Ch 1: The Regent’s Farmer Husband

“Brother! Brother!”

Brother? Who?

Jiang Ji had barely regained consciousness when he heard an anxious young girl’s voice. Judging by her tone, she couldn’t be very old. He opened his eyes and found himself lying in the middle of a desolate mountain area, the back of his head throbbing dully.

What happened?

He tried to recall and remembered that he had been driving to a club when a truck coming from the opposite direction suddenly lost control and crashed into him.

So it was a car accident—no wonder his head hurt so much.

But wait—he’d crashed in the city. Why was he lying out here in the wilderness?

“Let me go!” the same girl’s voice shouted angrily. “I won’t go with you! Go away! Brother, brother! Wake up!”

“What are you yelling for? I’m trying to be nice to you. Follow me and you’ll eat well, live well—and I’ll even find someone to treat your mother’s illness. Isn’t that better than starving every day? Don’t be stupid.”

“I don’t want to! Help—!” In her panic, the girl bit down hard on the man’s left wrist.

“Ah—!” The man cried out in pain but didn’t let go. Instead, he slapped the girl across the face. “Ungrateful little brat! Come here, you damn girl!”

Clutching his aching head, Jiang Ji sat up—only to see, a dozen paces away, two people dressed in ancient clothing struggling.

A scruffy, bearded man in his thirties was dragging a little girl who looked no older than a grade-schooler toward the woods.

What the hell!

A creep trying to assault a child?!

Jiang Ji froze for a split second, then sprang to his feet and rushed over.

“Let her go!”

He grabbed the girl’s arm and kicked the man squarely in the stomach.

The man collapsed to the ground, clutching his belly in pain.

Jiang Ji shielded the girl behind him and asked, “Are you alright? Don’t be scared.”

The girl looked up at him through teary eyes and clutched his sleeve tightly. “Brother, you’re awake.”

Brother?

Jiang Ji blinked, puzzled by why she called him that—then, all of a sudden, a flood of foreign memories surged into his mind.

A sharp pain shot through his skull. After a while, he finally pieced together what had happened.

He had transmigrated—into ancient times, into a dynasty called Dasheng, one that didn’t exist in his original world.

The body he now occupied also belonged to someone named Jiang Ji, an ordinary peasant from a small mountain village called Shanqian.

The original body’s family had four children. Jiang Ji was the eldest, nineteen years old this year. The second was the girl beside him, named Jiang Xia, thirteen years old. The youngest were a pair of six-year-old twin boys.

Their father had died five years ago. Their mother had nearly lost her life giving birth to the twins and had been frail and sickly ever since.

It was now early spring, just after the new year, when everything began to grow again. The original Jiang Ji had gone up the mountain with his sister Jiang Xia to chop firewood and dig for wild vegetables.

He was in the middle of chopping when he suddenly heard his sister’s cry for help. Rushing over, he saw that she was being harassed by Li Laosan, a widowed scoundrel from the village.

The original Jiang Ji fought with Li Laosan, but during the struggle, Li shoved him hard. He fell and struck his head on a rock.

He must have died—and that was when Jiang Ji crossed over.

“Brother, are you alright?” Seeing Jiang Ji clutching his head in pain, Jiang Xia asked anxiously.

“You little bastard! How dare you kick me!” Li Laosan had recovered and got up again. He grabbed a stick as thick as a child’s arm from the ground and charged toward them, shouting, “Didn’t I hit you hard enough before?!”

Now that Jiang Ji understood the situation, he reacted instantly—grabbing the swinging stick midair, yanking it free, and striking back with force.

One hit. Then another.

“I’ll beat the hell out of you! You dared to touch my sister?!”

“You filthy beast! Bullying a child, are you?!”

“Touch my sister again and I’ll kill you!”

Before the accident, Jiang Ji had been a rich young master, heir to billions, a textbook second-generation heir. His father had even hired a professional to teach him martial arts for self-defense.

He struck Li Laosan again and again, the stick landing heavy, his kicks slamming into the man’s body until Li was curled up on the ground, begging for mercy.

“Stop! Stop! I was wrong! I won’t do it again!”

