Wang Commander was overwhelmed with mixed emotions, unsure whether to call her foolish or naive. Was Uncle Wu the kind of person who would return betrothal gifts?
Even at this point, Madam Wu still clung to illusions about her natal family.
Wang Commander felt he had failed as a husband. He had doted on his young wife, entrusted her with household management, never doubted her, and believed he had never treated her unfairly. So why did her heart remain inclined toward her natal family without considering her husband's household?
Originally, Wang Commander had been somewhat hesitant. For the sake of their young son Wang Daqiu, he didn't want to divorce his young wife, thinking he could simply forgive the four thousand taels of debt and give her some punishment.
But seeing Madam Wu's naivety and confusion, and the Wu family's insatiable greed—clinging to them like leeches sucking blood—he realized that if he didn't divorce Madam Wu, this big leech would likely suck the Wang family dry for generations, bringing disaster to their descendants. Thus, he made up his mind and accepted Madam Wu's self-written divorce plea.
Wang Commander ordered that Madam Wu's dowry and her two maidservants be returned to her. The Wu family were military households from the Grand Pasture of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices, generations of horse breeders—a humble background with little to offer. When Madam Wu married, it appeared she had forty-eight cases of dowry, but half were empty cases, just for show.
Moreover, during her four years managing the household, Madam Wu had continuously subsidized her natal family without ever enriching her own private accounts. Her situation remained exactly as when she first married. While other married women might be "brother-obsessed," Madam Wu was "older brother-obsessed," gaining no benefits for herself and ending up pleasing neither side.
Considering their four years of marital affection, Wang Commander saw her meager dowry and worried she would struggle after divorce. He added one hundred taels of silver and asked Officer Mu to escort her back.
When Madam Wu saw the two packets of silver from Wang Commander, she broke down in tears. Apart from being somewhat older, this husband had no faults—she simply hadn't cherished him, and now it was too late for regrets.
Officer Mu told her: "The Commander says you may bid farewell to Daqiu, but don't weep and wail to frighten the child."
Madam Wu cried, "Forget it. I'm too ashamed to face him as his mother. While he's still young, he'll forget me in a few months. It's better if he doesn't recognize me. With a foolish mother like me holding him back, his uncle... my elder brother would surely cling to him and suck him dry."
Officer Mu thought: Now you understand? Unfortunately, it's too late.
Halfway there, Madam Wu suddenly asked Officer Mu to take her out of the city. "If I return to my natal family, I'm afraid I won't even keep my dowry. I have a small farm in the countryside that my mother gave me. I'll live there alone from now on."
After sending her off, Officer Mu thought about how difficult life would be for a divorced woman, vulnerable to bullying. He notified the village chief and local administrators. While the Northern City Military Command wasn't particularly influential in the capital, it carried weight in the countryside. Thus, Madam Wu could establish herself as a small landowner there.
Back in Sweetwater Lane, though the hateful stepmother was finally gone and the household had become financially strained, Wang Daxia found no joy in their newly frugal life. Wei Caiwei placed a chicken drumstick in his bowl. "No matter how tight your family's circumstances become, they're still much better than ordinary households. Misfortune and blessing intertwine—who's to say this isn't a good thing?"
Wei Caiwei spoke this way because in her previous life, the Wang family had met with complete disaster precisely because Wang Commander served as the Northern City Military Command Director.
In that previous life, during the harsh winter, the Northern City Military Command Director had cooperated with the Embroidered Uniform Guard to capture White Lotus Sect spies and destroy their hideout.The White Lotus Sect was originally an organization of peasant uprisings that resisted imperial rule. However, by the Jiajing era of the Ming Dynasty, the sect had taken on a different character. Resenting the court's suppression campaigns, the sect leader led followers to the grasslands and pledged allegiance to the Mongol Anda Khan, becoming "Ming traitors."
Familiar with the Central Plains terrain and possessing numerous followers as informants, the White Lotus Sect provided intelligence revealing the capital's weak defenses. Following their advice, Anda Khan marched southward. With the sect guiding the way, his forces advanced unimpeded, encountering little resistance until they reached the capital gates.
This marked the beginning of the Gengxu Rebellion a decade earlier.
