Chapter 41: The Rebirth of the Concubine’s Daughter, Part 1

According to the usual pattern of novels, this should be how things unfold. Yet, something feels off. She senses she shouldn’t be saddled with such a heavy blame; the true culprits were those two who fought—just who are they, and could they be connected to those vile bugs?

Moreover, based on the mission prompt, if the storyline within this world is allowed to proceed as written, the ultimate result would be a catastrophic collapse. After all, for a world’s laws to follow the structure of a novel, and further, for everything to revolve around that narrative, chaos would be inevitable. It sounds just like the aims of those bugs—perhaps this is their latest method, and she was simply caught in the crossfire.

Though she kept telling herself it had nothing to do with her, Mu Yin knew in her heart there truly was some connection. Had she not appeared there at that moment, had there been no phone in the space, perhaps none of this would have happened.

This thought led her to recall that the world she entered had also been affected. She quickly used the spacetime key to investigate, and there it was—her mission. The world she was in had forcibly been given a new storyline, straight out of a novel about the rebirth of a concubine’s daughter.

She could only see the outline: the heroine was a concubine’s daughter in a certain family, but her true identity was that of the principal wife’s legitimate daughter. After her father passed the imperial exams, he married the daughter of an influential official, demoting his original wife to concubine, thus making the girl a mere secondary daughter.

Her mother wasted away from grief, while her new stepmother disliked her intensely. When she came of age, they married her off to a man known to prefer men. After marriage, her husband showed her nothing but cold indifference, and though at first she didn’t mind, she soon discovered that his male favorites were lawless and even tried to take liberties with her. Her husband, meanwhile, simply watched as if it were a show. To avoid disgrace, she dashed her head against the wall.

Then she was reborn, returning to when she was five, on the journey to the capital with her mother to seek out her father. From then on, she protected her mother, battled her stepmother and stepsister, met the Fifth Prince, and together they supported each other until she became his empress, sharing a lifelong love.

All in all, it was a typical sweet romance about rebirth and triumph. Mu Yin’s task was to correct the laws of this world. But how to disrupt the plot and keep it from unfolding as written? Was she supposed to steal the male lead and have a mere extra rise to prominence? She quickly abandoned that idea and wondered if there might be another approach.

Besides, she had no idea which point in the timeline she’d entered. Could it be around the same time as the heroine’s rebirth?

Sigh—how had things come to this? And what if her own world was affected too? The thought left Mu Yin genuinely anxious.

But worry was useless now. She didn’t even know who those combatants truly were. She clenched her fists, then relaxed; even if she found out, what could she do? Her abilities weren’t enough to make a difference. Clearly, strengthening herself was the most important thing.

Fortunately, the reward from her last world had been substantial. After all, that had been a substitution mission, and the payment far surpassed her previous protection task—tenfold, in fact. It was enough to allow Mu Yin to cultivate her abilities to Tier Two.

The real trouble now was the suppression of the world’s will. With the laws twisted and the narrative forced into reality, she could no longer use her powers at will, unless the world itself possessed such abilities.

Sadly, in this world, aside from the rebirth trope, there were no other special powers. How could a perfectly fine world have ended up like this? The lack of a cheat or golden finger left her deeply frustrated.

Despite her frustration, Mu Yin began preparing for the mission. This was, after all, a novel about a heroine’s rebirth and struggle, with romance as the main thread. The first step, then, was to undermine the protagonists’ relationship. She knew little about the Fifth Prince, but whatever happened, she wasn’t about to insert herself into that story.

Another point to consider: the Fifth Prince would eventually ascend the throne and become emperor. If she could change this outcome, it would be a significant alteration to the plot. Tackling these two aspects would be the most convenient. The former was manageable—even if the leads were destined for each other according to the novel, this was still the real world.

Even with the plot’s fate forcibly imposed, it wasn’t the original course of destiny, making it easier to set things right. Her first move should be to gather information about the protagonists. The male lead was easy to identify—the current fifth prince.

The heroine, however, would not be so easy to find. After all, forcing a story into reality could impose fate, but not conjure up new people out of thin air. It could only alter the destinies of those who already existed.

The main challenge in finding the heroine was that those men who rose to power and then demoted their wives were always extremely careful. If word got out, it would mean loss of rank and reputation. Such blatant betrayal and heartless ambition were not traits valued in court.

So even if such cases existed, they would be well concealed. The more ruthless might even see to it that their original wives met with “accidents.” Investigating such officials would not be easy for Mu Yin.

Fortunately, her own family maintained detailed records on court officials—a common practice among prominent clans to ensure political shifts did not threaten the family’s interests.

Still, she couldn’t let her family know what she was up to. Luckily, these past years hadn’t been spent solely on study. Upon turning ten, each of the daughters was given two shops to manage as she saw fit; their future dowries would depend on how well they handled them.

Because there were seven or eight girls in the family, not all the properties were in the capital—most were scattered across the country. The allocation of shops depended on luck, and Mu Yin was fortunate; both her shops were in the capital, though located in the outer civilian districts, but they were sizable.

One of them had been a teahouse, which Mu Yin converted into a hotpot restaurant; the other she turned into a barbecue place. Business was booming, and she ranked among the top of her sisters. Apart from the recipes she’d brought from the apocalypse and contributed to the family, the profits were all her own.

With such wealth, she’d bought land and taken in several orphans—an idea inspired by novels, since she wasn’t sure what she would need to do in this world. She did it just in case, never expecting it would come in handy now.

Using those half-grown boys to gather information about the capital’s affairs, without alarming the family elders, was the perfect solution. Half a month later, she obtained the information she wanted—unexpectedly, there were seven or eight families of interest.

She reviewed the files and finally selected one. In this family, both the concubine’s daughter and the principal wife’s eldest daughter were five or six years old, and the legitimate daughter was born within the first two years of the principal wife’s marriage—strikingly similar to the heroine’s background.