Ch 22: The Cannon Fodder Won’t Play Along Anymore [QT]

ARC 2: Picking Up a Cub Who Turns Out to Be the Future Emperor

“Xinglan, this child won’t survive.”

“But… if we don’t do anything, he’ll die right away.”

“Even if we do, he won’t live much longer. Didn’t you hear what the old abbot said? Even with careful care, this body won’t last long. And more importantly, we really can’t afford another mouth to feed. Sigh.”

“…”

Then came the sound of quiet sobbing.

Mu Xing couldn’t open his eyes, his body heavy. It took a long while before he slowly became aware.

In his last life, he had lived freely and comfortably, dying of old age without much suffering. Was this now reincarnation after death?

But if reincarnation was real, wasn’t he supposed to drink Meng Po’s soup?

Still groggy with thought, he suddenly felt himself being lifted up.

Someone kissed his face, and hot tears fell onto his forehead.

“Child, don’t blame your mother for being heartless. This may just be your fate.”

Mu Xing was shocked. Remembering the conversation from earlier, these two were likely his parents in this life—and now, because of his weak health, they seemed about to abandon him.

A newborn baby, already with a congenital illness—if abandoned, he would most likely die.

Was he really going to live only this short moment in his second chance at life?

No—he couldn’t just sit and wait for death.

Gathering all his strength, he managed to lift one tiny hand, groped until he found the hand holding him, and gripped a finger tightly.

He had to try—after all, from their voices, they clearly didn’t truly want to give him up.

The person holding him trembled.

“Zhuzi Ge (Brother Zhuzi), look how close this child is to me, how well-behaved he is. We can’t be so cruel.”

“But…”

“No buts.” Zhang Xinglan wiped away her tears, her voice firm. “It’s just one more mouth to feed. We’ll tighten our belts. I’ll dig more wild vegetables in the mountains—somehow we’ll manage.”

He was, after all, their own flesh and blood. Mu Dazhu also couldn’t bear it. Thinking that the child might not live long anyway, he sighed.

“Alright. Give him to me. Let’s go home.”

Hearing this, Mu Xing finally relaxed. The strength he’d been holding on to ebbed away, and he quickly sank into a heavy sleep.

That sleep brought a long dream.

In the dream, poor farmer Mu Dazhu had gone into the mountains to hunt something for his heavily pregnant wife. Three days passed with no return. His wife, Zhang, with her nine-month belly, went to look for him.

On the road, a fast-moving convoy startled her into premature labor.

Coincidentally, a noblewoman in that convoy was also about to give birth, so she took Zhang along to a nearby temple to deliver.

An evil servant secretly swapped the newborns.

The noblewoman left with the Mu family’s child. When Zhang woke up, the temple’s abbot—versed in medicine—told her that the baby she had given birth to was born with a grave weakness and would be extremely difficult to raise.

For a family already struggling to feed themselves, a healthy child could grow up to help with work in a few years, but a sickly child doomed to die young would only bring heartbreak.

The Mu couple abandoned the baby outside, wiping their tears as they left.

That frail child was picked up by an old beggar, who fed him irregularly, yet he miraculously survived.

Fifteen years later, the beggar boy was begging in the capital when he offended a rich young master and was beaten half to death—right as the carriage of the Marquis of Cheng’en passed by.

A long-buried secret came to light: the beggar boy was the real young master of the marquis’s household.

He should have grown up in wealth and honor, yet he had endured nothing but hardship.

The boy thought he had finally found his family and could live well. But the false young master was deeply favored at home, chosen as the crown prince’s study companion—worlds apart from the real one.

Everyone in the Marquis’s household looked down on the newly returned son, even his own parents.

His biological father refused to give him a name or let him reclaim the false young master’s position, telling others he was merely an illegitimate child.

Already frail from birth and weakened by years of suffering, the boy’s health quickly failed, and he died soon after.

No one in the family mourned him. Instead, they cursed him as inauspicious, wishing he had never appeared.

*

Mu Xing slowly opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was a thick blue cloth canopy. He was half-held against a warm, soft body.

He moved slightly, and the small motion was noticed. A delighted woman’s voice came from above: “The little one’s awake.”

Footsteps pattered over, and a child’s clear voice shouted excitedly about wanting to see their little brother.

Mu Xing felt himself lifted and met three children’s faces—too fleeting to make out clearly, except that they were sallow and thin.

“Alright, don’t startle the baby or your mother.” An older woman’s voice entered, speaking with the younger one for a bit.

Mu Xing, still weak, gave a small, delicate yawn and drifted back to sleep.

“This child is truly handsome,” said Zhang Xinglan’s mother-in-law, Madam Mu, as she looked affectionately at the baby’s sleeping face.

Hearing this, Zhang glanced at her youngest son’s face and thought it was true.

