Great Feng, Jingzhao Prefecture, the prison.
Xu Qian woke from a dead faint, and the damp, rotten stench of the air hit him first — mildly nauseating, his stomach acid churning. What was this smell assaulting him from every side? His husky back home must have climbed onto the bed and dropped a load again... judging by how strong it was, the madam had probably dumped it right on top of his head...
Xu Qian kept a dog back home, a Siberian Husky — affectionately known as a "husky." After drifting in the north for ten years, all alone, a person gets lonely after a while, and it's only natural to want a dog for comfort and amusement... not in the physical sense.
He opened his eyes, took a look around, and went blank for a moment.
Stone-block walls, three square windows the size of a rice bowl, and he lay on a freezing, ragged straw mat. Sunlight streamed through the square windows and fell across his chest, dust motes drifting in the beam.
Where am I?
Xu Qian sat in the confusion of a man doubting his own life, thinking hard for a moment — and then he really did start doubting his life.
I've transmigrated...
A tidal wave of memories came crashing in, not even giving him a chance to react. It forced its way into his mind and began flowing rapidly.
Xu Qian, courtesy name Ningyan, a constable at the Changle County yamen under the Jingzhao Prefecture of the Great Feng Dynasty. A monthly wage of two taels of silver and one dan of rice.
His father had been an old soldier, killed nineteen years ago in the Shandong Campaign. Soon after, his mother also died of illness... At the thought, Xu Qian felt a small flicker of comfort.
As everyone knows, people whose parents are both dead are never ordinary.
"So I get to live again, and I still can't escape the fate of being a cop?" Xu Qian winced, a dull ache in his teeth.
In his past life, he'd graduated from the police academy, successfully entered the system, and landed a golden rice bowl.
Yet even though Xu Qian had walked the road his parents had chosen for him, his heart was never in the career of serving the people.
He loved being unbound and free. He loved loose living and feasting on extravagance. He loved a line from Ji Xianlin's diary:—
And so he resigned in a blaze of fury and went into business.
"But then why am I in jail?"
He struggled to digest the memories, and soon understood his present predicament.
Xu Qian had been raised by his second uncle since childhood. Because he trained in martial arts year-round, he ate through over a hundred taels of silver a year, which made his aunt resent him.
At eighteen, he'd climbed to the peak of Essence Refining and then stopped advancing. Under pressure from his aunt, he moved out of the Xu residence to live on his own.
Through his uncle's connections, he'd wangled himself a constable's post at the yamen. His life had been decent enough — but who could have expected...
Three days ago, that second uncle of his, a seventh-rank official in the green robe who served in the Imperial Blade Guard, was escorting a shipment of tax silver to the Ministry of Revenue when an accident occurred on the way, and the silver was lost.
A full one hundred and fifty thousand taels of silver.
The whole court and country were shaken. The Emperor flew into a rage and personally ordered that Xu Pingzhi be beheaded within five days, that the crime extend to three generations of kin, the male relations exiled to the frontier, and the female relations sent to the Bureau of Music.
As Xu Pingzhi's nephew, Xu Qian was stripped of his constable post and thrown into the Jingzhao Prefecture prison.
Two days!
In just two more days, he would be banished to a bitter, desolate frontier outpost, to spend the rest of his life in drudgery.
"Starting out on hell mode..." Xu Qian's spine ran cold, and half his heart went cold with it.
This world was ruled by a feudal dynasty. There was no human rights, and what was the frontier? Desolate, harsh climate, and most convicts banished to the border didn't survive ten years. And many more never even reached the frontier, dying on the road from some accident or disease.
At that thought, Xu Qian's scalp crawled, and a chill ran all the way down his spine.
"System?"
After a moment of silence, Xu Qian's tentative voice echoed through the quiet cell.
The system ignored him.
"System... System Papa, come out." Xu Qian's voice was edged with urgency.
Silence.
No system. There was actually no system!
That meant he had almost no way to change his fate. In two days, he'd be fitted with shackles and a cangue and shipped off to the frontier. With his physique, he probably wouldn't die on the road.
But that wasn't a blessing. He'd be ground down as a labor slave for the rest of his life, worked to death in servitude...
Too terrifying. Too terrifying!
The beautiful fantasies Xu Qian had harbored about transmigrating to ancient times shattered like foam. All that remained was anxiety and fear.
"I have to find some way to save myself. I can't just bow out like this."
Xu Qian paced back and forth in the cramped cell, like an ant on a hot pan, like a beast fallen into a trap, racking his brains for a way out.
