Chapter 3

After chatting with Old Lady Wei, Wei Lan went back to Wei Xiong’s courtyard. Doctor Zhang had already come over and diagnosed him. He was prescribed medicine and after drinking, the fever went down that night.

Wei Lan accompanied him until Wei Xiong’s fever had subsided, and only then did she return to her room. After the maid in charge, Dian Mo, waited for her to wash up, she said with some dissatisfaction, “Miss, your life is too hard, unlike the Eldest Master, who only knows to wear beautiful clothes, buy jewellery, to embroider flowers every day and play on swings with the maids in the courtyard.”

Dian Mo is a straightforward person, Wei Lan rarely saw her so angry so did not restrain her. After she waited for her to put on her pyjamas, she closed her eyes and said, “He is a man, after all, them being a bit more pampered is no big deal. What’s more, he is my brother, and as long as I am here, I will be able to protect him happily, there is no need to worry.”

(T/N; I swear that’s what she said, I have checked and re-checked multiple times but this sentence which seems to be taken straight out of a matriarchy novel is exactly what the FL meant to say.)

Hearing Wei Lan’s words, Dian mo sighed. She has become accustomed to her young lady speaking such divine gibberish. Sometimes she even doubts if she demands too much from a man. Maybe  pretending to be a man for so long, her young lady has reversed the concept of male and female from the bottom of her heart.

Wei Lan listened to Dian Mo sigh and felt a bit powerless inside.

Wei Lan, formerly known as Wei LAN[1], was the eldest daughter of the first noble family of Liang in her previous life. Intelligent and beautiful since  young, she was a role model for the girls of the noble family. Unfortunately, she was not very lucky and was bitten to death by a poisonous snake at the age of twenty-nine while on a field trip.

She died before she could accomplish her goals. Sadness was not enough to describe what she felt. When she opened her eyes and found herself as a seven-year-old girl, she was overjoyed, thinking that it was a sign of mercy from the heavens that she had the chance to fulfill her ambitions.

But soon, Wei Lan noticed that something was wrong…..

The world of her previous life had essentially the same history as the world she was in now, except for one thing, the genders in this world and her world were reversed. (T/N: OMG!!! She’s really from a matriarchy society!!!!)

Her world was female-dominated, while here it was male-dominated. Three Obediences and Four Virtues are read by women, the emperor is a man, and the famous generals and officials in history are all men. She has to change their gender to understand the people in the entire history book!

Lord Xinling is a man, Lord Longyang is a man, Emperor Han Gaozu is a man…

In the first year of Wei LAN’sn transformation into Wei Lan, she read through all the history books here and discovered tragically that God never made her a woman of this world for her to show off her ambitions!

However, she quickly thought of a solution. After she calmed down and observed, she found that her identity – the young lady of Changxin Hou’s mansion, had another way out-

She has a twin brother who loves to disguise himself as a woman; a grandmother who is frail and prone to blunders; a father who is incompetent in everything except fighting; and a younger brother who can’t do anything but cause trouble…

This family urgently needs her to replace her brother’s identity to hold up the family line, giving her the reason and possibility to disguise herself as a man.

So soon, she made a series of plans.

First, enrich yourself, let yourself restore the ability of the previous life, such as the four arts of qínqíshūhuà[2], as well as kung fu…

Then forced the Wei family to recognize her as a boy and let her replace Wei Hua…

Along with doing that, she was trying to reform the people around her; she couldn’t reform this world anymore, but she wanted the people around her, such as the maids and such, to still be closer to the people in her world.

She hated it when women cried, and she didn’t like it when men were naked, even after seven years of being in this world, every time she looked at that sight, a wave of anger welled up inside her.

How shameless,  this kind of thing, Audacious!!!!!

It was clear to her that this was no longer her world, yet she realized that if one day she would not be angry at the sight of these things, then her world, too, would be completely gone.

She feels like an eagle who broke it’s wings, slowly assimilating with this world, becoming a docile and cowardly woman of this world, and gradually forgetting what it feels like  to fly.

Just thinking about it was excruciating. She just couldn’t let that happen.

