Rebirth of Weak Daughter in General's Family ch 1

   

Chapter 1 Rebirth

The pain of suffocation after the rope strangled her neck was not greater than the pain she already has experienced in her heart; instead, Shen Wen greeted this cruel death with some delight. Six months ago, Bei Rong suddenly started a war, with 500,000 soldiers a so-called million strong army sweeping across the northern border.

Her father, Shen Yong, the Marquis of Zhenbei, with his elder son, Shen Yi, and second son, Shen Jian, led the army to resist, but without food or aid, the fortress cities fell one after another in the course of three months.

Shen Jian was killed in battle against the enemy, the Marquis of Zhenbei was killed in battle when the northern town Yan City was broken, Shen Yi was killed in battle when escaping from the siege to seek help and there were no survivors from the 200,000-strong Shen family army.

After the BeiRong’s army entered the mainland, The youngest son of the Shen family in the capital, Shen Zhuo, and the daughter of the Shen family, Shen Xiang, who was known as " General's tiger daughter", started a private army and a volunteer army to fight the enemy in the north with the reinforcements led by Zhang Zhen, the Marquis of Pingyuan, and supervised by the Third Prince. After the reinforcements met the main force of the BeiRong, they fell into a heavy siege and the two armies were entangled for nearly 20 days.

The Marquis of Pingyuan was killed in battle and Shen Xiang was caught in the midst of the enemy and could not escape, so she killed herself to avoid being humiliated.

In order to maintain their strength, the Third Prince and the eldest son of the Marquis of Pingyuan, Zhang Yunming, and Shen Zhuo led the remnants of their troops to break out of the siege. After breaking through the siege, on the way back to the south, they were ambushed by the elite soldiers sent by the imperial court.

All the remaining soldiers were wiped out, and Zhang Yunming and Shen Zhuo escorted the Third prince back to a mountain wall, where they were killed by a thousand arrows.

There is evidence that the Marquis of Zhenbei and the Marquis of Pingyuan and the Third Prince had planned to collude with the BeiRong to invade, so that the Third Prince could take advantage of the opportunity to gain military power and force his way into the imperial palace. Unfortunately, the Bei Rong was so powerful and the Marquis of Zhenbei failed in his attempt, but he played with fire and lost his family soldiers' lives instead.

The most important evidence in this accusation was provided by Shen Wen, the youngest daughter of the Marquis of Zhenbei who was already married. She was so righteous that she offered up a letter indicating that her father and brothers had collaborated with the enemy.

When the Emperor learned of their trickery, he decided to abandon the capital and moved to south. He called on the people to take revenge for the death of the soldiers and gave all his remaining military strength to eradicate the Third prince, a rebellious son with evil intentions, and the remaining sons of the Marquis of Zhenbei and the Marquis of Pingyuan.

He also issued a decree to remove the title of Marquis of Zhenbei and Marquis of Pingyuan. The men of the Shen family and the Zhang family were all executed and the women were sold as government slaves. In recognition of Shen Wen's meritorious service in reporting the rebellious and traitorous people, she was spared death. She was given the title of Princess* Huide, and her husband was promoted to a higher rank.

*Junzhu-Secondary princess title also county lord

The mother of the Marquis of Zhenbei, old Madam Gu Shi, died by hitting her head in front of the ancestral tablet when she heard the news. Yang Shi, the wife of the Marquis of Zhenbei, who had borne three sons and two daughters, rebuked the officers and soldiers who had come to deliver the decree and arrest the culprits. And then she ordered a fire to be raised, setting fire to the firewood piled up in the Marquis of Zhenbei's house, and walked into the fire by herself. Liu Shi, the wife of the eldest son and Yan Shi the wife of the second son both committed suicide by hanging themselves. An old guard escaped with Liu Shi's sons, aged seven and five, but he was caught and executed on the spot before he could leave the city.

The Marquis of Pingyuan's house would have been more or less the same ending if it hadn't been for the odd incident. Most of the men who did not die on the battlefield died by the Imperial sword, the women either killed themselves or were killed, and only some of the young ones were sold as official slaves.

The lone survivor of the killing, Shen Wen had never showed her face from the beginning to end. She had just been married for a year. She was married to Zheng Qian, a member of the Crown Prince's aid staff and  member of Zhan shifu ,fifth ranking offical in Yu De xian ma.(official title) herald( to the crown prince in Imperial Chinese.)

