Abandoned daughter reborn, legitimate son is resourceful

At night, Nan Jinming tossed and turned in bed. She lay on her back in the leaky house, but fortunately she could shelter from the rain. She lived a free and unrestrained life. When she was alone, she might feel lonely, but more often she could do whatever she wanted, do what she wanted to do, and meet who she wanted to meet.

After Nan Jinming was reborn, she lived cautiously in the first few years. She also had to be wary of the people around her, including the man in Nanjiang. If she had not fallen in love with him at the beginning, perhaps everything would be different.

But Nan Jinming was also extremely grateful that his life in the past few years was joyful, happy and relaxing, and he could spend it with a few good friends.

Yan Qiu would come to visit her every few months. Most people in Lai Fu Village knew about it. Nan Jinming only said that Yan Qiu was a friend she met when she was studying in Yuecheng. After Nan Jinming was the only one left in her family, the villagers would occasionally send her some things. At the same time, Nan Jinming would also help the villagers free of charge, such as repairing their houses or helping to harvest crops.

Nan Jinming has been hiding for so long, but... he will eventually have to face what is happening next. It is impossible for a person to escape his own destiny. Even if he closes his eyes, he will eventually have to experience it.

Fate is inevitable no matter what. She died at the age of 30 in her previous life, and this life is just a rebirth. Nan Jinming has never thought about fighting against fate, nor has she planned to live past the age of 30. Even if she could luckily save her life, she could not escape the fate of the country's destruction in the end.

These seven or eight years of leisure were stolen by her, and she is already content.

That night, Nan Jinming didn't know how he fell asleep. He thought about too many things. Finally, when he thought of Chu Xiaoran, he felt a little confused.

Yan Qiu slept carelessly next to Nan Jinming, with one leg stretched out and pressed on Nan Jinming's leg. Nan Jinming stretched out his hand to push Yan Qiu's leg down, and then she turned sideways and hugged Nan Jinming directly, rubbing her head against Nan Jinming's face.

"Comfortable."

Nan Jinming: “…”

Nan Jinming frowned. If he were like before, he would have kicked Yan Qiu off the bed. The summer heat began to fade in the past few days, and the temperature in the room dropped quickly. The two of them didn't feel as hot sleeping together as before.

"Jin Ming, to be honest, I really can't stand you. You have a bright future ahead of you, but you choose to stay on this hillside."

Yan Qiu got up and went to the kitchen. He saw Nan Jinming making breakfast and said half-jokingly.

Nan Jinming lowered his head and looked at the dough on the chopping board. He pinched the dough with his slender fingers, rolling it into a ball, flattening it, and finally pinched it into a ball and patted it gently, making it a round white semicircle.

"You are quite good at talking. Do you feel at ease in the court? I am the emperor's employee and I am here to serve him."

Nan Jinming rolled up her sleeves, revealing half of her arms, which had several obvious scars from injuries sustained on the battlefield. The more shocking wound on Nan Jinming's body was the knife wound on her back, which was caused by the enemy when she tried to save her soldiers.

Nan Jinming was not only dignified in the military camp, but also extremely loved. Nan Jinming made good friends with the soldiers in private on weekdays. If anyone had an elderly mother or father, or a baby in swaddling clothes, she would always pay extra attention to them and would also give some of her monthly salary to them in private.

In the end, someone will still betray her. The human heart is always the most difficult to guess. Her desperate gamble will end in betrayal by everyone.

Yan Qiu stuck out her tongue playfully, leaned against the pillar, took another ball of dough, and looked at the fine white flour. Nan Jinming knew how to grind it carefully. During the busy farming season, he would not be home all day. Now that he had some free time, he just needed to dry all the grain for storage.

"Why don't you go wash up? Why? You've become slovenly since you left the capital? You don't even know how to wash yourself when there are so many servants at home?"

Nan Jinming was talking while her hands were moving. Yan Qiu was raised by her since she was a child and she had never suffered any hardship. The only hardship she had experienced was probably being forced by Nan Jinming to study.

Now that he is an official, he knows some tricks and can help her get out of trouble. Yan Qiu is the only person she trusts.

Nan Jinming placed the steamed buns one by one on the bamboo steamer and lit a few more fires in the stove.

When Chu Xiaoran came out, he saw Nan Jinming making breakfast. He was moved and came to Nan Jinming's side. After thinking for a while, he said, "Jinming, let me light the fire."

Nan Jinming raised his eyelids and glanced at him, only to see a dark purple spot under his eyes, knowing that he did not sleep well. Fortunately, the food here at Nan Jinming's place was not bad. Although there was no meat every day, there was meat every two days, so the nutrition was balanced, and Chu Xiaoran's face was not as shriveled as when he first came.