Lying on the bed, Wei Lan suddenly felt a little lost in her heart, a feeling of loneliness shrouded her heart like never before. she thought about the words of Old Lady Wei.

Old Lady Wei pressed her to marry, which seems absurd, However, finding a man who will spend her life with her is a very real problem.

How is she going to find a suitable man in this world where all men seems to have problems?

Her brother’s personality, while nice and dainty, was acceptable to her because he’s a relative. But her spouse needs to be someone who could manage the household and keep the family together.

Preferably, he should also be beautiful and born in a good family. It must be a noble family, it does not matter even if he’s the son of a concubine, she can just settle for it……

The most important thing is that he must be chaste (virgin).

She still had a serious cleanliness problem when it came to such matters. She was, after all, the first eldest daughter of the century-old noble Wei family, and the man’s innocence was a matter of her prestige, and this cannot be compromised.

Thinking like this, she gradually fell asleep. On the second day, she asked Dian Mo to bring over the portraits of sons from all the major noble families in Shengjing who were her age from the dark guards she had raised.

Hundreds of portraits were piled up in the room, and Dian Mo said somewhat strangely, “What is Miss planning to do?”

“Since I can’t find a ready-made groom,” Wei Lan flipped through the scrolls and seriously stated the plan she had thought about all night last night, “Let’s raise one. Right Now, both of us are still in our tens, we still have plenty of time ……”

“Miss is saying strange things again ……” Dian Mo frowned, and Wei Lan ignored her, after flipping through the scrolls for a while, Wei Zhong’s voice could be heard outside saying, “Shizi, the Xie family has sent someone over to make amends.”

Wei Lan nodded, after having the scrolls put away, she led the people to the front hall, just after walking through the long corridor, as soon as she walked in, a person’s figure entered her field of vision.

It was still late spring, and the air was chilly. The person who came was wearing a straight coat of basalt colour, with a crane cape over his shoulders, and his waist-length hair was half pulled back with a golden crown, standing quietly in the middle of the lobby.

He appeared to be about her height, but his body frame was much larger, and from Wei Lan’s perspective, scorching peach blossoms blocked the view, the figure was half-obscured and half-revealed as if amidst a landscape ink painting, and it was already extraordinary.

Wei Lan’s mind turned and she couldn’t help but think, “This gentleman must be a beauty when he turns around. So after standing on the promenade, straightening his clothes and holding up his hair crown, he turned his head and asked Dian Mo, “Dian Mo, do I look presentable?”

“Very well,” Dian Mo said, knowing that her Young Lady’s old disease had returned. She couldn’t stop herself from seducing attractive men whenever she saw them. She rolled her eyes and said, “Master Shizi has always had excellent posture, there won’t be any rudeness, so just hurry up and go, it’s not good to keep Mr Xie waiting.”

“That’s right,” Wei Lan raised the corner of her mouth, walked towards the lobby, and said loudly, “Young Master Xie has waited a long time.”

Xie Zichen moved his eyes, turned around, and saw a young man wearing jade-coloured robes with wide sleeves approaching.

He looks really good, just like the legend.

After deciding on Wei Lan as an ally yesterday, he deliberately went to check her information and was surprised to find that the person in front of him received the most praise, not for his talent, but for his appearance.

Perhaps because of her youth, her lines are smooth and gentle, not as sharp and angular as the average male, and she has an androgynous beauty.Her demeanor, on the other hand, was calm and graceful, not at all like a son of a martial family like the Marquis, but rather like a scion of a century-old aristocratic family like the Xie Family.

The peach blossoms fell just right, in line with her beautiful face, ancient with a clean posture, really solemn like the wind under the pine, mauve like the spring moon willow.

As Xie Zichen looked at Wei Lan, Wei Lan inwardly also looked at Xie Zichen without moving a muscle.

She rarely looked at a man with such a serious attitude, for no other reason, just because the man in front of her was too beautiful.

As a child of an aristocratic family, she had power over the court, beauty in her world is like  carp in the river. She likes beauties, likes their pleasing faces, but she also maintains a gentleman’s demeanor, did not indulge, perhaps because she herself is so beautiful that she isn’t enamored with other people’s beauty.

