The Legend of the Concubine in the Harem

A county in the southwest of Dasheng.

Lin Qiao, dressed in scholar's clothes, stood at the edge of the field. She was tall and thin, with a slightly dark complexion, straight eyebrows and a pretty face. Above her pair of black eyes, her two ink-black eyebrows were slightly furrowed, and she was looking across the field in the direction of Linjiazhuang.

There was a wisp of smoke rising from that direction, and there was a faint smell of gunpowder in the air, and the joyful sounds mixed with the voices of the crowd floated into Lin Qiao's ears not very clearly.

"......Young Master, today is the day when the master is helping... no, it is a good day to remarry, you must not make trouble with the master again......" The servant who came to pick up Lin Qiao home saw her standing there motionless, and his voice suddenly became much weaker.

The Lin family is a well-known wealthy family and a small landlord in this area. Although some members of the family met with misfortune in the past few years and only Lin Qiao and his father, a coroner, were left alive, there were rumors in the county that Lin's father was a coroner and had too much negative energy on him, which led to the death of his family members one after another, and that Lin Qiao, the only child, would be doomed sooner or later. However, even though the rumor was so horrible, it could not be stopped because the Lin family was wealthy and Lin's father was a minor official, a family with some status in the local area. Therefore, since Lin Qiao's mother had a difficult labor when giving birth to him and died of illness after a few years, there were still many people who wanted to matchmake for Lin's father.

However, Lin's father and mother had a deep affection for each other. At that time, Lin's father would rather go to work without Lin Qiao's knowledge than remarry. As time went by, all the people who wanted to introduce him to a woman disappeared. Lin Qiao seemed to have escaped the fate of being "killed" by his biological father. He grew up healthily and became smarter and smarter. At a young age, he had extraordinary literary talent. Before he was eighteen, he had completed a journey that others might have to take most of their lives to complete. He became the youngest juren in that subject.

Father Lin was both proud and worried about Lin Qiao, who was born smarter than ordinary people. He was proud that his child was so capable and would be able to gain a foothold in the world with his knowledge even if he died in the future. But he was worried that the child was actually a girl, but her mother had a difficult labor when she was born and could not have another child, and Father Lin himself did not want to remarry. The couple was afraid that after they passed away, the clan would use the excuse that she was a daughter to take away their family property. They were also afraid that if they adopted a son, the son would not be good to their daughter, so they decided to say that it was a son.

Although she was raised as a boy, Lin Qiao was also very clear about her real gender. Perhaps it was because the education she received since childhood was different from that of ordinary men and women, so while she was cautious in everything, she also wanted to make progress more and more. Although there had never been a female official in this dynasty, there were female clerks in the yamen, and the law did not explicitly stipulate that women could not take imperial examinations or become officials.

In addition, although Lin Qiao was a girl, she was taller than ordinary men, and her feminine features were not well developed. If she wore thicker clothes, people would think that she could not stand the cold. Moreover, there were many men in this era who put on makeup and wore flowers in their hair to pretend to be delicate. So when Lin Qiao, who was tall and had muscular body, stood among the students, she became the more "masculine" one.

Her identity had never been discovered during her entire journey of taking imperial examinations. Due to her extensive knowledge at such a young age, she was highly regarded by many teachers and elders, especially the local county magistrate, who regarded Lin Qiao as an outstanding political achievement.

If she passes the imperial examination again at the age of eighteen next spring, she will become a Jinshi at the age of twenty!

What a great educational achievement!

However, at this moment, Lin Qiao was full of confusion and bewilderment about the adults' "educational achievements". She had just returned from the county and planned to discuss with her father about going to Beijing in advance. As a result, when she arrived at her own field, she found that the movement in the direction of her home seemed to be a little unusual.

The boy who came to take her home had a pointed face and monkey cheeks. He was wearing new clothes, a big red flower tied around his waist, and his cheeks were painted bright red. He looked a little funny.

"I quarreled with my father?" Lin Qiao asked him puzzledly, "Why could I quarrel with my father?"

The servant smiled and said, "Master, please don't embarrass me, Sister Qingsu. No, you were the one who decided to take in the new wife in order to bring good luck to the master. She has served the master for many years and is now pregnant, which can be considered as a perfect deed... The master wants to make her his wife for the sake of your brother, so please... stop making trouble."

Lin Qiao was confused: "You mean, many years ago, as a son, I interfered in my father's bedroom affairs and took the initiative to take a concubine for him?"

The servant was stunned for a moment, and couldn't help but raise his hand and scratch his head: "This... doesn't seem to be you... No, maybe it was left by the late Madam, specially to take care of the master... Sister Qingsu has been a concubine in Linjiazhuang for many years. Even if she has no merit, she has worked hard..."

The more he spoke, the more confused he became, and Lin Qiao's brows furrowed even more tightly.

Although her family had many helpers and short-term servants, she had no impression of the "lightness" mentioned by the servant. Moreover, although her parents were originally the elder sister-in-law and younger brother-in-law, her mother's family was very poor. Because Lin's mother had no children at that time, after her uncle died, her father and brother wanted to take her back to her family and sell her to an old man in the town who liked to torture people. Lin's father could not bear to see his eldest sister-in-law suffer such hardship, so he took out money to persuade the other party to let his widowed sister-in-law remarry him.

Because of this previous relationship, the Lin family's parents got along with each other, except for some awkwardness in the beginning, but they became more and more loving later on.

Until Lin Qiao was born and Lin's mother died of illness, there was no other person involved between them. So how could there be a "concubine who served for many years"?

Lin Qiao became more and more confused. This statement was slightly more reasonable than what the servant had said before, that he was taking a concubine to bless his father, but it was not much more reasonable.

"Why don't I remember my father ever having a concubine?" Lin Qiao stared at the boy, trying to find something strange about him.

But the servant just rubbed his head and said, "It seems, it seems that it was arranged by the late Madam?"

Could it be that a mountain spirit or fox demon has come to the house and has bewitched everyone in Linjiazhuang?

Lin Qiao felt it was ridiculous. "Forget it, take me back first. Oh, Ah Lian, go to the county again and ask Master Chang how to get the talismans and lanterns for the Taoist temple that he mentioned earlier."

Ah Lian was Lin Qiao's servant. He was young but very smart. He responded immediately after a blink of his eyes. He handed the bag of cakes in his hand to the boy who came to pick him up, took the purse from Lin Qiao, and turned away in the direction he came from.

Lin Qiao carried the bookcase on his back and said to the servant, "Let's go."

She wanted to see the origin of this "new lady" who appeared out of nowhere, "Sister Qingsu". How could a person who clearly did not exist in her memory suddenly become the concubine that her father, who had a deep affection for her mother, wanted to make his wife?