But Jiang Ji didn’t stop—he kept hitting. Jiang Xia, seeing blood streaming from Li Laosan’s scalp, quickly grabbed her brother’s arm.

“Brother, stop! Stop!” She was terrified he’d kill the man and bring calamity on their family.

Jiang Ji glared and gave Li one last hard kick. “Get lost!”

Li Laosan scrambled to his feet, clutching his bruised head, and ran off. After a few steps, he turned to shout, “You’ll pay for this!”

“You—!” Jiang Ji started to chase after him, but Jiang Xia caught his sleeve.

“Brother, don’t. Let him go.” She looked at the lump forming on the back of his head, touched it gently, and asked with concern, “Brother, it’s swollen. Does it hurt?”

“Hiss—yeah, a bit,” Jiang Ji gritted out.

“Then let’s go home and have the doctor take a look.”

The girl was already thirteen but looked only eleven or twelve—small and thin, with round eyes and a little face that had hardly any flesh on it. Something about her looked strangely familiar to Jiang Ji, like he’d seen her somewhere before.

He watched her pick up the little basket nearby, carefully gathering the wild vegetables scattered on the ground, then retrieve the hatchet. “Brother, where’s the shoulder pole?”

Jiang Ji thought for a moment and pointed. “Over there.”

They went to fetch the pole, left the chopped firewood behind, and started down the mountain.

As they walked, Jiang Ji looked around in confusion, still trying to process everything.

How had he transmigrated?

But the sore lump on his head, the coarse patched-up cotton jacket, and Jiang Xia walking quietly beside him told him this wasn’t a dream.

When they reached home, Jiang Ji stepped into the courtyard and froze at the sight before him.

A wooden house with a thatched roof and patched-up plank walls—so old that the boards overlapped in layers, showing signs of countless repairs.

From the original’s memories, he knew there were two rooms in the main house, one for the family hall, with the kitchen to the east, and to the right, a pigsty and firewood shed—though there were no pigs left inside.

“Brother! You’re back!”

Two identical little boys ran out from the kitchen—Jiang Nan and Jiang Bei.

The one who had spoken was Jiang Nan, recognizable by a small black mole at the end of his eyebrow—the only difference between the twins.

Jiang Bei stared at his brother, covered in mud, and asked in surprise, “Brother, did you fall?”

Jiang Ji shook his head. “No.”

Just then, their mother, Zhao Ru, walked out of the house. “You’re back already? Weren’t you chopping firewood?”

The moment Jiang Ji saw her, he froze, staring in disbelief.

That face…

His nose stung, his eyes grew hot, and before he could stop himself, he called out, “…Mom?”

How could his mother be here?

Hadn’t she and his sister died seven years ago?

Zhao Ru frowned slightly. “Xiao Ji, what did you say?”

Jiang Ji blinked, staring at her again. Her skin was sallow, her lips pale, the corners of her eyes lined with wrinkles.

Then it hit him—this wasn’t his mother. It was the original Jiang Ji’s mother.

His own mother had been elegant and youthful, even at thirty-seven she’d looked barely twenty.

Yet even knowing that, Jiang Ji couldn’t take his eyes off Zhao Ru.

And suddenly, he realized who Jiang Xia resembled.

His little sister.

Seven years ago, his five-year-old sister and their mother had gone out together and never returned—killed in a car accident.

The thought made his chest ache. If his sister had lived, she would probably have looked just like Jiang Xia now.

Looking between Zhao Ru and Jiang Xia, he felt a wave of tenderness and sorrow—as if seeing his mother and sister alive again.

Zhao Ru, still recovering from a cold, turned her head and coughed softly. Her voice was gentle. “Why are you covered in mud? Did you fall?”

Jiang Xia put down her basket and took her mother’s hand, explaining what had happened in the mountains.

“What?” Zhao Ru’s hands trembled with fury when she heard. “He dared to bully you?! I’ll go find him right now!”

Just then, several people barged into the yard.

“Zhao Ru! Zhao Ru, get out here!”

Li Laosan’s mother, Jin Hua, was already over fifty. She was notorious in the village for being a loud, overbearing woman. She stormed in, dragging her son along, with his two elder brothers following behind, all of them radiating fury.

