After being reborn, her aloof ex-husband and her crazy deceased husband got into a fight.

Not long after the people from the Jingzhao Prefecture left, Gan Cai'er and her group also packed their belongings and left.

Two murders had occurred at Ciyun Temple, which made Gan Cai'er somewhat frightened. In addition, there were only about ten days left until the imperial examination, so she suggested returning home.

Seeing that even the slightest breeze could startle Gan Cai'er, Lan Tingzhou couldn't help but sigh silently. With such little courage, how dare she get involved in a murder case?

So the two families went down the mountain again, carrying large and small bags.

Upon returning to her residence, Gan Cai'er was greeted by a mountain of invitations. She couldn't help but click her tongue in amazement; these were far more than the invitations she had received in her previous life. It seemed that she had indeed delayed Lan Tingzhou in her past life.

Thinking of this, she couldn't help but feel ashamed and guilty. If it weren't for her, Lan Tingzhou in her previous life would probably have gone much higher and farther.

For no apparent reason, she felt down.

"Where is Tingzhi?" Lan Tingzhou asked.

It was only after Lan Tingzhou asked that Gan Cai'er realized she hadn't seen Lan Tingzhi since entering the mansion.

"Young Master has run away," said Mo Yan, who was left at home.

"He ran away?! Why did he run away?" Gan Cai'er asked in surprise.

Mo Yan paused for a moment, then explained the whole story. It turned out that Lan Ting had run away because he was annoyed.

After Lan Tingzhou went up the mountain, the number of people coming to the Lan residence increased every day, and later on, the number of people kept growing. At first, it was just people from all walks of life in the capital who came to visit, but later even people from distant prefectures and counties came looking for him.

This caused Lan Tingzhi great distress. Every day, besides copying military texts, he spent his time receiving guests. He had initially claimed that his brother wasn't home, thinking these people would leave on their own. But to his surprise, they thought that since he and Lan Tingzhou were siblings, even if he couldn't see Lan Tingzhou, chatting with him and building a closer relationship would be beneficial. Even the matchmaker who came to his door thought the same way.

So he slipped away without a trace.

Gan Cai'er couldn't help but laugh whenever she thought of Lan Tingzhi jumping up and down, scratching his ears and cheeks.

"Did he say where he was going?" Lan Tingzhou asked.

"Young Master has gone to Young Master Lu's house," Mo Yan replied.

Upon hearing that she was going to Lu Qingning's place, Gan Cai'er's heart skipped a beat. After arriving in the capital, Lan Tingzhi loved to follow Lu Qingning around, and he even dreamed of joining the Imperial Guard to find a job.

In their previous life, Lan Tingzhi entered the capital after they had established themselves there. He also became close to Lu Qingning and joined the Imperial Guard, starting as an ordinary soldier and eventually becoming a powerful general.

In this life, many things seem different from those in the previous life, yet they also seem very similar.

Lan Tingzhou was not surprised to hear this. He simply nodded and then instructed, "Tell everyone in the manor not to mention my return to the manor to outsiders."

"Yes," Mo Yan replied.

Ten days passed in a flash.

The palace examination arrived as scheduled.

That morning, Gan Cai'er got up very early, then took out a carefully prepared bright red brocade robe to dress Lan Tingzhou in, and then took out a bright red velvet flower to pin in his hair.

Lan Tingzhou raised his hand to stop him: "The bright red peony is a flower that only the top scholar should wear. It would be presumptuous for me to wear this flower."

Gan Cai'er replied matter-of-factly, "You are the top scholar."

Lan Tingzhou choked, somewhat speechless: "Then I'll wear it when I become the top scholar."

"Oh." Gan Cai'er took the flowers back and pouted. Sure enough, she still refused to wear them, just like in her previous life. What an old-fashioned person!

In her past life, Gan Cai'er also carefully prepared a large red peony velvet flower, intending to bring good luck and good fortune, but Lan Tingzhou refused to wear it no matter what.

So, with little interest, Gan Cai'er took out another plum blossom gold hairpin, just like the one from her previous life.

Lan Tingzhou really resisted the dazzling golden color, but when he saw Gan Cai'er's droopy eyebrows and eyes, the words of refusal he wanted to say stopped in his throat and he couldn't say them.

Oh well, a gold hairpin it is. Anyway, everyone's going to take an exam, and no one will notice what's in his hair.

Gan Cai'er shook out her bright red brocade robe and draped it over Lan Tingzhou's shoulders.

Lan Tingzhou lowered his eyes, looked at the fiery red color, smiled, and said casually, "The other day, I saw you making a green robe, and I thought you were going to give me that one."

Lan Tingzhou's words nearly made Gan Cai'er fall to the ground in shock. Her hand, which was adjusting her belt, trembled violently, almost causing her to drop the jade belt.

“Red is festive, why wear green?” she said quickly, head down.

Lan Tingzhou's gaze sharpened, staring intently at the top of her dark hair. He knew Gan Cai'er far better than she knew herself.

Lan Tingzhou's originally relaxed and cheerful mood suddenly turned irritable. His gaze swept lightly over the clothes basket not far away, where a long robe, light blue-green in color and made of a thin material, was casually placed, with a few cloud patterns embroidered on the cuffs and hem.

It was a man's outer robe, but it wasn't for him.

Lan Tingzhou pursed his lips.

On the day of the palace examination, as the 201 candidates entered the Qinde Hall, a squad of Xuanying Guards quietly left the capital and rode at full speed towards Danzhou Prefecture.

"Miss, I just saw that lackey. He threw something at me." Xiao Hong ran in and handed a note to Gan Cai'er.

"Where did you see him?" Gan Cai'er asked in surprise.

“It’s right on the wall in the backyard. He also said that the guy surnamed Meng was beaten so badly by his brother that he couldn’t get out of bed, so he had to come and ask for a message.”

"What message?" Gan Cai'er was puzzled.

"I don't know. Maybe it's written on this note?"

Gan Cai'er unfolded the note and saw that it contained only one sentence: "The Xuanying Guard is on their way to Danzhou to collect gambling debts. Do you want to help them collect them?"

Although she knew she shouldn't get entangled with Meng Yu, this was over 60,000 taels of silver! She still needed this money to pay back Zhu Xiaoxiao and to open her own embroidery workshop.

She simply couldn't resist this temptation. Even if it meant risking her life, she had to get the skin off the tiger and eat the chestnuts first before worrying about the future.

Gan Cai'er took out the finished dress, stuffed it into Xiao Hong's hand, and said, "Go and tell him. If he helps me with this, I will definitely repay him handsomely in the future."