CBGC – Chapter 1

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001： I’m from a rich and powerful family

Today, Su Tingyun was wearing a bright red lined jacket. The character 寿 and copper coins were embroidered on it using gold thread, making it look particularly festive and tacky.
(alyschu: 寿 = birthday)

Her hair that had already turned white was being bound by a servant girl with a golden hairpin in a coiled bun fashion, into the elegant flying goddess topknot that was currently all the rage at the capital. Many young ladies styled their hair that way, but on her head, it seemed a bit out of place.

“Old Madam, today is your great birthday, and I heard that even the Empress would be coming to our manor.” The oldest servant girl was named Cui Jiner. She spoke as she hammered the Old Madam’s shoulders with the perfect strength, making Su Tingyun feel pretty comfortable. She was about to be tormented to death by her frozen shoulder and didn’t even sleep well for the entire last night.

She had obviously just turned a full twenty five, so how come when she woke up, she had become a granny who was about to become seventy years old?

At first, back in her time, when she saw thin lines beside her eyes, she was so frightened that she had even hopped. Now, when she looked at the wrinkled face in the copper lens, Su Tingyun only felt that the god of destiny truly did enjoy making fools of people. It was as if the fast forward button had been pressed on her life. Before she got to enjoy all of her youth and experience middle age, she had directly stepped halfway into the grave, into old age.

What left her the most speechless was the current era she was in, which fundamentally did not exist in history. The body that she currently possessed was of the seventy year old Su Family’s Old Madam, whose life could even be said to be a fairy tale.

Su Manor’s Old Madam’s surnamed was originally Wei. After marriage, she took on her husband’s family name. This period of time was currently a time of turmoil in which six nations were unceasingly in dispute. Not long after the Old Madam had gotten married, her husband immediately went on the battlefield, never to return again. As for her, she had given birth to a pair of male twins. In that kind of difficult circumstance, the Old Madam had brought up those two boys. One was skilled in literacy, the other in martial arts. Both had become founding generals who assisted the current emperor in unifying all six nations.

Even the current emperor himself had received the Old Madam’s teachings. When he was young, it had even been said that he had been hit on the face with a shoehorn by the Old Madam.

Old Madam Su was currently granted the title of the Nation’s most highest ranking Lady, and even the Queen Empress completely revered and honored her. She was naturally the target that every upper class lady wanted to curry favor with. No matter how extravagantly she dressed with gold, silver, and a red silk flower on her head, everyone would only clap their hands and say that she was beautiful. This had indirectly warped the Old Madam’s aesthetics. To Su Tingyun, what she wore could even be said to be universally offensive.

A few days ago, she had planned to wear plain white colored clothes while trying to become a kindly benevolent old lady. Just as she finished expressing her suggestion, all of the maids in the courtyard plopped on their knees. An entire expanse of foreheads knocking against the floor echoed, as if they wanted to smash a hole in the floor tiles. Their attitude had given Su Tingyun a fright.

It was afterwards that she realized that for the old lady to raise two children during these troubled times, especially one who was highly skilled in martial arts and another who whose intelligence was close to a monstrous level, she had probably not been easy to deal with. Even though she had never studied in school nor practiced writing characters, she was shrewd and had her methods. Furthermore, she was strong, so strong that even though she was nearing seventy, she could still single-handedly lift a ninety kilogram object. One could say that she was a female Hercules.

Her temper wasn’t that great either. At home, when she said one thing, she meant just that. The two sons were both completely obedient towards this old mother. If a servant had not served the Old Madam well and caused her to become unhappy, getting off light would be just corporal punishment while the serious cases would be exile. The worst case would be them being clubbed to death. In any case, they would not have a happy ending. So when Su Tingyun had said that she wanted to switch to wearing plain white clothes, everyone thought that they had caused the Old Madam to become unhappy. Each and every one of them trembled with fear as they fiercely apologized for any offense they committed.

From that point on, Su Tingyun had never again requested any changes.

The Old Madam’s figure had already deeply penetrated through in the hearts of the nation’s people. Whatever peculiar change she did would always trigger some commotion within the manor. At present, it seemed that Su Tingyun could only temporarily become a colorful gorgeously dressed old lady.

