t been conscience. It was his career.

He was afraid his political rivals would find out he was a cold, faithless man who had abandoned his own blood. So he brought Ning Chen home first, and invented a perfect story to go with it.

But the lady of the house — Chang Ruyue — and her three sons were worried Ning Chen would take a share of the estate one day, and they couldn’t stand the sight of him.

Every day Ning Chen walked on eggshells trying to please them, and every day the abuse got worse.

No matter what they did, he never made a sound. He didn’t want to go back to wandering and begging.

What he didn’t know was that no matter how much he took, they were never going to count him as family — and they wanted him dead.

Autumn had come, and Ning Chen was still in thin clothes. He caught a chill.

Not only did they refuse to call a physician, they quietly poured cold water over his bedding.

And so he died. Gravely ill, and no one to treat him.

Ning Chen sighed. For the previous owner of this body he had only eight words: pity his misfortune, rage at his meekness (TL Note: a famous eight-character saying, used when you grieve for someone’s suffering and are furious at the same time that they never fought back.).

Corner a rabbit and it bites. And this one had been cornered with nowhere left to go. In his place, even too weak to lift a blade, he’d have poisoned the whole lot of them on his way out. Nobody walks away clean.

Just then, the door opened.

An old man in coarse work clothes limped in.

He saw Ning Chen sitting up on the bed and froze, and then his whole face lit up. “Fourth Young Master! You’re awake? Thank heavens. Thank heavens…”

The old man with the bad leg had been at the Ning estate a long time — he was already here when Ning Chen arrived. The others called him Old Chai. Ning Chen called him Uncle Chai.

Uncle Chai was the only person in this house who was good to him.

Ning Chen ate leftovers and scraps, and rarely got enough. It was Uncle Chai who went short on his own rations to feed him.

“Fourth Young Master, you’re still sick, lie down—” Uncle Chai was already pouring a cup of water and bringing it over. “Here, Fourth Young Master, drink something. You must be hungry. Give me a moment and I’ll—”

He never finished. The door banged open under someone’s boot.

A young man in fine embroidered silk swaggered in.

Ning Xing. Ning Chen’s second brother.

The moment he saw Ning Chen he leveled a finger at him and roared, “I knew you were faking, you bastard. Hand over my jade pendant, or I’ll beat you to death right here.”

“Second Young Master, the Fourth Young Master just woke up. Whatever it is, can’t it wait?”

Uncle Chai moved quickly to block him.

Ning Chen had come back from the dead not five minutes ago. He was weak. He would never survive a beating from Ning Xing.

Uncle Chai had seen those beatings. Ning Xing didn’t hold back. He swung like he meant to kill him.

“Out of my way, dog!”

Ning Xing was seventeen and built like a bull. He kicked Uncle Chai to the floor and stood over him. “You mangy dog — you’d help this bastard lie to me? I’ll beat you to death too.”

He looked ready to swing again. Ning Chen’s eyes went cold, but he put an eager, apologetic smile on his face. “Second Brother, I’m sorry. I’ll give the pendant back — don’t be angry!”

He talked while feeling around at the head of the bed.

Ning Xing came striding over. “I knew you were the one who took it, you bastard. Stealing from me — wait till Father gets home. You’ll get what’s coming.”

Yesterday, right after running into Ning Chen, Ning Xing had announced that his jade pendant was missing, insisted Ning Chen had taken it, and wouldn’t let it go.

Whether it was really lost, only Ning Xing knew.

“Found it!”

Ning Chen said it suddenly, and held out his hand.

Ning Xing’s eyes went straight to it. But when Ning Chen opened his fingers, the palm was empty.

Ning Xing blinked, and before he could make sense of it, Ning Chen snatched the porcelain pillow (TL Note: pillows really were made of glazed ceramic — a solid, curved block meant to keep you cool and keep your hairstyle intact overnight. Essentially a brick.) off the head of the bed and swung it into his skull.

WHAM!

A heavy, muffled sound — and the pillow shattered.

Ning Xing staggered back several steps and nearly went down, blood running down his face in an instant.

He stared at Ning Chen in disbelief. He forgot to scream.

Because he couldn’t believe it. Ning Chen had hit him?

Before, no matter what they did to him, Ning Chen never raised a hand and never talked back. Right or wrong, he always ended up apologizing and begging their forgiveness.

Uncle Chai was stunned too.

It took a long moment before Ning Xing came back to himself. He let out a scream and flung an arm out toward Ning Chen.

“You hit me? You dare hit me, you bastard?”

Ning Chen was holding a shard of the pillow. His voice was ice. “I don’t just dare hit you. I’d kill you. Try me.”

The look in Ning Chen’s eyes frightened him. Ning Xing shuddered head to foot, turned, and ran, shouting that there’d been a murder.

Uncle Chai picked himself up off the floor, panicking. “Fourth Young Master — what… what do we do now?”

Ning Chen looked at him and said nothing.

“Fourth Young Master, are you all right?”

Uncle Chai thought the shock had broken him.

But Ning Chen just smiled, unbothered. “Uncle Chai, go gather up as much firewood as you can. Then bring me some pine oil.”

Uncle Chai had no idea what for, but he went to do it.

Ning Chen got down off the bed and staggered. This body had been malnourished for years, and it was barely out of a serious illness besides. Weak as hell.

“I’m going to have to get in shape… that shot at Ning Xing was a lot weaker than I figured.”

Ning Chen muttered.

(End of Chapter 1)