*The Crown prince's counseling institution in the Ming Dynasty was called Zhan Shifu. yu de Department of attendent, where xianma is to proofreading, edit of documents and books.

Although Shen Wen was born in the a family of military General, she has been a quiet person since she was a child and loved to read poetry and books, which made her very different from Shen Xiang, who had been trained in martial arts since she was a child and was used to using a spear. She was even more alienated from her three older brothers who played with swords every day. The old madam and the madam of the Marquis Mansion also have a military family background and they both like people who are quick and cheerful, so Shen Wen thinks they are vulgar and cannot compare with the wives of the civil officials in the capital.

As a result, Shen Wen always felt out of place at home and longed to marry a civil servant and have her own mansion where she could run the house according to the etiquette in those books.

Shen Xiang is obsessed with martial arts and refuses to get married which causes Madam Yang a headache. When Shen Wen was 13 or 14 years old and was approached for marriage, she said that she would listen to her mother and that the meaning was that she would get married as soon as possible. Although Madam Yang felt that her younger daughter was too weak, she liked her obedience and made plans for her marriage first. Although the eldest daughter was not yet married, Shen Xiang's situation was really special. Moreover, the Zhenbei Hou is a military official, not as refined as those civil officials. So and it was a happy event that the youngest daughter got married first.

In fact, it was Shen Wen's own wish to marry Zheng Qian. Her Mother had taken her to see all the families that had come to her for marriage. She only liked Zheng Qian's scholarly appearance and expressed her intentions to her mother. Although marriage is a matter of parents' orders and matchmaking, there are still opportunities for both men and women to meet before the wedding, such as flower parties and banquets, and the parents will also ask their children's wishes, so as to avoid arranging a marriage that is incompatible with each other.

After the marriage, Shen Wen and Zheng Qian really respected each other. They never argued and were polite and courteous with their in-laws. And their home was quiet and harmonious, which was very different from the bickering that often broke out in the Zhenbei HouFu. Shen Wen was very satisfied.

Six months ago, the border was unstable and Shen Wen began to worry about the safety of her father and brother and then the bad news came one after another, making Shen Wen feel worried and scared. However, Zheng Qian was so busy with his official duties that he often did not return for several nights. When he did, he would only say a few words in a hurry, saying that the war was urgent and that he had important matters to attend to which Shen Wen could only shed tears in the house alone. She wanted to return to the Marquis's residence several times, but was not allowed to do so by her mother-in-law. She said that the situation was unstable and it was better not to move around much.

A month or so ago, she found that she could no longer leave the courtyard and that all the people she had been using had changed. She was surrounded by a group of a dozen maids, and her rising, lying, sitting and standing were all watched. While neither Zheng Qian nor her in-laws showed up any more, and she couldn't even go to pay her respects if she wanted to.

Today, she learned from her servants about the fate of the Marquis of Zhenbei's family, and one of them even said that she had contributed the letters. She was so shocked and angry. Before she could cry out, she saw two men entering the courtyard with a rope. She was already surprised to see that the men had entered the inner courtyard, but the three maids were already holding her down and the two men had wrapped the rope around her neck.

Shen Wen opened her mouth, but didn't know what to say. Want to see Zheng Qian? What is there to see? Isn't it obvious? Zheng Bei Hou Fu was brought down in her name, and to cover up the truth, she had to die too.

Want to ask him why he married her in the first place? What was the point of that? Zheng Qian was working for the Crown Prince, and doesn't her current fate explain everything?

Wanted to ask him if he had her in his heart? The two had gotten along well over the past year, but he was able to get two stranger men to strangle her, so was there any need to say what he had in heart? ......

Suddenly the pain disappeared and Shen Wen stood up from her body and looked at her neck drooping in the noose that the two men were vigorously pulling. She "saw" people's thoughts and words lingering like smoke above their heads: "Young Madam is so unlucky ......" "And so stupid ......" "Now the official can marry that one ......”

 Shen Wen floated out of the courtyard and watched as his underlings went to answer to Zheng Qian, who instructed them to cast the body into a mass grave. Then Zheng Qian went to see his parents and they spoke, declaring to the public that Shen Wen had died of illness. But no bones were put in the coffin; they did not want Shen Wen to be buried in the Zheng family's ancestral tomb......