"No, you are not needed. Just rinse your mouth, wash your face, and wait at the table. Leave the lighting of the fire to Yan Qiu."

Nan Jinming still resented Yan Qiu's sleeping posture last night. He slept like a dead pig. He looked thin, but he was very strong and could not be pushed.

"Why? This woman is far from the kitchen, don't you understand?"

Yan Qiu said this, but his actions were sincere. According to Nan Jinming's arrangement, he obediently came to the stove, took a bamboo stool, sat on it, and started to put firewood.

Chu Xiaoran couldn't help laughing. He had nothing to do and Nan Jinming didn't let him work. He just fed the chickens, ducks and the gray rabbit on weekdays.

Chu Xiaoran saw Nan Jinming still cleaning the stove and wanted to go to help. Nan Jinming glanced at him indifferently with a hint of reprimand in her eyes. Chu Xiaoran immediately retracted his hand, knowing that she was blaming him for being disobedient.

"Go quickly."

Three words came out of Nan Jinming's lips, carrying an irresistible command.

Chu Xiaoran hurriedly took a bamboo tube to collect water for rinsing his mouth, and then washed his face with a towel in the wooden basin. Every once in a while, Nan Jinming would wash the face towel, which was filled with the fragrance of soapberry.

When Chu Xiaoran was washing his face, he smelled the scent on the stinky towel and felt inexplicably at ease.

If only I could live like this forever.

"When do you plan to return to the capital?"

Nan Jinming spoke in a neither loud nor soft voice. After cleaning the stove, he took a wooden stick from the side and put it into the stove, waiting for the steamed buns in the pot to be cooked.

"Maybe I'll be going back in two days, and you still have a chance to go back with me."

Yan Qiu threw a coquettish glance at Nan Jinming, and Nan Jinming just wanted to ask the sky in silence. Every time he came, he always said these few words. Aren’t you really tired of it?

Yan Qiu asked Nan Jinming many times whether she wanted to go back with him, but the answer she got was the same every time, that is, Nan Jinming was unwilling to leave the place where she had been born for several years.

People always miss home and like to stay in one place for a long time, but a person's ability to adapt is very strong and they can continue to survive no matter where the wind blows.

"You can go back by yourself. Once you have investigated the details of this imperial teacher, send someone to bring it to me. Don't send a letter by carrier pigeon."

Nan Jinming would not let Yan Qiu send a pigeon to deliver such a confidential matter. It would be safer to send someone to deliver it. This national teacher is not a good person. I am afraid...

"Oh, I was alone before, but now I have someone at home. I'm afraid I won't go back with you. Why didn't I think of this? I'm stupid."

Nan Jinming's handsome brows frowned, and his fair cheeks turned blue and then white, and then white and then purple. Does this guy like to make fun of Xiao Ran so much?

"It seems that you don't even want to eat breakfast?"

Nan Jinming opened the lid of the pot, took out the white flour buns inside with his bare hands, put the buns into a bowl, and took out the young ginger from the sauerkraut jar and cut it into shreds.

"Hey! I didn't say that. Eat, eat, eat!"

Yan Qiu walked forward and brought the steamed buns to the table. Chu Xiaoran had already washed up and sat here for a while. The two of them had such a good relationship that she couldn't interrupt them at all when they were talking.

Nan Jinming served Chu Xiaoran a bowl of porridge. The porridge in the white porcelain bowl was steaming. Her slender white fingers gently placed the bowl in front of Chu Xiaoran. I don't know how Nan Jinming maintains her skin. She can have such fair skin doing farm work every day. Logically, she would get tanned after being exposed to the sun in summer.

Nan Jinming has been doing farm work for so many years that he finds it uncanny that, except for the knife scars and rough calluses on his hands from practicing martial arts, the skin elsewhere on his body is smooth, white, tender, and so delicate that it seems as if it could be blown away, especially his face.

Nan Jinming was originally a scholar. She was handsome and bright, with a gentle temperament. She had been doing farm work here with Murong Beitang for the past few years, making it difficult for others to associate her with a scholar.

Yan Qiu sat on a stool. The square table was neither too big nor too small, just enough to accommodate four people. Nan Chenliang didn't come today, so he should have come for breakfast.

Yan Qiu also noticed it, drank the porridge in big gulps, and then picked up a white flour bun and started to eat it.

"Why hasn't Chenliang come to have breakfast today?"

Nan Jinming picked up the chopsticks and put a piece of young ginger into Yan Qiu's bowl, knocking on the edge of Yan Qiu's bowl: "You are not listening to others. Didn't he say yesterday that he had to go visit relatives with Nan's father today and couldn't come here? Besides, he is so old, and he always comes to my place. Those gossipy uncles in the village will slander him to death."