Back when she was young, the former host had suffered many hardships. Her skin terribly darkened by the sun and thick calluses were all over her hands that looked deformed. Her finger joints were thick and unsightly, yet she still wore a few jade rings atop them. Su Tingyun rubbed them a few times, but had never taken the jade rings off. The one on her left hand’s middle finger was given to her by her husband that had died early. She had never taken them off, and they were currently deeply embedded into her flesh, as if they had been grown together with her finger. She had a headache when she looked at it, and in these past two days, it had gotten increasingly worse.

Su Tingyun rarely did anything herself, and it was exactly because of her painful fingers. Accurately speaking, her entire body was aching quite painfully at the moment. In the ancient era, seventy years old was already considered to be a really old age. Her time was probably at its limit now.

This was seriously a tragedy…

After she finished dressing up, the maid brought in breakfast.

The Old Madam’s breakfast were all dishes with generous amounts of meat and fish, and were even matched with three brown sugar boiled eggs. When Su Tingyun saw them, she had no appetite and only ate a few dishes. Then those maids and little servant boys kowtowed again. She continuously ate for three days now, and truly could no longer eat it all anymore. She might as well just simply try a wealthy person’s headstrong attitude. Heavily placing the chopsticks aside, she said, “Not eating anymore.”

If they want to kowtow, then kowtow. Su Tingyun had already gotten used to the kowtow trick that was used many times before. After she finished speaking, Su Tingyun got up and left the room.

She walked with a dragon head walking stick. As the walking stick fell to the ground, it emitted banging noises, its imposingness was quite shocking. A big courtyard was seen when she walked out of the door. There were many vegetables and fruits, and it had even raised chickens, ducks, fish, and little rabbits. If she turned to her right, there was even a brick pig pen with two fat pigs that had big heads.

The old lady did not like seeing plays and listening to stories. She usually grew vegetables and raised pigs to pass the time. After Su Tingyun came, she had also kept the regular routine everyday by patrolling the pig pen. After she had walked an entire round, she felt that she was truly too tired.

Rheumatic pain, joint pains, so painful that it seemed as if her bones were about to crack…

As she walked, her bones would even creak like a mechanical part that had a serious wear, as if it would be scrapped and melted down to be reconstructed again at anytime. She leaned on the walking stick while standing next to the farm’s ridges and panted. Not long after she stood there, she saw a fourteen to fifteen year old youth and a four to five year old boy come over to pay their respects. Su Tingyun recognized those two kids. They were the grandsons of the eldest child’s first wife, which meant that they were currently her blood related great grandsons.

The former host did not spoil these grandsons and were always strict in her demands for them. Therefore, these two children weren’t really all that familiar with their great grandmother. When they came to pay their respects, it was quite routine; they would very cautiously greet her, then leave at lightning speed.

Su Tingyun looked at the two grandsons and thought about the former host’s two children, occasionally wondering how peerlessly talented the former host’s husband was to produce such good looking children. Of course, this former host of hers was no beauty.

Let’s not talk about the extremely dark skin and merely look at her facial features. She had tiny eyes and a droopy nose. If time were to go in reverse to fifty years ago, she would still absolutely not be considered to be pretty. When Su Tingyun came over, she saw some snippets of the former host’s memories. However, the memories about the appearance of her husband that had died early was fuzzy. It was not known if that was because of the long passing years that amounted to over fifty years of time but that person’s existence had long since faded away in her memories. She obviously still loved this man, yet she didn’t even remember how he had looked like.

“Great grandmother, Grandfather and them are waiting for you in the main hall.”

“Mn.” The old lady was not frivolous with words and jokes, so Su Tingyun had naturally blanked her face. Except that she felt that these little grandsons dressed like silly single celled organisms and looked mighty adorable. She had the urge to reach her hand out and pinch their cheeks. Perhaps her gaze was too telling, for it was noted by the older grandson. As expected, she saw the older grandson, Su Haoran’s face become nervous as he spoke: “Great grandmother, my younger brother has already completely memorized the Three Character Classics yesterday, and even our teacher had praised him.”