I've reached the peak of Essence Refining, my body is terrifyingly strong... but in this world that just makes me a stubborn piece of bronze. Escaping is impossible...
Count on clan and friends?
The Xu family wasn't a great clan. Its members were scattered all over, and with a full one hundred and fifty thousand taels of tax silver robbed, who would dare plead for mercy at a moment like this?
According to the laws of Great Feng, atone for a crime with merit, and a death sentence could be commuted!
Unless the silver was recovered...
Xu Qian's eyes lit up suddenly, like a drowning man who'd just grabbed hold of a lifeline.
He was a bona fide police academy graduate, with rich theoretical knowledge, clear logic, formidable reasoning skills, and he'd read countless cases.
Maybe he could try to work from the angle of cracking the case, recover the silver and redeem his crime with merit.
But then the light in his eyes dimmed.
To crack a case, he first needed to see the case files and understand the full details of the incident. Only then could he investigate and solve it.
And here he was, stuck deep in prison, with no one to hear his cries, and in two days he'd be on his way to the frontier!
Dead end!
Xu Qian dropped onto the ground, his eyes going blank.
Yesterday he'd drunk himself into a stupor at the bar, and when he woke he was in prison. Probably he'd died of alcohol poisoning and that was why he'd transmigrated.
The heavens bestowed on him the gift of transmigration — not so he could live again, but because they thought he'd died too easily?
In ancient times, banishment was the harshest penalty short of execution.
In his past life he might have been beaten down by society, but at least he'd lived in an age of peace and plenty. How wonderful it would be to be reborn, he thought — he could swipe his parents' savings without a word and buy a house.
Then, with his mother's help, he'd break the hands of his stock-market-loving father so he couldn't keep getting fleeced as a retail investor.
At that moment, from the far end of the dim corridor came the sound of chains shifting — the door must be opening.
Then footsteps.
A jailer led a handsome, haggard young scholar over, and they stopped in front of Xu Qian's cell.
The jailer glanced at the scholar. "Half an incense stick's time."
The scholar clasped his hands and bowed to the jailer. Once the jailer had left, he turned to face Xu Qian directly.
The scholar wore a robe of moonlight-pale silk, his black hair swept up in a jade hairpin. He was quite handsome — sword-like brows, starry eyes, and thin lips.
Xu Qian's mind floated up the memory of this person.
Xu Xinnian, the Second Son of the Xu family.
His second uncle's own son, Xu Qian's cousin, who had passed the provincial exam this autumn.
Xu Xinnian met his eyes calmly. "The soldiers escorting you to the frontier accepted three hundred taels from me. It's all the silver our family has left. Go in peace — there will be no mishaps on the road."
"And you?" Xu Qian found the words slipping out of his mouth on a whim. He remembered that the original body's relationship with this cousin had never been good.
Because of his aunt's dislike of him, nobody in the Xu family except his second uncle treated Xu Qian particularly well. At least his cousins didn't show any closeness with him.
Besides that, in the original body's memory, this cousin was also a master of the sharp tongue, a champion of colorful insults.
Xu Xinnian said impatiently, "I've been stripped of my degree, but I have the academy's teachers to protect me. I don't need to be exiled. Just mind your own business. When you reach the frontier, curb your temper. Live one year at a time."
Xu Xinnian had studied at the renowned White Deer Academy in the capital, where he was well regarded, and was a newly risen provincial graduate. That was why, when his father got into trouble, he wasn't thrown into jail — though he wasn't allowed to leave the capital, and he'd been running frantically through the city ever since.
Xu Qian went silent. He didn't think Xu Xinnian was better off than him. Probably not just a loss of degree — he'd likely be registered into the debased class as well, with his sons and grandsons barred from the imperial exams, never to climb up again.
And in two days, the Xu women would be sent to the Bureau of Music, to be humiliated.
Xu Xinnian was a scholar. How could he still find the face to live on in the capital? Perhaps exile to the frontier would be the better choice for him.
Xu Qian's heart lurched. He lunged forward a few steps and gripped the iron bars with both hands. "You're thinking of ending your own life?!"
Against his will, a wave of sorrow rose in his chest... he didn't even know this person.
Face blank, Xu Xinnian flicked his sleeve. "What is it to you?"
He paused, then let his gaze drop a few inches, not meeting his cousin's eyes, and his expression softened. "Live."
With that, he turned and strode away, resolute.
"Wait!" Xu Qian thrust his hand through the bars and grabbed his sleeve.
Xu Xinnian stopped and looked at him in silence.
"Can you get hold of the case files? The case files on the lost tax silver."