Yan Qiu curled his lips, feeling a little regretful. He might have to leave for the capital tomorrow.

"Pei Zhaoli has come to Yuecheng to hold a martial arts competition to recruit a bride... I think... he must be planning something bad. You should be careful and don't reveal your whereabouts."

Yan Qiu bit his tongue hard. The Prince of Qingping was in control of the court, and he would be isolated and helpless if he went back!

Too bad for a woman...

Yan Qiu screamed in her heart, but she didn't dare to show her emotions in front of Nan Jinming. Anyway, if Nan Jinming found out, he would definitely laugh at her.

How can a rookie deal with a cunning old fox?

"Eat yours. What does Pei Zhaoli's martial arts competition have to do with me? I'm just a peasant woman who can grow some food."

Nan Jinming calmly peeled an egg for Chu Xiaoran and handed it to Chu Xiaoran. Chu Xiaoran was a little dazed. His face used to be skinny without a piece of flesh, but in the past month, it had become a little fuller. He no longer looked so haggard with sunken eye sockets, but the dark circles under his eyes were a little heavy.

"Eat."

Nan Jinming's voice was somewhat seductive, gentle and bewitching. Chu Xiaoran always unconsciously brought the face of the person in his dream into Nan Jinming's face. He told himself countless times that the person in front of him was really Murong Beitang, whom he had admired for a long time, but he had only seen her true face in his dreams.

"Thank you."

Nan Jinming didn't say anything. She lowered her head and blew on the porridge in the bowl. The steam was coming out. She only cooked an egg. Yan Qiu was used to eating delicacies from land and sea, so it was meaningful to eat such simple dishes occasionally.

Chu Xiaoran ate the egg in small bites. Nan Jinming touched his bowl inconspicuously, feeling the temperature, which was still a little hot, and said, "There is still some soup in the porridge. Eat the porridge after you finish the egg."

"Uh-huh."

Chu Xiaoran buried his head, his ears were a little red, he didn't know what he felt in his heart. He was always afraid of trusting her gentleness and kindness too much. As the book said, women are best at speaking words of love, if a man believes them easily, he will only end up being abandoned.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk."

Yan Qiu was amazed at the sight. Nan Jinming rejected so many matchmakers and only fell in love with Xiao Ran.

昨夜

"Xiao Ran, originally named Chu Xiaoran, is the legitimate son of the Chu family. His father died during childbirth. Later, Gu Yanshu came into the family and brought with him an illegitimate son, Chu Zixuan. Chu Zixuan is a stepson and is not eligible to be included in the family tree. However, Gu Yanshu became the head husband of the Chu family and excluded Chu Xiaoran everywhere. Gradually, the identity of this legitimate son of the Chu family was forgotten, and his life in the Chu family was even worse than that of an inferior."

Yan Qiu did not sympathize with Chu Xiaoran, but just told Nan Jinming the truth of the matter. Nan Jinming frowned, clasped his hands over his chest, and leaned on the edge of the bed next to him.

"No wonder he doesn't like to talk. It turns out that he is born like this. The Chu family is obviously his home, but he is more like a person living under someone else's roof."

The reason why Nan Jinming saved Chu Xiaoran was because she was hot-headed at the time. She was not a person with excessive sympathy. Other people's life and death had nothing to do with her. Of course, she would not meddle in other people's affairs and care about other people's life and death.

But when she saw Chu Xiaoran lying on the ground unconscious, looking emaciated, a voice in her heart kept asking her to come closer. Saving him was her inner choice and she couldn't resist.

"Are you relieved now? He hid his identity probably because he killed a gangster girl during the resistance. The government won't waste time on a gangster, so no one is pursuing the case."

Nan Jinming put his tongue against his chin, thinking, looking at Yan Qiu who was sitting in front of him, and suddenly reached out and grabbed Yan Qiu's collar. The two were so close that they could hear each other's breathing.

"Buy me a house in Yuecheng."

"Do...what?"

Yan Qiu was a little flustered. Although he had indeed spent a lot of Nan Jinming's money at the beginning, it was not easy for him to work so hard in the court to earn his monthly salary.

"What can I do? Just buy it when I tell you to. By the way, since the name is Xiao Ran, let's name it Xiao Mansion."

Yan Qiu's mouth twitched. Is this really... not interested in Xiao Ran? And buying a house, are you really going to marry him? Although doing so can take Chen Liang's mind away from Nan Jinming, but... it's too difficult to forget the feelings for a person.