Su Tingyun faintly gasped in her heart, and then said: “Mn, not too bad. After a while, I’ll send over some fresh fruits and vegetables over to Hao boy and Yuan boy.

The old lady had accumulated a large amount of gold, silver, and precious jewels, but the things she normally bestowed as a reward were always the courtyard’s fruits and vegetables. Everyone had secretly said that she was stingy, but Su Tingyun could understand the old lady’s life time of being impoverished way of thinking. Currently, she also did not intend to change this matter.

Such a poor loser like her had never seen so much jewels before. Her current everyday pleasure was to count each of those jewelry in every box to sleep.

“Many thanks, Great grandmother.” After speaking, Hao boy silently pulled at Yuan boy. At the moment, Su Tingyun was now aching quite a lot from her walk so she also did not speak. One old and two young quietly walked forward, and after they got out of the courtyard, Su Tingyun rode on a plush palanquin. Only after passing through the enormous garden did they finally enter Su Manor’s Main Hall.

Those who came to congratulate the Old Madam for her big seventieth birthday were all those of noble rank. Only, when these people saw the Old Madam, they all had to be extremely courteous as they congratulated her in a salute.

Her two sons had both sent precious congratulatory presents, and both grandsons had also spent a long time of thinking to write a congratulatory poem. Even those groups of bastards had all given her gifts one after another. Su Tingyun only felt that those two cheap sons were like stallions, for them to have given birth to so many children. Even their children had given birth to a huge pile of grandsons and granddaughters. There were more than a hundred in total, and even she could not tell them apart. Suddenly, she felt that her time traveling to become an old lady was pretty good. She had avoided getting married and giving birth. A group of chitter chattering birds that fought and schemed against each other in the huge residence would very much so give one a headache.

Currently, she had directly become the residential big boss. The target that everyone fell over each other to curry favor with!

The birthday feast was bustling with noise, and after a while, Su Tingyun felt that her finger was especially painful. The jade ring on her left hand’s middle finger felt burning hot, as if it was burning her skin off. But when she lifted her hand, she didn’t see anything, not even a red colored scarline.

Su Tingyun continued to ache more and more heavily. She felt like the surrounding’s noise was in the distance. She dropped on the chair, sitting with a head full of sweat as she gasped for breath, as if she couldn’t even breath.

“Mother…”

“Grandmother…”

“Quickly, go call for the imperial physician!”

The celebrative affair was going to change into a funeral matter? Why exactly did she time travel to here in these past few days anyway? To experience how hard it was to be an elderly person? When she returned, would she still be able to turn back into that 25 year old Su Tingyun? If she could, then she’ll definitely treasure her life and not think that she was old anymore, not hold the thin lines near the corner of her eyes in contempt anymore…

Right when Su Tingyun was about to die of pain, the jade ring on her finger released a bright light. Three rainbows suddenly appeared from the sky, like three bright bridges dropped from the heavens, stopped in front of Su Manor’s main gate.

As if the moon had fallen to the mortal world, that pure light made everyone present suddenly lose their voice.

Standing by Su Manor’s main gates were three women. All their faces were exquisitely enchanting, their entire bodies seemed to be covered with a layer of hazy moonlight. Each and every one of them were breathtakingly beautiful and did not appear to be mortal. The one in front wore a pomegranate red long dress. As she walked over, the long dress that dragged across the floor birthed flowers, making everyone that was watching stare blankly. Even Su Tingyun was no exception.

Su Tingyun no longer panted, her finger also did not hurt anymore. She looked on at the three slowly advancing women with a silly expression, feeling that her brain could not process this fast enough.

She had always thought that she had time traveled to an ancient era in which there were power struggles within the family. However, now that three fairies had dropped from the sky, and judging from their bearing that were remarkably like monks, could it be that this wasn’t an ancient power struggle setting, but a xianxia cultivation one?

Why did these fairy sisters run to the mortal world’s Su Manor for? They shouldn’t be here to exterminate the entire family, right…

Heavens!

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alyschu: xianxia = immortal/celestial hero depending on context.

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