Zhao Ru had been planning to confront them first, but seeing them arrive instead, she quickly pulled Jiang Xia behind her frail frame. “You still dare come here? I haven’t even settled accounts with you yet!”

“Your son beat my son like this, and you still want to settle with us?” Jin Hua jabbed her finger toward Li Laosan’s bleeding scalp. “I can’t even bear to hit him, and your brat dares to?!”

Hearing them twist the facts, Zhao Ru’s face turned red with anger. “He deserved it! Your son tried to bully my daughter Jiang Xia—shouldn’t he be beaten for that?!”

“It’s your son who should be beaten!” Jin Hua shouted with her hands on her hips. “You’ll pay for this!”

“Yeah, pay up!” Li Laosan echoed.

“In your dreams!” Zhao Ru snapped.

Jiang Ji took two steps forward, fixing his cold gaze on Li Laosan. The man flinched, clutching his head and shrinking behind his mother.

Jin Hua slapped her son across the shoulder. “What are you afraid of?! Go get them! If they don’t pay, smash their house!”

“I dare you to try!” Jiang Ji still held the carrying pole in his hand. He raised it and pointed straight at them, his glare so fierce that even Jin Hua hesitated for a moment.

She hadn’t expected the once docile Jiang Ji to turn so intimidating. But after bullying villagers for decades, she couldn’t stomach being cowed now.

“Eldest! Second! Get them!”

Li Laosan’s two brothers grabbed sticks and were about to charge when another group of people entered from the gate.

The ruckus had drawn the neighbors—and the village chief.

“What’s going on here?!” The village chief hurried forward, seeing both sides ready to fight. “Put those sticks down right now!”

“Village Chief, you came just in time!” Jin Hua was the first to complain. “My third son went to the back mountain to chop wood, minding his own business, and that brat Jiang Ji beat him like this! I told them to compensate, but they refused!”

Zhao Ru was furious. “Village Chief, Li Laosan tried to assault my daughter. Jiang Ji only acted to protect her!”

“You saw him assaulting her with your own eyes?!” Jin Hua barked. “Where’s your proof?”

Li Laosan joined in. “Yeah! What proof do you have?”

Jiang Ji gave a short, cold laugh. “I saw it with my own eyes. You saying that’s not enough?”

Jin Hua sneered. “You’re all one family—who’d believe your words?”

“You want proof?” Jiang Ji said icily. “Xia’er, come here.”

Jiang Xia stepped up beside him. Jiang Ji rolled up her sleeve, revealing her wrist. “Village Chief, uncles, aunties—look. These red marks are from when Li Laosan grabbed her. They haven’t even faded yet.”

On Jiang Xia’s right wrist, several red welts stood out clearly—obviously caused by a man’s strong grip.

Everyone’s gaze turned toward Li Laosan. One of the older women spat on the ground. “That filthy Li Laosan, of course he’d do something like that.”

“You say my son did it, and that makes it true?” Jin Hua retorted, her neck stiff. “For all we know, she scratched herself!”

“If you don’t believe it, let Li Laosan come over. We’ll see if the marks match his hand.” Jiang Ji’s tone was cold. “And, Village Chief, when Xia’er struggled, she bit his right wrist. If he wasn’t trying to hurt her, how could a small girl like her reach his arm to bite him?”

The crowd turned again toward Li Laosan, who instantly hid his right hand behind his back.

Someone called out, “Li Laosan, what are you hiding for? Show us your wrist!”

“Why should I?!” Li Laosan shouted, clutching his sleeve tighter.

Jin Hua stepped protectively in front of him. “Yeah, why should we show you anything?”

The village chief didn’t waste words. He stepped forward, grabbed Li Laosan’s arm, and yanked up the sleeve.

There it was—a clear, deep bite mark on the man’s wrist, even breaking skin and drawing blood. The strength of the bite was obvious.

“There’s the bite mark!”

“So he really did try to bully her!”

The village chief’s face darkened. “Li Laosan, what do you have to say for yourself now?”

Li Laosan still tried to lie. “I—I bit myself!”

“Yes, he did it himself!” Jin Hua shouted, desperate.

People in the crowd laughed scornfully. “Then go ahead—bite yourself and see if it matches!”

