Volume One: The Concubine-born Son of The Carters

Chapter 1: The Family’s Dark History

A few miles outside the capital city of Jin, Xinjiang, stands a sturdy small city surrounded by rammed earth walls. This city is called the Palace of The Carters, the private fief of one of Jin’s six great noble clans, the The Carters.

Yet, it is also known by a more widely spread name: the Lower Palace! Over seventy years ago, the “Lower Palace Disaster” here saw heads roll and blood flood the fields, the entire The Carters clan was exterminated, with only a single orphan surviving. Afterwards, the orphan of The Carters rose again from the brink of death, and this ruined city regained some of its vitality. The surviving servants all sighed that this was the blessing of their ancestors.

However, in a spacious stable within the city, a young man of The Carters scoffed at this so-called “blessing.” In a voice no one could hear, he muttered:

“Peking opera and movies are all made-up nonsense. Now that I’ve come to this era, I realize there was never anyone called Tu Anjia in the world!”

“Curiosity killed the cat. I really shouldn’t have asked questions that shattered my worldview. Who would have thought that the chaste and virtuous lady Grace Carter in the script—my great-great-grandmother in this body—was actually a wanton woman who, after her husband died, seduced her uncle while still in mourning clothes? When their affair was discovered, she even went so far as to slander the family to the ruler, leading to the extermination of the entire clan. Truly a femme fatale!”

The youth shook his head and sighed repeatedly. He had not yet come of age; his conical hair bun was wrapped only with a blue headscarf. The left lapel of his upper garment was tightly pressed over the right, tied under his right armpit, forming the right-over-left style revered by the people of Huaxia. Yet, his lower body was casually clad in a pair of trousers, a foreign item introduced from the Di lands, resembling modern pants. This combination was rather incongruous. If the rigid tutors and elders in the Palace of The Carters saw it, he would surely be harshly criticized.

Amid the stable’s animal stench, he stood out from the crowd: though his looks were ordinary, his sword-like brows made his eyes especially spirited; his eye sockets were slightly sunken, his nose somewhat high-bridged, hinting at some Rong or Di ancestry; his hands and feet were clean, not like someone used to hard labor, his complexion rosy, his teeth neat—clearly a well-fed carnivore. Yet, why had he ended up in this lowly, filthy stable?

Moreover, he did no work, just chewed on a stalk of grass, leisurely sitting atop a wooden manger. The The Carters minor official in charge of the stables only dared to turn a blind eye.

A newly arrived stable hand once tried to teach him a lesson with a whip, but was immediately dragged aside by the veterans and slapped. “Fool! Do you know who that is?”

“Who?”

“That’s young master William!”

The stable hand, newly transferred from another fief, covered his face in sudden realization—it was him!

This incident had already caused a stir in the Palace of The Carters: for some unknown reason, this young master had acted out of line at a banquet, sitting cross-legged in public, and when greeting his father Edward Carter, he did not kneel and bow, but instead used the empty-handed salute reserved for equals!

This was intolerable, so he was harshly scolded by the clan leader and matron, and punished to reflect in the stables, where he had now been for ten days.

Although he was the least favored of the lord’s four sons and one daughter, a lowly concubine-born child, a young master was still a young master. After coming of age, he could at least become a dafu, governing a fief of a hundred households—not someone a mere stable hand could afford to offend!

To be honest, William Carter himself was quite innocent, for he was a man from two thousand years in the future—how could he possibly understand the ancient rites of the Spring and Autumn period?

His original surname was Carter. As his grandfather used to say, their family, the Tianshui The Carters, had once been illustrious! Their lineage could be traced all the way back to the royal house of Zhao in the Warring States period, and to the noble The Carters of Jin in the Spring and Autumn era.

Grandfather would often flip through the family’s thread-bound books, pointing to the very top of the long family tree and showing him:

“This is Jianzi Edward Carter, this is Xiangzi William Carter, the ancestors of our The Carter Family, the founders of the State of Zhao.” Thanks to his grandfather’s yearly repetition, he could recite their deeds by heart.

But he never dreamed that, after a car accident, he would follow the bloodline of his ancestors and suddenly travel back to the Spring and Autumn period.

At first, the world seemed hazy, and before his eyes, a youth in ancient dress appeared, bowing to him.

“I am a descendant of the Ying-surnamed The Carters, named William.”

“I spent my life in war, survived the siege of Jinyang, led Zhao, Wei, and Han to destroy Zhibo, and divided Jin among the three families. Yet, Zhao was gravely weakened in my hands, and for a hundred years after, was suppressed by Wei and Han.”

“I also have one lifelong regret…”

The dream ended abruptly. He awoke with fragments of memory in his mind, from a toddler learning to walk, step by step growing into a young man. After a brief moment of panic upon waking, he understood.

His former name no longer mattered. From now on, he was William Carter! His family was the The Carters!