Thereafter, tracking the White Lotus Sect's movements and capturing its spies became crucial tasks for the Embroidered Uniform Guard, Eastern Depot, and Five Cities Patrol Battalion.
During a nighttime patrol, the Northern City Military Command arrested someone violating curfew. The next day, when relatives arrived with fines and a household certificate to secure their release, the observant Officer Mu noticed the certificate was forged and the detainee resembled a wanted White Lotus spy.
Wang Commander immediately reported this to the Embroidered Uniform Guard. The officer in charge of capturing White Lotus members was Thousand Household Chen—Wei Caiwei's mortal enemy. In her previous life, she had killed Chen Dalao but, in her agitation, stabbed him over thirty times without landing fatal blows. Nearly captured, she fled to the palace as a maid, leaving Thousand Household Chen alive.
Thousand Household Chen collaborated with the Northern City Military Command to track the spy, locating the White Lotus Sect's hideout in the capital—Toutiao Alley west of the Pool of Accumulated Water in the northern city. The two agencies surrounded the nest.
However, a critical oversight occurred: the spies had dug a basement to secretly manufacture firearms and store large quantities of gunpowder. In desperation, they ignited the underground arsenal. The explosion killed and injured many Northern City Military Command officers and Embroidered Uniform Guards, also devastating Toutiao Alley's residents.
The dry winter weather and northeastern winds fanned the flames, making containment impossible. Authorities had to wake residents in the middle of the night for evacuation. Ultimately, the entire alley burned down.
Fortunately, the Pool of Accumulated Water at the alley's end acted as a firebreak, preventing the blaze from spreading to other streets.
Tragically, a deaf-mute couple and an elderly bedridden person perished in the flames.
In the critical moment, Wang Commander shielded Officer Mu with his body, sustaining severe injuries: both legs severed and extensive back burns.
With heavy casualties and a destroyed street, superiors demanded accountability. Thousand Household Chen, having bribed Yan Shifan for protection, faced no consequences beyond a year's salary deduction.
But Wang Commander, lacking connections or bribery avenues, bore full responsibility as a direct supervisor. He was dismissed, stripped of his nobility, and had his property confiscated.
Wang Commander suffered immensely—agonizing burns and amputated legs, expelled from his home into freezing weather during the confiscation.
Wang Daxia removed a door panel, wrapped his father in blankets, and carried him out with Officer Mu's help.
Snow fell thickly, the north wind howled.
Madam Wu and Wang Daqiu could only wail in despair. The Wang family relocated to Officer Mu's rented residence, where Wang Commander died of pain that very night.After handling his father's funeral, Wang Daxia castrated himself with a knife, vowing to rise above others. Officer Mu spent all his savings to pave Wang Daxia's way into the palace.
Upon entering the palace, Wang Daxia first studied for three years at the Inner Study Hall. Wei Caiwei, who had already become a favored figure in the palace, selected him as her Eunuch and Maid Pairing, entrusting him with her revenge. Besides his handsome appearance, the character "Xia" in his name, and his ability to live off others, another important reason was that Wang Daxia shared her hatred for Thousand Household Chen and Yan Shifan, who had shifted all blame onto his father!
If Thousand Household Chen hadn't bribed Yan Shifan to pin all responsibility solely on Wang Commander, the Wang family wouldn't have been destroyed.
With common enemies, their Eunuch and Maid Pairing alliance became solid.
Wang Daxia joined forces with her to eliminate Thousand Household Chen, and together with anti-Yan factions in the court, they brought down Yan Shifan and his father Yan Song.
After Wang Daxia became Chief of the Eastern Depot, he used various means to eradicate the White Lotus Sect, avenging his father.
In their previous life, both Wang Daxia and Wei Caiwei had eliminated all their enemies.
Reborn into this life, Wei Caiwei protected Wang Daxia, unwilling to let him experience such heart-wrenching pain and grief again.
She wouldn't enter the palace because she needed to find ways outside to warn Wang Commander and the Embroidered Uniform Guard about the secret underground gunpowder storage in the White Lotus Sect lair at Headline Alley.
Whether through anonymous tips or guiding Lu Ying and Wang Daxia to investigate Headline Alley and eliminate the gunpowder storage threat, this time she was determined to prevent the tragedy from recurring.