Though as small and weak as a kitten, he was born fair-skinned and clean-featured, with looks even finer than the plump doll in a New Year’s picture.

“It’s just a pity…” Zhang thought of the abbot’s words, and her eyes instantly reddened.

“Don’t cry—you’ll harm your health in the long run,” Madam Mu said sternly. “Don’t keep sobbing. I think our little one looks perfectly fine. We’ll raise him well. With a newborn, who can say for certain what the future holds?”

“Mm, I’ll listen to you, Mother.”

The little Mu Xing they were talking about wasn’t actually asleep at the moment.

His consciousness had sunk into a strange place.

It was pitch black—nothing could be seen.

Then, in the darkness, a point of light appeared. The light grew larger and larger, turning into a shapeless glowing sphere.

Mu Xing looked at it curiously. “Who are you?”

The ball of light said, “I’m here to help you.”

Mu Xing: “?”

The light said, “You saw that dream, didn’t you?”

“That wasn’t a dream—that was your life in this lifetime.”

Mu Xing froze. He had actually felt a faint doubt in his heart, because that dream had been far too vivid, far too detailed.

The light said, “You were supposed to be the noble young master of a marquis’s household, but instead you ended up a beggar, dying miserably of illness. Don’t you feel unwilling?”

Mu Xing thought for a moment. “But right now I’m not a little beggar—my mother brought me home.”

The light was momentarily choked, but pressed on stubbornly: “You can’t open your eyes yet, so you don’t know. The Mu family are farmers—extremely poor. Their house is made of packed yellow earth, and they can’t even afford full meals. Even if you’re not a beggar, you’ll still live a bitter, impoverished life.”

The light’s voice lowered, carrying a trace of temptation: “Meanwhile, that marquis’s wife has returned to the manor. The little young master there is the same age as you. He not only eats bird’s nest and all kinds of tonics at will—he even has seven or eight maids and wet nurses to look after him.”

“All of that should have been yours.”

Mu Xing looked at the light in puzzlement. “So?”

The light said, “So don’t you feel unwilling? I can help you.”

“Help me with what?”

“Help you return to the marquis’s household—help you take back what should rightfully be yours! How can a lowly farmer’s son shamelessly enjoy the riches and honor that belong to you?”

Mu Xing blinked at it. “You’re so worked up… don’t tell me—you’re the little beggar from my dream?”

The light immediately retorted, “How could that be? Hmph, I’d never be such a lowly creature.”

Mu Xing gave an “oh,” his face cold. “Then why are you so excited?”

The light, seeing him unmoved: “I’m angry on your behalf!”

Mu Xing’s expression said plainly Don’t try to pin this on me: “There’s really no need. I’m not angry—if you want to be, go ahead, but don’t blame me for it.”

The light: “…”

Seeing Mu Xing completely impervious, it grew frantic: “How can you be such a pushover? You’ve had your identity stolen and you don’t even care?”

Mu Xing calmly countered, “How can you be such a busybody? My identity was stolen—what does that have to do with you?”

The light: “…”

In the next instant, Mu Xing’s vision went black.

He had left that strange place.

That strange ball of light was definitely suspicious.

It seemed to be trying very hard to stir him into fighting, into seizing. But as Mu Xing had said—it was his own business, and this mysterious light was acting far too warm-hearted for no reason.

If it was “helping” him, what was it after? It didn’t exactly seem righteous.

And its methods were unpredictable—Mu Xing didn’t want any entanglement with it.

Besides—if what he saw in the dream was real, with the marquis’s household treating their own blood like a plague, he had no desire to go back.

*

Three years later.

Dazhuang Village.

It was midsummer, the sun blazing. A group of half-grown children were playing in the creek.

The creek was shallow, barely reaching the knees of the older children—safe enough that the adults didn’t bother watching them closely.

Under a large tree by the creek, a fair, tender-faced little boy sat quietly—this was now three-year-old Mu Xing.

His second sister and third brother were both playing in the water. Mu Xing, not truly a three-year-old in mind, found it hard to join in.

Besides, his health didn’t allow him to do such strenuous things.

He was idly scratching random lines in the dirt with a stick, while thinking about that strange ball of light.

In these three years, at first the light had come to him in his dreams every single day, showing him what the marquis’s young master ate, used, and how luxurious life in the manor was.

Compared to the Mu family’s poverty, it was a stark contrast—miserable by comparison.

But Mu Xing remained completely unmoved.

Perhaps discouraged, the ball of light now only came into his dreams once every several days.

Suddenly, a faint rustling reached his ears. Mu Xing looked over curiously—just in time to see a large, plump rabbit burst from the grass ahead, rushing straight at him—

Thump! It crashed into the tree trunk.

And lay still.

Mu Xing stared in surprise at the rabbit that had just killed itself by ramming into the tree.

“Waiting for rabbits at the stump,” he thought. “The ancients truly didn’t lie to me.”

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