Yet the man before her was beautiful beyond all her perception. Tooth white skin, lean body, eyebrows like brush strokes, eyes like dotted paint. He looked like fourteen or fifteen years old, but carried a calmness …… and even, one might say, dead silence that is rare in young men.

His facial features are all perfect, if it’s just these, it’s just worthy of the word “glamorous”, what makes people amazed is his eyes.

It was like a deep well of cold water, indifferent and smooth.

From those eyes, the young man in front of him seemed to be accumulating a silent power from the inside out, so that people could not help but bow their heads in silence.

This is a bit interesting.

Wei Lan came forward and saluted, thinking that she had lived two lifetimes and once sat in a high position but was still intimidated by a young man.It gave her the impression that she had returned to the turbulent court in a previous life, where she had faced opponents who were stalking people to death. Furthermore, this young man’s rank is far higher than those who had lost to her.

Wei Lan smiled and greeted Xie Zichen as she sat across from him, separated by a small table, and had Dian Mo serve tea, “Sir Xie has come here for the matter of Younger Brother and Sir Xie Bing, right?”

“When the clan elders learned that my cousin had committed this blunder, they were furious and flogged him with five lashes and banned him for six months, according to clan rules.” Xie Zichen opened his mouth, and his voice was also extremely nice, like a cold spring stirred by the stone, clear with a slight coldness, making people feel clear-headed.

Wei Lan liked this feeling of clarity and secretly surveyed Xie Zichen’s handsome face, nodding, “Your house is a little too polite; where is the need for such a harsh punishment for a young son playing around?”

Xie Zichen drank the tea without any expression on his face, but he couldn’t help but secretly slander, “The one who was beaten still made a special trip to send medicine to his door, isn’t it just to remind the Xie family to behave?”

Wei Lan watched as the beauty drank her tea, her heart relaxed, and secretly nodded inwardly, “The Xie family is well informed and aware of etiquette, a good household.”

After a moment of strange silence, an idea emerged in Wei Lan’s mind. In the morning, he was thinking about training a husband. This Xie Zichen in front of him seems to be a good candidate.

Coming from the century-old Xie family, being a concubine’s son was good to hold, his character was steady and could manage the house, and most importantly-

He’s beautiful! Good-looking! Gorgeous!

As long as you look good, you can teach everything else.

Thinking of this, Wei Lan smiled faintly, and her eyes were all tinged with a gentle light. Xie Zichen, who was drinking tea, raised his head as if he had an epiphany, and looked at the eyes of the person in front of him filled with tenderness, and his heart suddenly shivered.

He frowned and was about to speak when he heard the person in front of him say: “I wonder if Mr Xie has had his lunch? If it’s convenient, why don’t you and Wei Lan go to Linglong Pavilion for a few drinks?”

Xie Zichen didn’t say anything, he looked at the bright eyes and gentle and elegant attitude of the person in front of him, and always felt that there was something that seemed to be beyond his imagination.

However, for the sake of the imminent matter, Xie Zichen decided to ignore all these minutiae of what was wrong first, so he nodded, put down his tea bowl, and said lightly, “Wei Shizi has such a refined taste, Zichen would be honored.”

T/N: The matriarchy background was an unexpected twist. I am not really a fan of matriarchy novels because the FLs in these novels are either female version of male chauvinist or extremely submissive women who strayed into their world.

I kinda understand the FLs mentality, it’s like an immigrant who’s been away from homeland searches for a sense of belonging in trivialities like food and clothing. She feels like a eagle thrown in a chicken coup where none but her believes that birds can fly. A person’s morals and values determine who they are to a huge extent. For her who’s been brought up thinking male as the weaker sex, to suddenly reverse the concept is basically denying who she’s been her whole life. But that’s okay. I hope what we see is not her 180°change in attitude but rather acceptance and accommodation of someone else’s values and belief.

This novel is most appreciated for character growth. So hopefully we are gonna see some really good development

Meanwhile let’s enjoy this chaotic situation.