The Genius Concubine-Born Daughter - Chapter 1

The master of our household was a third-rank official—neither terribly important nor entirely insignificant.

Outside, every other sentence began with, “This official…” At home, only two things remained of his authority:

A large temper and a small amount of courage.

One word from above could make him tremble three times. A marriage proposal from a marquis’s household, he received like an imperial edict.

His principal wife, Gu Xiran, truly did come from an excellent family. Her maternal clan had once been genuine hereditary nobility. They had kept a lower profile in recent years, but the foundation was still there.

That was why the marquis’s household had proposed this marriage.

They had not taken a fancy to our master. They had taken a fancy to the long line of ancestral tablets behind Madam Gu.

The entire residence was festive on the day the marriage letter arrived. Even the tea in my room seemed a little warmer.

Not long after, my daughter A-Zhi pushed open my door, her eyes shining far too brightly.

My heart gave a thump.

I had seen that look only on concubines preparing to confront the principal wife head-on. Nine out of ten met bad ends. The tenth was thrown out so thoroughly that not a trace of her remained.

My own habits were to speak little, watch my path, and keep my heart steady.

A-Zhi shut the door tight and said mysteriously, “Mother, don’t you have anything you want to tell me?”

“No.” I shook my head.

She stared at me. “Think again.”

“I really don’t.”

She drew a deep breath. “In that case, I have something important to tell you.”

“Go on.”

“I have an idea. What if… I marry into the marquis’s household instead?”

I was still holding my tea. Her words nearly made me spill it.

“Why?”

“To marry into a powerful family,” she said. “Once the bridal veil comes down, I can take Elder Sister’s place. Who would know?”

Smack.

My palm landed first.

I was usually very good at hiding my temper. But every now and then, one had to take it out and air it, or the children might truly believe their mother was made of clay.

Yet today, she did not even get angry. She merely held her cheek and said with surprising composure, “I know you’re used to swallowing every insult, so this sounds absurd to you. But don’t be afraid. The truth is… I’m a transmigrator. I can make your daughter the lady of the marquis’s household.”

I looked at her. “Oh?”

She nodded, her expression inscrutable. “I transmigrated into a book, and I wrote this book. That makes me the god of this world.”

“What sort of book?” I asked.

“Angst, substitute bride, wish fulfillment.” Her answer came crisply.

“How much angst?”

She thought carefully. “Not that much… I only got through the first chapter. The real abuse hadn’t started yet. There were just two flashbacks.”

“One was about my legitimate elder sister pushing me into a pond when I was little. I nearly drowned.

“The other was about you being framed and getting me thrown out of the residence along with you. You were pregnant that day and miscarried in the pouring rain.”

She spoke with such conviction that my head began to ache.

No wonder Madam Gu and her daughter, who had always treated us perfectly well, had suddenly behaved as if they had lost their minds—one tormenting me, the other tormenting my daughter.

Madam Gu had always known where the lines were. She had never deliberately made trouble for us. Naturally, the daughter she raised was poised and generous too.

The idea of her pushing a younger half sister into a pond was as absurd as imagining her dancing in the street like a spirit medium.

“So,” I said slowly, “you’re telling me that every hardship the two of us suffered was something you arranged?”

“You don’t understand. That’s called setup.”

She explained with great earnestness, “You crush the emotions as low as they can go, then hit the reader with a huge reversal. That’s how you make the protagonist look awesome.”

“Then tell me how satisfying it gets.”

She straightened. “The rest is wonderful! I take my sister’s place, push her out of the story, and steamroll everyone with cheat powers—”

“Stop.” I cut her off. “Tell me only what you’ve actually written.”

“Oh… I wrote up to the marriage letter that arrived today. I was about to write the scene where you called me over to discuss the substitution, and then I transmigrated here.”

“In other words, the satisfying part hasn’t started.”

She blinked. “Strictly speaking, no.”

I could not help laughing. “So you wrote an opening and came here intending to pit women against one another, steal a marriage, and torment your sister?”

“Is there something wrong with you?” I asked.

Aggrieved, she said, “But the system is forcing me to finish the mission. If I don’t marry into a powerful family, I’ll die.”

“Is there only one powerful family in the capital? Must you steal your sister’s marriage?”

“I’m a concubine-born daughter! Your society divides legitimate and concubine-born children so sharply. If I don’t replace her, who would marry me?”

I sighed. “Then do you know what a legitimate daughter actually is?”

“A daughter born to the principal wife. Higher status.”

“But!” she declared righteously, “have you ever asked why legitimate daughters should be noble while concubine-born daughters must spend their lives underfoot? Just because one came out of the principal wife’s belly?”

She followed with an impassioned sermon against the entire legitimate-versus-concubine-born hierarchy.

It was so stirring that even I was nearly moved.

Only nearly.

That mind from a thousand years in the future, I felt, was not especially well suited to our age.