In the room, Young Master Thompson lay quietly on the bed. He was in his early twenties, with delicate features, though his face was deathly pale and his body appeared extremely weak. Naturally, this was our protagonist. His name was William Thompson, twenty-five years old this year, a minor employee at a securities company. Ever since high school, he had loved buying lottery tickets, doing so for eight or nine years without ever winning even two yuan. But half a month ago, his luck suddenly changed—he won a ten-million-yuan jackpot in one go. Unfortunately, joy turned to tragedy: on the very day he resigned, he died of a congenital heart attack. His soul, undying, drifted for six hundred years and ended up possessing the body of this Ming dynasty William Thompson.

William Thompson was filled with all sorts of doubts but dared not ask too many questions. In fact, his injuries had mostly healed long ago, but feigning illness was the best way to hide his total ignorance, so he decided to keep up the act. The only pity was that Mr. Thompson had worried about him for half a month.

During these two weeks, William Thompson gradually learned many things from bits and pieces of conversation. It was now the twenty-second year of the Hongwu reign, during the rule of Zhu Yuanzhang—in other words, he had actually traveled back to the early Ming dynasty. This made him both annoyed and relieved. He was annoyed at being toyed with by fate—not only losing his ten-million-yuan prize, but also being reborn six hundred years in the past. Why couldn’t Heaven have sent him back to the prosperous and glorious Tang dynasty?

But he was relieved that the fall of the Ming was still far off, so he didn’t have to worry about being killed by the queue-wearing soldiers. With his safety assured, he began to care about the man whose body he now inhabited. Reportedly, this person was a failed scholar who had taken the county exam for five years without passing—much like failing the college entrance exam five years in a row in later times. He was stubborn, sensitive, and irritable, probably a bit mentally twisted after so many failures. But that no longer concerned him. What he cared about was the man’s appearance and family background. The man was actually rather handsome, with a tall and strong build, nothing like his former self. His arms were long and thick, his palms as broad as fans, and it was said he had practiced martial arts for several years in his youth.

His family was a landowning household in Linhuai County, Fengyang Prefecture. He was the only son, and his father was a moderately wealthy landlord, owning four or five hundred mu of prime farmland and several dozen mu of woodland. In the early Ming, this was already quite impressive.

Although he wasn’t too pleased to be reborn as a minor character, William Thompson still felt fortunate. After all, this man was only in his early twenties, in the prime of life. If the god of fate had played a trick and made him reincarnate as a trembling eighty-year-old, he’d rather have just died outright.

Moreover, he now had a strong body. After suffering from congenital heart disease in his previous life, he could now feel his heart beating powerfully and sense how wonderful life could be. For this alone, he was already content.

The door creaked open, and someone entered. It didn’t seem to be Mr. Thompson’s familiar footsteps. William Thompson turned his head slightly, and a waft of powdery fragrance drifted over. Standing before him was a young woman, a little over thirty, not tall, dressed in a green embroidered vest that made her figure appear slender and graceful. Her powdered face was as fair as snow, her almond-shaped eyes frosty. She sneered and said, “Your father went to the county today, so I came especially to check on you.”

……

(Note: Zhu Yuanzhang did not allow doctors to be called “langzhong”; only the title “yishi” could be used.)

Volume One: Swept into a Major Case

Chapter Two: Where to Go from Here

The visitor was Mr. Thompson’s second wife, William Thompson’s stepmother, and the true master holding power in The Thompson Family. Her name was Evelyn Young, daughter of a prominent family in Linhuai County. After her husband died, she remarried the middle-aged widower Mr. Thompson. A few years ago, she gave birth to a daughter. Though she was barely literate, she was shrewd and capable, managing everything in The Thompson Family with perfect order—no, with meticulous precision.

Mr. Thompson came from a long line of proper landlords; his ancestors had always been major landowners. After the Mongols massacred the Zhang, Wang, Liu, and Li clans, only his family line remained. They kept a low profile, passing the estate to the eldest son and never leaving their homeland, thus preserving the family fortune. But by Mr. Thompson’s generation, things had changed. He had only one son, with a thin line of descendants. Four years ago, he married again, hoping for more sons, but he himself was no longer up to the task and only gained a daughter. Before marrying, he’d heard from the matchmaker that Evelyn Young was gentle and quiet, from a solid family, which moved his heart. Unexpectedly, he brought home a veritable tigress, with a voracious appetite in that regard, making his life miserable these past years.

That’s how men are—once their virility fades, they become timid and yielding. Caught between his son and his new wife, and unwilling to air family scandals, the more he compromised, the more his wife pressed him. Over the past three years, Mr. Thompson’s defenses had completely collapsed, and he’d lost all control over the family finances. His reputation for being henpecked spread far and wide. By now, their roles had reversed: Evelyn Young cared about saving face and keeping family matters private, while Mr. Thompson no longer cared—whenever his wife raised her hand, he ran, making it the talk of the village. In the end, his wife relented, sent someone to fetch him back, and that was that.

“I heard you can’t remember anything from before. Do you still recognize me?”