Shi Chu got up from the bed with her forehead covered. When she opened her eyes, she saw honey-colored curtains hanging down. Her body was covered with a festive quilt with the words "a beautiful full moon, a prosperous house, and many children and grandchildren". Two exquisite dragon and phoenix curtain hooks hung on the head of the bed. As soon as she saw these things, she knew she had returned to ancient times.
Before the servants noticed that she was awake, Shi Chu lay back down and began to integrate the memories of this body's owner.
The original name was Xu Shichu. She was only twenty years old and had just been married to Prime Minister Luo Changqing, who held great power in the dynasty, for three months. Her husband was of noble birth and held a high position of power. Logically, the original owner should have lived a good life. Unfortunately, she was just a stepwife who was married back as a tool.
Luo Changqing and his first wife Liu Huaiqing grew up together as childhood sweethearts and were engaged at a young age. After they got married, they were naturally very much in love and soon gave birth to a pair of twins, a boy and a girl. They lived an enviable life.
At that time, Luo Changqing had a docile wife, a lovely young son, a smooth career, a happy life, and was full of energy and vigor.
It's a pity that perhaps too much will overflow, and such a life that even God is jealous of did not last forever. Liu Huaiqing passed away due to illness when the twins were eight years old. Luo Changqing was devastated for a while, and finally cheered up for the twins.
Perhaps because he had such a good relationship with his first wife, Luo Changqing refused to remarry for several years no matter how his relatives and friends tried to persuade him.
Then how was the original owner lucky enough to become his stepwife
This is because several princes have grown up in the past few years, and the fight for the throne has become more and more intense. Luo Changqing, the prime minister who holds a high position of power and has no wife, has been targeted. Every prince wants to win him over to their side, so they set their sights on his wife and plan to make Luo Changqing marry a woman from their faction.
Luo Changqing wanted to avoid this plot, and secondly, for the sake of his daughter's marriage. After all, in this era, there is a saying that the eldest daughter who has lost her mother cannot be married. Therefore, he deliberately chose the original owner, who was born in a declining baron's family and was an "older leftover woman" who was not married until she was 20 years old because of the death of her elders.
The original owner was just the niece of Xu Wenbo of the Ningyuan Marquis's Mansion. She lost her biological mother early and grew up under the torture of her stepmother. She developed a timid and docile character, and could not get anything out of her even if she was beaten with three sticks. With such a character, she would not bully others by taking advantage of her power and put on the airs of a stepmother to torture her stepchildren even if she married into the prime minister's mansion.
Luo Changqing married her as a shield because of this point. Naturally, he had no feelings for her. On the night of the wedding, he told the original owner directly to put herself in her place, not to care about the affairs of the young masters and young ladies in the mansion, and not to expect to become a loving couple with him. But as long as she was honest and dutiful, he would naturally give her the honor of the Prime Minister's wife.
The original owner was full of joy and thought that happiness was just before her eyes, but who knew that Luo Changqing's ruthless words were like a basin of cold water poured over her head, immediately waking her up from her sweet dream, leaving her bewildered, stunned, painful and embarrassed.
But she didn't dare and didn't have the confidence to resist, so she could only swallow her grievances and silently become an invisible person in the prime minister's mansion.
If it continues like this, even if she has no feelings for her husband and stepchildren, it will not hinder her from living a free life. However, her parents' family will never let go of such prominent in-laws and take advantage of them.
So her eldest aunt asked her to marry her niece to Luo Changqing's eldest son Luo Rui, saying that it was a closer relationship. If her niece became the daughter-in-law, she would be able to gain a foothold in the prime minister's mansion and become the mistress of the prime minister's mansion with confidence.
The original owner already felt insecure because of Luo Changqing's words, and was easily bewitched by her aunt. Under her aunt's instigation, she did a lot of wrong things. She even drugged Luo Rui and put her cousin's daughter into her stepson's bed, successfully "strengthening the relationship between the two".
