After transmigrating into the book, I helped my mother reconcile with her divorced husband.

It was a lie, a lie so obviously false, yet Han Ting believed it to be true.

It wasn't because they were stupid, but because they placed their hopes for Lu Zhiyuan's life on her next life. Lu Zhiyuan understood, and Han Ting understood too, but they stubbornly pretended not to understand.

As the door closed, Han Ting could still be heard lying on the bed muttering to himself: "I need to find a place with good feng shui, with mountains and water, flowers and birds. Miss doesn't like places that are too desolate or have bad scenery. I need to open a coffin shop, a paper craft shop, a shop selling incense, candles, and fruit, and make everything that Miss likes to eat."

Outside the door, Lu Zhiyuan was both moved and amused.

She turned around and saw the Crown Prince staring intently at her. Just as she was about to speak, he grabbed her arm and pulled her to a secluded spot in the backyard.

It didn't matter whether it was secluded or not; with Zuo Yi and his bodyguards around, no one else dared to get close enough to eavesdrop.

"Is Ah Yuan truly a reincarnation?"

“Ah Yuan says so, what should I do, Your Highness?” Lu Zhiyuan smiled at the Crown Prince: “I’ve heard that Beiliang also has a national advisor. I wonder how it goes? Your Highness should ask him to come out of seclusion and take Ah Yuan in.”

He tightened his grip on Lu Zhiyuan's shoulders slightly: "I'm serious!"

Lu Zhiyuan's smile faded: "I am indeed not the original Lu Zhiyuan, the legitimate daughter of the Marquis of Pingnan."

The hands gripping her shoulders tightened even more: "Ah Yuan, who is it?"

Lu Zhiyuan looked into the Crown Prince's eyes: "A soul from another world, who came here by chance."

The prince loosened his grip slightly: "What was A-Yuan's original name?"

“Lu Zhiyuan is exactly the same as the eldest daughter of the Marquis’s family.” Lu Zhiyuan said, “I was originally an orphan without parents, and was later adopted by an assassin organization. I entered the assassin training camp and became a top assassin. My first mission after leaving the camp was to assassinate a professor, using the identity of the professor’s lost granddaughter. A professor is roughly equivalent to a teacher in an academy in your world, and a highly respected one at that.”

"Left behind?"

“This has to do with the professor’s early experiences.” Lu Zhiyuan picked up a twig and drew on the ground: “In our world, there was a very special period when our ruler… was equivalent to the emperor in your world, who called on ambitious young people to go to the countryside. You can think of these ambitious young people as young masters from noble families, sons of scholarly families, and students in academies. Going to the countryside meant going up the mountain to chop firewood and going down to the countryside to farm.”

The crown prince was greatly shocked: "Your king is sending noble sons to chop wood in the mountains and farm in the countryside?"

Lu Zhiyuan nodded and asked in return, "Is it not allowed? Young masters from noble families are people too, aren't they?"

The Crown Prince shook his head: "That's not what I meant. I meant that chopping wood might be possible, after all, gentlemen are versed in the Six Arts, so they should have some strength. Farming? They probably wouldn't know how."

"If you don't know how, you can learn!" Lu Zhiyuan continued drawing on the ground: "The people can carry a boat, but they can also capsize it. This boat doesn't refer to the boats in the river, but rather to the monarch, the royal family, and the civil and military officials. When you've been a monarch, a minister, or an official for a long time, it's easy to forget your original intentions. Their children are born and raised in wealth and privilege, and they don't understand the hardships of ordinary people. Asking them to empathize with the people and understand their suffering is like casting pearls before swine."

The crown prince hesitated, "It can't be that serious, can it?"

Lu Zhiyuan looked up, did not refute, but simply told a story.

A high-ranking official of the second rank proposed a decree that could completely solve the problem of poverty among the people.

His decree encouraged people to sell their surplus cattle, sheep, and donkeys, and to rent out their extra carts and houses. It also encouraged unemployed people to find work, even without pay, as long as they could learn something. He believed that within a year or two, they could start their own businesses and open shops. He thought this decree was excellent, addressing the practical problems faced by the people.

"Absurd, utterly absurd!" The Crown Prince flung his sleeves. "Does he even know how much a cow or a sheep costs? Ordinary people, saving for years, can only afford one ox. Oxen are more precious than people; unless there's a family emergency or the ox is old, they won't sell it. Besides, ordinary people don't have the right to buy and sell oxen privately; it has to be done through the government. Furthermore, if a family owns two or more oxen, it means they're relatively well-off, at least enough to eat and wear year-round. Why would someone who doesn't have to worry about food and clothing sell their oxen?"

And what about the extra carriages and extra houses? Does he even know how many ordinary people don't have a house, or even a decent one? And the idea of ​​working without pay is utterly absurd! Everyone going out to find work desperately needs money to support their families. If he talks like that, people will starve to death.

"As expected of the Crown Prince who has experienced the hardships of the common people, how many people in the court are like the Crown Prince? Therefore, our king has formulated this policy of sending people to the countryside, so that those who do not know the hardships of the common people can truly go among the people, eat, live and work with them, and truly understand their lives."

The crown prince asked urgently, "Is this method feasible?"

"It didn't work out very well; it only lasted for a while, about a few years." Lu Zhiyuan didn't dwell on the topic for long: "The professor was originally from a scholarly family. He responded to the king's call to go to the countryside, where he met a farmer's daughter, and the two married. Less than a year after their marriage, a letter arrived from the professor's family..."

He was told to return to the capital. The professor had intended to settle matters in the capital before returning home to fetch his wife, but upon his return, one issue after another arose, and by the time he had a moment to himself, a year had passed.

"The professor didn't bring his wife back?"

"The professor received a letter, a divorce agreement from his wife. He went back to his hometown to look for her, but his wife, her parents, and his brother-in-law had all moved away. When he asked the neighbors, they hesitated and only said that his wife had moved away after giving birth to a child, and that she might have remarried."

The Crown Prince frowned: "That child is the professor's child, isn't he? The neighbors' reaction proves that there's something fishy about this."

“Your Highness is so clever. That child is indeed the professor’s child, and the divorce letter was not written by the professor’s wife.”

"They are the professor's family. They look down on their daughter-in-law who comes from a farming family and don't want her to return to the capital, lest it affect their son's future. Besides that divorce letter, they must have used other means, nothing more than coercion and bribery."

"They gave the professor's parents-in-law a sum of money, just enough for the professor's brother-in-law to get married. They also found the professor's brother-in-law a very good job, enough to support his family. For their son's benefit, the professor's parents-in-law sacrificed the interests of their daughter and unborn granddaughter, and even forced their daughter to remarry."

"and after?"

"The professor, upon returning to the capital, did not remarry, but instead devoted all his energy to serving the country and its people, and to educating his students. His wife from the countryside also did not remarry, but instead raised her daughter alone, wandering from place to place. Fate did not treat her kindly; her daughter died in a car accident, and she, overwhelmed with grief and overwork, fell ill and died far from home. On her deathbed, perhaps still filled with resentment, she wrote a letter to the professor, telling him that they had a daughter and questioning why he had not returned to fetch her as promised, leaving her and her daughter destitute and alone."

"The address was the one the professor left for her when he returned to Beijing, and he hasn't moved all these years. He received his wife's letter, but he never saw her again. He knew his wife had given birth to a daughter, but he didn't know where the daughter was. He searched for many years, but what he found was me, his fake granddaughter."

The Crown Prince pursed his lips: "What about his granddaughter?"