But Wei Caiwei never expected that Yan Shifan's scheme against Wang Commander during the metropolitan evaluation would accidentally help Wang Commander escape a life-or-death calamity!
In their previous life, since Wang Daxia hadn't offended Yan Shifan, Yan Shifan didn't target Wang Commander during the metropolitan evaluation, so there was no usurious loan incident, and Madam Wu never divorced him.
In this life, because Wang Daxia offended Yan Shifan, Yan Shifan exploited Uncle Wu's greed by sending people to lure him into borrowing money from Madam Wu for usurious loans. This was to frame Wang Commander with greed charges and use the metropolitan evaluation to eliminate him.
As a result, although Wang Commander lost the official position he'd worked half his life for and four thousand taels of silver went down the drain, leading to family decline, he thereby avoided disaster. Without Wei Caiwei needing to carefully arrange things, he could live peacefully.
Blessings and misfortunes are interdependent.
So when Wei Caiwei learned about this, she wasn't sad but quite pleased. Now she didn't need to worry about the Wang family's downfall anymore—she only needed to find ways to guide the Embroidered Uniform Guard to destroy the White Lotus Sect lair and warn about the underground gunpowder storage to prevent catastrophe at Headline Alley.
With the Wang family spared from disaster, Wang Daxia wouldn't be driven to self-castration by grief and rage, thus preserving his manhood.
Today was a happy occasion as Wei Caiwei passed the palace female physician examination. Not wanting family matters to spoil the mood, and with Wei Caiwei proactively serving him a chicken leg while gently comforting him that after misfortune comes good fortune and losing his position might not be a bad thing, Wang Daxia immediately cheered up and said, "I'll take your auspicious words. Losing the position but keeping the title—that's a good deal."
Wei Caiwei thought: More than just keeping the title? Your father's life and your manhood are preserved too, alright?
Those four thousand taels were well spent!
But she couldn't tell Wang Daxia this. Wei Caiwei pointed at the chicken leg in his bowl, "Eat it while it's hot."
Wang Daxia didn't stand on ceremony, took a big bite, frowned slightly, glanced at Ding Wu, said nothing, and obediently finished the chicken leg.Tonight, Ding Wu seemed to have little appetite, as he hadn't even picked up his chopsticks yet.
"Let's eat," Wei Caiwei said, placing the other chicken drumstick into Ding Wu's bowl.
Wei Caiwei habitually started with a bowl of soup. When the chicken broth touched her lips, she nearly spat it out, forcing it down like medicine. Now she finally understood why Wang Daxia had made such a strange expression while eating the drumstick earlier.
"Brother Ding, you forgot to add salt," Wei Caiwei remarked.
"Ah?" Ding Wu had been preoccupied with thoughts about the Lu family discussing marriage arrangements with Minister of Personnel Wu Peng's family, feeling that Lu Ying would soon marry into the Wu household. His distracted state had led to this cooking mishap.
Ding Wu took a sip of the soup, "My apologies. I'll add salt and reheat it in the wok. Please wait a moment."
Carrying the iron wok, Ding Wu went to the kitchen to reheat the dish.
Wei Caiwei asked Wang Daxia, "Why didn't you say anything when you were eating the drumstick?"
Wang Daxia looked somewhat embarrassed, "I thought Brother Ding intentionally made it light. As a guest, how could I complain? He went through the trouble of buying groceries, cooking, and plucking the chicken feathers."
When Wang Daxia first met Ding Wu, he had repeatedly made sarcastic remarks. But in just two months, he had matured quickly, with much of his reckless demeanor fading away.
Wei Caiwei watched the busy Ding Wu in the kitchen, "Brother Ding seems rather odd today."
Wang Daxia nodded repeatedly, seizing the opportunity to complain and act spoiled, "He's so absent-minded. While plucking chicken feathers today, he accidentally pulled out some of my leg hair. It really hurt!"
Wei Caiwei: I just thought you'd matured, but you're still the same as ever...
Author's Note: I've finally completed the last piece of the puzzle from the previous life! The logical chain has formed a complete loop. Let me send out 100 red envelopes to celebrate! Wishing everyone a pleasant weekend!
Note 1: West of the Pool of Accumulated Water, there are three alleys: First Alley, Second Alley, and Third Alley. The street names in the Ming capital were just that straightforward.
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