Such excessive behavior completely annoyed Luo Changqing and Luo Rui. The disobedient tool would naturally be dealt with. The original owner soon became "weak and sickly" and died quietly within two years.
Shi Chu learned about the original owner's situation in her previous life, and soon found out what time period she was in now. She has been married to Luo Changqing for three months and has lived in this courtyard in obscurity. The last time Luo Changqing came to see her was on their wedding night, and he has never set foot here since then.
The twins Luo Rui and Luo Yaqing certainly didn't take her seriously. It was impossible for them to pay their respects to her in the morning and evening. They just treated her as an invisible person.
In her courtyard, apart from a few servants and maids sent by the prime minister's mansion, there were also the maids brought from the Ningyuan Earl's Mansion as dowry. Shi Chu recalled and found that the indentures of these servants who came with her dowry were not in her hands, but were actually in the possession of her aunt in the Earl's Mansion!
This is a bit outrageous. Only the original owner, who is ignorant of the world and was raised to be cowardly, does not know the importance of the indenture. Without the indentures of the servants, are these servants still her servants? This is obviously impossible.
It seems that her aunt is very shrewd and has long planned to marry her granddaughter into the prime minister's mansion by stepping on the original owner. After all, she has the original owner's servants in her hands. Is she afraid that the original owner will escape from her grasp and not work hard for her
"Someone come!" Shi Chu shouted, but no one came in for a long time. It turned out that they did not treat her as a real master, otherwise why would there be no maid guarding the original owner when she slept
Shi Chu raised his voice and called out several times before a pretty maid walked in leisurely.
"Oh, Madam, why are you shouting so loudly? It will be so bad if the servants in the prime minister's mansion hear it. They will think that people from our earl's mansion are uneducated. What if the prime minister finds out?" The maid Tao Ye said with dissatisfaction in her frown.
Look, this maid even dares to interfere with her master. She is so bold. You can imagine how much she doesn't respect the original owner.
Shi Chu stared at Tao Ye for a while, until Tao Ye felt uncomfortable, and then he said expressionlessly: "Help me dress up, and then tell someone to bring me something to fill my stomach."
Tao Ye curled her lips slightly when she heard this and said, "It's neither early nor late at this time. I've already had lunch and it's not time for dinner yet. Where can I eat? Madam, aren't you making things difficult for me?"
"What? Don't I, the wife of the Prime Minister, have anything to eat? The kitchen of the Prime Minister's Mansion only prepares breakfast and dinner, so there is no need to prepare other food?" Shi Chu said coldly.
"Are you unwilling to go because it's too much trouble, or are you dissatisfied with me as your master ordering you around?"
Tao Ye saw that Shi Chu's expression was completely different from before, but she didn't take it to heart. The original owner's cowardly and timid character had long been deeply rooted in people's hearts. Tao Ye didn't think that she had changed her soul and was really angry, so she rolled her eyes implicitly and said dissatisfiedly:
"It's not that I find it troublesome, but you also know that the people in the Prime Minister's Mansion have never taken Madam seriously. If you go there at this time, you won't be able to bring back anything delicious. Those snacks, soups, etc. are prepared for the young ladies and young masters. They won't be willing to give them to Madam, right?"
After Tao Ye finished speaking, she glanced at Shi Chu, thinking that she could see Shi Chu's face full of unwillingness to be ashamed. The original owner knew that she had no status in the Prime Minister's Mansion, and she hated being mentioned about this the most. Tao Ye and the others often made sarcastic remarks about the original owner being looked down upon by the people in the Prime Minister's Mansion. Every time she was mentioned about this, the original owner looked embarrassed and painful, and they often treated it as a show.
Who would have thought that this time, Shi Chu did not feel a trace of pain after hearing her words. Instead, he looked at her frankly and said, "If the servants of the Prime Minister's Mansion dare to fool me with food, and you come back to me, I want to see whether I, a lady in name only, am more important, or the servants are more important. Even if I am ignored, I am still the Prime Minister's wife. If I go to the Prime Minister to complain, Tao Ye, do you think the Prime Minister will punish the servants or blame me?"