Shen Wen drifted towards the Marquis Residence, which had burned to the ground. From afar she seemed to see souls of acquaintances wandering there; she did not move forward, but left. She could not go to see her mother and grandmother, her sisters-in-law who had arranged her marriage, and the two children whom she had previously found disturbing. Though she knew she hadn't offered any letters, she feared that they believed it......

She drifted outside the city, swept past the waves of refugees everywhere, and headed north past the vast horse caravans of the BeiRong to find the battlefield strewn with corpses.

She dared not approach for fear of bumping into the Third Brother, the arrogant young man who had always laughed at her as a child for being dumb and stupid, who was both a scholar and a martial artist.

She was searching for the place where Shen Xiang had died. She also dared not see her, dared not tell her that she was wrong, that she should not have laughed at her for being so rude and unlike a woman. She just wanted to see the place where Shen Xiang had once fought and killed.

She went to the northern part of the country, the borderland soaked with the blood and flesh of the Shen family's soldiers. Clumps of souls soared far away. She did not dare to come close for fear of meeting her father, whom she admired, her elder brother, whom she respected, and her second brother, who always had a smile on his face. ...... She could not face them......

In the midst of the fighting and confusion, the imperial court abandoned the capital and moved to the south, at the same time seeking peace in return for the cession of half of its kingdom. Bei Rong soldiers were also tried and horses were also exhausted. The two sides called off the war.

The emperor built another capital in the south, seeking immortality medicine and died of a nervous breakdown. The crown prince succeeds to the throne and amidst the singing and dancing, Zheng Qian marries the empress's cousin and becomes a second-ranking official.

In the south, the new emperor did not want to be strong and progressive, but instead sought peace. Internally, he was jealous of the good and jealous of the virtuous, and he often went back on his word. Within a few years, the South was full of refugees and the government was corrupt. There were bandits everywhere. ...... The war between the north and the south resumed, and the northern army won, but it was not well governed. In the midst of the people's unhappiness, various parties embrace the regent kings and another round of chaos.....

None of this mattered to Shen Wen, she just endlessly wandered around the original Marquis Mansion (Houfu), that battlefield, the fortress in the north and so on. For many, many years, she dared not come too close, lest she runs into the spirits of her loved ones. Only gradually, when she knew they had all left, did she wander carefully through those places.

Things and people have changed, the country is different, but Shen Wen is imprisoned in her own held thoughts.

Again and again she searched for traces of those who did not exist, trying to relive scenes that had long since disappeared. She had also listened to conversations of those people who had done it and after learning the ins and outs of the whole plot to trap the Marquis Mansion and the Third Prince. But anger and resentment were not as heavy as the self-blame she felt for herself, especially as she watched the suffering of those who had harmed others before they lived and after they died, she was left with nothing but disdain for herself.

As time passed and the world changed, people talked less about that period of history, and in the end it was only occasionally found in books.

Shen Wen watched indifferently as the city and countryside changed again and again in the midst of war and peace. Sometimes she wanders around, but most often she lingers in the places where her relatives died.

 

She did not know that if measured against earthly time she would sometimes stand for ten years on the ancient battlefield that had become a transportation hub, with countless vehicles passing through her shadow. Sitting for thirty years on the rocks of the mountains in the north of the country, gazing longingly at a land devoid of the desolation of the past......

Perhaps it is because when she was alive she did not understand herself and did not see others clearly that she had to gaze so long after her death, hoping to see the world clearly.

Slowly, she was able to "see" not only people's words and fragments of thought, but later she was able to "see" through matter and see that different things were actually objects vibrating at different frequencies. After many more years of staring, she found that her mind could become a force, entering those frequencies and changing them, thus moving objects.

She began to try to move things, and in order to check the effect, she went specifically to places where there were living people to move. With people gasping in amazement, she knew she had succeeded in moving objects such as chairs rather than whims.

Being able to use her mind has made Shen Wen lingering a little more colourful. As well as looking back and forth at those places as always, she was able to read. She read what people had said about that period of history in the collection and in the libraries of later generations, angry or delighted by the words. The windless pages of the book used to make people run away screaming in terror.

At first, if someone wrote something that made her angry, she would still find the author's house to mess with if that person was still alive. Later, she just read it and went back to those places to think back on the past. Bit by bit, she remembers her short life, hating that she can't think clearly about each day.

She even painted, but unfortunately with the brush mastered by her intention was unable to paint the picture she wanted. Although people wrote to understand the causes and consequences of that period of history, the Emperor's suspicions, the Crown Prince clearing the way for himself and so on, those who studied the military, even made examples of battles and explained the gains and losses......