“Exactly. Doing evil and still denying it.”

Jin Hua glared at everyone. “It wasn’t him! That brat Jiang Ji hit my son, so they must pay! This has nothing to do with you busybodies!”

Just then, an aunt carrying a bundle of firewood passed by. Seeing the commotion, she stopped. “Village Chief, I can vouch for it. Li Laosan did try to bully Jiang Xia. I was nearby—I heard her shouting, ‘I don’t want to! Help!’ and I recognized Li Laosan’s voice. But when I ran over, they were gone.”

With that, the truth became undeniable.

The village chief turned to Jin Hua’s family. “Your Li Laosan was in the wrong first. Jiang Ji acted to protect his sister. He did nothing wrong.”

Jin Hua refused to yield. “So what if he hit my son? His head’s bleeding! They must pay!”

“You’ll stop this nonsense now,” the village chief said sternly. “Everyone here knows what kind of person Li Laosan is. Even if we reported this to the authorities, they’d rule that he deserved what he got!”

Jin Hua threw herself on the ground, wailing and flailing. “I don’t care! They must pay! If they don’t pay, I won’t leave!”

Everyone sighed. They’d seen this act countless times. “That old shrew—she’ll do anything for drama.”

Zhao Ru looked worried that Jin Hua might keep causing trouble, but Jiang Ji patted her arm gently, then turned to the village chief.

“Village Chief, I want to report this to the authorities. Please help me detain Li Laosan for now. Attempted assault is a capital crime in our dynasty—it warrants immediate execution.”

Jiang Ji wasn’t entirely sure of the local laws, but from the memories he inherited, such crimes were treated severely. Even an attempt carried heavy punishment.

His words stunned everyone—especially Jin Hua. She hadn’t expected the once-meek Jiang Ji to go that far. Her face turned pale as she scrambled up, dragging Li Laosan with her, her other two sons stumbling after her in panic.

Everyone: …

“What a shameless family. The whole village’s sick of them!”

“Of course they ran off the moment they heard ‘report to the authorities.’”

But Jiang Ji was faster. In just a few steps, he caught up, grabbed Li Laosan’s arm, twisted it behind his back, and forced him to the ground.

“What are you doing? Let me go!” Li Laosan struggled violently, but Jiang Ji held him down firmly.

“Let my son go!” Jin Hua tried to rush forward, but two villagers stopped her.

Jiang Ji said to the village chief, “Village Chief, I’m taking him to the authorities. Can you come with me?”

The village chief hesitated. “You’re really going to do this?”

Jiang Ji nodded. “Yes. Village Chief, this isn’t the first or second time Li Laosan has caused trouble in the village. And my sister isn’t the only one he’s harassed. If no one teaches him a lesson, who knows which girl he’ll harm next?”

The crowd murmured in agreement. Everyone despised that family. One of Jiang Ji’s clan uncles stepped forward—his own daughter had once been harassed by Li Laosan. “Xiao Ji, I’ll go with you. I’ll help escort him.”

“Good. Thank you, Uncle.”

The village chief thought of all the vile things Li Laosan had done. This time, he hadn’t succeeded—but if they let it slide and he hurt another girl later, it’d be too late. Gritting his teeth, the chief nodded. “Alright. I’ll go too.”

He immediately ordered two villagers to fetch rope, and they tied Li Laosan up securely.

Jiang Ji turned to the aunt who had spoken up earlier. “Aunt Xiufang, would you come with us to testify?”

“Of course,” Aunt Xiufang agreed readily.

When Jin Hua saw that they were actually going to bind her son and take him to the authorities, she burst into tears and wails, trying to incite her other two sons to seize him back. The villagers blocked their way.

Jiang Ji pointed at Li Laosan’s brothers. “If you try to interfere, you’ll be charged as accomplices. I’ll report all of you together to the magistrate.”

Li Laoda and Li Lao’er immediately backed down, cowed, no matter how much Jin Hua screamed.

A group of villagers then set out for the city, leading the bound Li Laosan. Once they arrived, Jiang Ji struck the drum of grievance before the yamen gates, and soon the constables escorted him into the magistrate’s court.

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