Chapter 1997
Lady 1
"Third Miss, Madam requests your presence."
Liu Dong: "Understood."
He got up and went to his mother's yard.
Liu Tong is the third daughter of the Liu family, born to the first wife, and is nine years old this year.
The Liu family were officials. Liu's father was originally the prefect of Qingzhou, but he was promoted and transferred back to the capital.
The entire Liu family was packing their luggage.
Liu's father is now in his thirties, in the prime of his life, and has already become a fourth-rank official, with a bright future ahead of him.
Liu's grandfather passed away when Liu's father was a teenager, leaving his widowed mother and father to depend on each other for survival.
Grandma Liu was in her early fifties, which would be considered middle-aged in modern times, but in ancient times she would have been considered an old woman.
Fortunately, she takes good care of herself and is in good health.
Liu's father had one legal wife and two concubines.
His principal wife, Zhao, gave birth to his eldest son, Liu Feng, and his third daughter, Liu Tong.
The concubine, Madam Qian, gave birth to her eldest daughter, Liu Tao, and her youngest daughter, Liu Mei.
Concubine Sun gave birth to a second son, Liu Yu, and a second daughter, Liu Tong.
Because they come from a family with a strong scholarly tradition, all the children, regardless of gender, begin reading at the age of six.
Mr. Liu hired a tutor for his children.
After three years, Liu Dong and her sisters had finished reading all of their fourth uncle's books and were now preparing to study the Book of Poetry.
Liu Dong was an outlier among her sisters. She was as boisterous and carefree as a boy, and her two other sisters often teased her for not being ladylike.
Liu Qiu didn't care about their teasing. She had a feeling that she should be a boy, but...
When Liu Tong was six years old, something called a system appeared in the Liu family and was easily captured by Liu Tong.
After that, the system became Liu Dong's possession.
The system is incomplete; it lacks intelligence and contains very little information.
It's called the Jianwang 3 system, which has ten sects, but the data for nine sects is lost, and only one sect's icon is lit up.
Liu Tong clicked on the link and became a junior general of the Tian Ce Mansion. The system rewarded Liu Tong with a set of armor and a long spear.
A spear appeared out of thin air in Liu Tong's hand, and armor was also put on her body.
Liu Tong: "..."
Fortunately, he had driven all the servants out of the house while he was studying the system.
Liu Dong twirled the spear a few times before storing it in her system inventory.
This system backpack is what he's most satisfied with; it can hold not only items provided by the system, but also real-world items.
The first thing Liu Dong did was put all the money she had saved up over the years into her backpack.
The system also rewarded the user with a pony that would come whenever needed.
As the daughter of an official, she was confined to her home and rarely ventured out, making cultivation extremely difficult for Liu Dong.
Liu Tong could only climb over the wall every night to practice horseback riding and martial arts.
Given enough time, how could the personal maid not notice?
Liu Tong rolled her eyes and pulled the two maids, Mo Shu and Mo Yan, into her group.
The system indicates that he can recruit new soldiers to be his subordinates.
One of the tasks the system assigned to him was to create the Tian Ce Army.
However, only the first ten to enter the Tian Ce Army will receive the items rewarded by the system.
The top two finishers are rewarded with armor, weapons, and horses; third to fifth place finishers receive only armor and weapons, but no horses; sixth to tenth place finishers receive only weapons.
The two maids, holding spears that had appeared out of thin air and dressed in armor, were dumbfounded. After they came to their senses, they were both incredibly excited.
They believed that their young lady had received a divine blessing, and that she was so generous in sharing that blessing with them.
Otherwise, how do you explain the armor and weapons appearing out of thin air?
The young lady told them that they would follow her to fight on the battlefield in the future. At first, they were afraid. They didn't even dare to kill a chicken, let alone a human.
However, after practicing martial arts, their willpower gradually hardened, and they slowly transformed into mature soldiers.
They were making unrealistic promises to themselves: "My lady has a destiny to become a celestial being, so will she ascend to the Heavenly Court and become a heavenly general? Then will we follow her and become heavenly soldiers? Even if we die on the battlefield, we won't truly die; we'll return to the Heavenly Court!"
They not only thought this way themselves, but also shared their ideas with Liu Dong's other subordinates.
The group of subordinates thought what they said made a lot of sense, and they all regarded themselves as heavenly soldiers in reserve, and were extremely loyal to Liu Dong!
Liu Tong: "..."
He hadn't even realized that Mo Shu and Mo Yan were such outstanding MLM talents!
Getting back to the topic, the Liu family finally arrived in Beijing.
The Liu family owns an old house in the capital and has many relatives and friends.
Before the family went to the capital, Lord Liu wrote a letter to his younger sister, asking her to help clean up the old house.
Lord Liu's younger sister, Lady Liu, married into the Marquis's household. Although she was his second wife, she was still a proper Marquis's wife.
Moreover, the Marquis had no biological son, only a daughter, while Lady Liu gave birth to a legitimate son within a year of entering the household.
Although the Marquis had concubines and illegitimate sons, he valued his legitimate sons more.
When Liu's son, Zhu Xiuping, was ten years old, the Marquis submitted a memorial requesting that he be made the heir apparent.
The Liu family returned to their old house and rested for a few days before sending out invitations to relatives and friends in the capital to come to their home for a banquet.
Lady Liu was the first to arrive, accompanied by her husband and son.
Lord Liu received his brother-in-law, while Madam Liu led her son into the backyard to meet her mother, sister-in-law, nephew, and niece.
The mother and daughter hugged and cried for a while before greeting the others.
Grandmother held Zhu Xiuping's hand and said with emotion, "When we left the capital, this child was only three years old. Now he has grown into a handsome young man."
Lady Liu was very proud of her son.
Zhu Xiuping was indeed a promising young man; although he was only thirteen years old, he had already passed the imperial examination.
In the families of nobles and dignitaries, countless people envied them for having such a prodigy.
Zhao called several children forward and introduced them to Zhu Xiuping and her son.
Zhu Xiuping got along well with Liu Feng and Liu Yu. They were about the same age, both were scholars, and had much in common.
Of the four cousins, Zhu Xiuping didn't have a very good impression of Liu Tong, her own cousin, only thinking that Liu Tong was silly and noisy.
As for his other three half-sisters, Liu Tao was already engaged, so naturally she wouldn't have much contact with him.
He admired Liu Mei and Liu Tong, one intelligent and insightful, the other proficient in poetry.
However, Liu Tong has an older brother, which gives her confidence, and she is also the most beautiful among her sisters, so she is quite spoiled.
Liu Mei, on the other hand, was taught by her mother to be low-key and looked somewhat pitiful.
Zhu Xiuping couldn't help but feel sorry for her; of the four sisters, he was the kindest to Liu Mei.
When Liu saw this, she frowned.
She had previously considered having her niece from her maternal family become her daughter-in-law, but after seeing Liu Dong, she gave up on the idea.
The simple-minded Liu Qiu is no match for the heavy responsibility of being the mistress of the Marquis's mansion. — Liu Qiu: Where am I simple-minded? I just feel that I shouldn't be a girl.
The other nieces were all born out of wedlock, and the Marquis's mansion would never allow a daughter born out of wedlock to be the mistress of the house. (End of Chapter)