However, Shen Wen felt that she knew more than they did, and that they could never write about the voice and heroism of her loved ones, those she had failed to love...... She was afraid she would forget, and sometimes wrote down fragments of that history with her pen, leaving them in the library as anonymous manuscripts for people to read.

As she read more books, Shen Wen's mind power became stronger and stronger, and she was able to reach far away like a person's eyesight, and manipulate multiple objects at the same time. Sometimes when she meets someone who is seriously ill, if they look like her former relatives, she will use her mind to sort out the patient's stagnant blood vessels and save their life. But sometimes, if she doesn't like the person, she will use her mind to twist the meridians in the person's body, causing them some pain and suffering.

Humans changed, the earth changed, the weather shifted, and people went into space. According to earthly calculations, she has been in this up-and-down world for more than a thousand years, and most traces of her time have disappeared without a trace, and Shen Wen cherishes more and more all the records of that time. Ever since she learned to manipulate the computer with her mind power, she has searched more meticulously for all information about that era, from wild histories and miscellaneous writings, novels and poems, to anecdotes of strange people. From the games of national Go players, the relics of great calligraphers, from natural and man-made disasters, to records of miscellaneous objects from the marketplace......

In this time and space, Shen Wen is not the only lingering spirit, but she is alone. She is not close to any spirit, only immersed in her own world.

Many times she felt those familiar shadows coming to seek her out and she rejected their approach with her mind, blocking out communication. She did not want to touch them, did not want to accept their forgiveness. Her shame was so obscure that she could not face the light.

She had also listened to those religious teachings many times over the centuries and knew that if she gave up her obsessions, she could leave this land and go to the other side. According to those monks, in the next life she would have a chance to repay whatever was owed to her or to pay the debts she owed.

But she did not want to, she was afraid that once she was gone, her own foolishness and incompetence would no longer be so vivid, the death of her loved ones would no longer hurt so much, the resentment she was filled with would no longer be so deep, all her sins would dissipate, and she would have forgiven herself and escaped the guilt she should have endured.

However, It was an "injustice" that she could not accept. She could not let go of herself, could not let go of her deep resentment. She did not want to let the seventeen years of her life pass, so she kept it by drifting around forever.

After the research on time reversal was reported, Shen Wen was always on the lookout for news on this subject. She found her way to the world's largest physics laboratory, navigating her way through the vast test chambers and machinery. Finally, one day, the entire physics laboratory was on high alert as a time-warping experiment unfolded under the observation of many scientists.

After the research on time-space reversal was reported, Shen Wen always paid attention to the news in this regard.  She found the world's largest physics laboratory and shuttled through the huge laboratory and machinery. Finally one day, the entire physics laboratory was highly tense, and a space-time distortion experiment was carried out under the observation of many scientists. Shen Wen looked at the large sealed steel tank. The strong gravitational force changed the vibration frequency of the material, causing time and space to stagnate. She had another obsession - she wanted to go back to the life she couldn't let go of.

 The thought grew stronger and stronger, and on a few occasions she felt that the frequency around her had changed as a result. She knew that it took powerful energy to cause even that brief distortion of space-time, and that she could not manipulate it at all. But she was stubborn at heart, and since she could stay for a thousand years, she could also stay for ten thousand years, a hundred thousand years...... One day she would have to find her way back. She began to focus on increasing her power of intention, meditating until she was comfortable changing the frequency of objects around her. But before she could cultivate her power to the point of being even more powerful, mankind had really invented the time machine

Shen Wen knows that if she still has a body, she must be shaking with excitement right now, but now she is just gathering consciousness energy around her. She attached herself to the core of the machine and "saw" the great energy freezing time and space, the curving plane of history, the past coming to the surface, she was like a small crawler on the edge of a flat sheet of paper, which was rolled up so that she could easily reach the other side of the unreachable past......

The endless stream of people and affairs is enough to make any soul lost without return, but Shen Wen's thousand years of persistence and gazing allowed her to catch a familiarity as small as a grain of sand in the sea amidst the endless noise. It was the corresponding frequency belonging to this soul of her own, and although it was extremely faint and almost inaudible, Shen Wen's consciousness reached out like a long thread and touched that body.... For a moment, Shen Wen's soul swept away as if it had been tugged.

In an instant, the balance of space-time energy was broken, and the powerful energy shattered the huge space-time machine into dust. History is no longer...?