However, times have changed. Although his body remained the same, his mindset had completely shifted. The current Jason Brooks would never let himself sit idly in the room reading those “classical texts” while leaving his mother alone in the yard, sweating under the sun—he simply couldn’t bring himself to do such a thing. His personality had always been stubborn, and after transmigrating, he paid little heed to the various rules and regulations of this alternate era.

So he picked up the axe and started chopping wood in earnest.

Chopping firewood wasn’t exactly a technical job; it was mostly about brute strength. Yet what Jason Brooks lacked most was exercise and strength. After only a short while, his arms felt sore and weak, and his palms were burning. Gritting his teeth, he said nothing and kept swinging the axe, one chop after another, with a voice in his heart shouting: No matter what, I have to finish chopping all this wood.

Over there, Olivia Morgan watched with a mix of heartache and helplessness. She could only close the courtyard gate so others wouldn’t see Jason Brooks chopping wood—after all, the idea of a scholar’s dignity was deeply ingrained, especially for a xiucai. If he went to chop wood or tend the fire, people would see it as “losing face” and he’d be ridiculed and looked down upon.

After a full hour, Jason Brooks finally finished chopping all the wood. He was exhausted, leaning on the axe, mouth wide open as he gasped for breath, sweat soaking the back of his shirt, and several blood blisters had formed on his palms.

“I told you, you can’t handle this kind of hard labor. What if you wear yourself out?”

Olivia Morgan hurried over with a cloth to wipe the sweat from her son’s face.

Jason Brooks forced a smile and said, “It’s fine. From today on, I’ll take care of all the heavy work at home.” As he spoke, he silently vowed to himself to train this “frail and weak” body hard. Back in his previous life, he’d been something of a sports enthusiast, loving basketball and soccer. After transmigrating, he really couldn’t stand this body that was so feeble and powerless—it frustrated him at every turn.

Looking at him, Olivia Morgan seemed a little dazed. She felt that ever since her son had gotten overjoyed and fainted on the day the exam results were posted, he’d changed in many ways and become a bit different.

“What am I thinking? As long as my son stands before me, healthy and well, that’s the best thing in the world…”

Olivia Morgan quickly pushed aside the messy thoughts in her mind and went to prepare dinner.

The Chen family was poor. Most of the money Olivia Morgan earned throughout the year went to pay for her son’s schooling, with just enough left to keep the two of them fed. They couldn’t eat well—if they had meat once a month, it was already a treat. But every single day, at every meal, Jason Brooks would have an egg to eat. In Olivia Morgan’s words: “My son studies hard and needs the nourishment.” She never realized that, with all her hard work from dawn to dusk, she was the one who needed it more.

Such is the heart of parents everywhere, in any world.

But recently, the one egg in Jason Brooks’s bowl had become half an egg, because he insisted on putting the other half into Olivia Morgan’s bowl.

“Mother, you work harder and suffer more. You should eat better.”

When she heard this, Olivia Morgan was deeply comforted, but also hid in her room and quietly wiped away tears for a long time.

A loving mother and a filial son—this is the joy of family. It seemed her son had not only passed the xiucai exam, but had truly grown up.

Chapter 3: A Way Out

At dusk, the hunter Sam Bolton returned from the mountain, but the big black wolf was not among his prey. When asked, it turned out he’d lost track of it. The terrain behind Maple Mountain was rugged and complex, with high mountains and dense forests, rarely visited by people and difficult to traverse. As night fell, the old hunter tracked for a while but, finding nothing, dared not go deeper and had to give up.

……

Time slips by on silent feet, unnoticed by all, and the presence of a transmigrator in this world changes nothing.

In the blink of an eye, autumn passed and winter arrived, the weather growing colder by the day.

But more troubling to Jason Brooks than the unbearable cold was the fact that he found himself completely unable to focus on those “classical texts.”

The political system and mainstream cultural ideology of this world were extremely similar to those of the Ming Dynasty on Earth. The imperial examination content was nearly identical, with a “Confucianism” in place and the same focus on the eight-legged essay.

What a bizarre thing!

This left Jason Brooks feeling dazed and confused, as if he were dreaming, and wondering if he’d transmigrated not to another world, but into ancient history on Earth.

—The Tiantong Dynasty had ruled for nearly a thousand years, unifying the land, its foundations deep and unshakable. At the founding of the dynasty, Emperor Wu ascended the throne and immediately adopted the advice of Grand Secretary Justin Dawson, implementing the political program of “rejecting all other schools and honoring only Confucianism,” with “benevolence, righteousness, and the ethics of ruler and subject” at its core, to maintain order and deify autocratic power.

It could be said that this system was highly effective.

With each successive emperor’s firm enforcement, this ideology had become deeply rooted in people’s hearts, ingrained in their very bones, achieving a “great unity” in thought, and managing the entire Tiantong Dynasty like an ironclad fortress.

Inside this fortress, millions of commoners lived obediently, like muddled ants.