In the middle of the night, at 3 o’clock, the moment the bell in a Clock tower stopped striking, Wen Yantong abruptly opened her eyes.

She could hear the sound of a bell echoing in the distance and the sound of her roommate snoring close to her.

Wen Yantong climbed out of bed cautiously and took care not to make a sound when her feet touched the ground. With the dim moonlight, she found her clothing and dressed hurriedly. Then she sneaked out of the door.

Under the moonlight, there was no one around. A chill wind blew through her body, and Wen Yantong shivered.

She fumbled out a knife stolen from the kitchen. After stripping away its layers of cloth, the blade reflected a cold glow under the moonlight. 

But when she leaned closer to examine the blade, it turned out to be blunt, covered with many small cracks.

Wen Yantong cursed her bad luck. During the day, she was afraid of being discovered when she secretly went into the kitchen. So she didn’t have time to examine the blade properly. Because of its small size, making it easy to hide, she picked it.

But it was blunt.

She felt the blunt blade edge, thinking that maybe it could work despite that.

Wen Yantong was going to accomplish something big with this knife.

To terminate a rooster.

And this rooster had a name, called No Lazy.

Wen Yantong didn’t expect that one day, a rooster would become her mortal enemy.

This rooster was brought here by Song Hai Academy’s headmaster from his hometown and had been in the care of the Academy for the past four years. It was very ferocious. It was said that it would peck everyone passing before its eyes. In the end, no one dared to approach it.

Wen Yantong was never pecked by it. But the chicken coop was just behind her dormitory. Each day at 6 o’clock, this rooster would crow while walking in circles under her window.

These penetrating sounds gave her headaches every time. And each time after being woken up from her dream by the crowing close at hand, Wen Yantong wanted to leap out of the window and twist its neck.

The Academy highly valued this rooster, who was responsible for waking the student up to attend morning lessons. When Wen Yantong suggested moving the chicken coop to a different location, she got a dressing-down.

The rooster was like this four days in a row. Finally, Wen Yantong couldn’t take it. She decided to steal a knife from the kitchen and sacrifice her precious sleep to finish off this damned chicken once for all.

She looked from side to side while sneaking to the chicken coop.

But the rooster was very alert, already aware of her approach, and opened its eyes in alarm.

But it didn’t move. For one, chickens were almost blind during the night. Secondly, this rooster was very ferocious, never afraid of people.

Wen Yantong’s heart was filled with hatred at the sight of this rooster, thinking to herself that your alertness wouldn’t make much difference for you now. Tonight I would change your name from no Lazy to no head.

Wielding her knife, she was trying to find the perfect spot to cut off its neck, in case it would crow to wake everyone up.

Now everything was ready. All she needed was a swish of the blade. Wen Yantong positioned her body. When her knife was about to fall, a shout suddenly came from her side.

“Who is there? What are you doing?”

Wen Yantong was jolted to the core by this. Turning to look in the direction of that shout, she saw a man holding a lantern stood not far from her.

A glance told her this is the famous Scholar Wu. She turned to run without hesitation.

Scholar Wu caught up with her with ease and kicked her right leg socket.

With intense pain, she collapsed on the ground and was pinned down by Scholar Wu. She dropped her knife and raised her hands.” Please don’t hit me! I am a student!”

The plan to kill the chicken failed.

The next day, Wen Yantong stood listlessly outside the classroom. With heavy eyelids, she just wanted to fall and sleep.

Last night’s event had been circulating in the Academy throughout the morning. Now the whole campus knew Wen Yantong wanted to kill a chicken in the middle of the night, and people came to ridicule her, openly or covertly.

But Wen Yantong didn’t have much energy to care about this. After being deprived of a half night’s sleep, she initially planned to catch up with sleep after coming back. But her right leg socket hurt so much that she had trouble falling asleep. When she finally fell into a slumber, that god-damned chicken started to crow under her window.

The morning lesson started when the sky turned grey.

The Scholar asked her out to demand an explanation for her behavior last night. She confessed quickly, almost managing to squeeze out two tears.” I am too hungry…..”

The Scholar always had high expectations for his students. Because of her misbehavior, he lectured her for an hour until the morning lesson ended. Before he left, he asked her to stand by the classroom door to reflect on her behaviors.

The moment the Scholar left, Wen Yantong was overtaken by profound sleepiness and dozed off, leaning against the wall.

It had been four days since she found herself transmigrated into a novel called “unparalleled daughter of the first wife.” When Wen Yantong first opened this book, she didn’t expect to transmigrate into this novel world as a character with the same name as hers.

A cannon fodder who only appeared in two chapters, spent two years in jail and finally died in a miserable way.

In this novel, Wen Yantong’s father Wen Qin was a wealthy merchant in Chang’an City. He had only one wife, choosing not to marry any concubines. As the only child in the family, Wen Yantong had been doted on since her birth.

Life couldn’t be more pleasant with a wealthy family, a capable wife, and an obedient child, and everything went as they wished. But Madam Wen fell ill after giving birth to their only child and became infertile. Having no son became Wen Qin’s only regret.

Wen Yantong knew of her father’s regret from her childhood. To make up for her father’s regret, she decided to participate in the Imperial Examination^[1]TL’s note: a civil service examination system in Imperial China for selecting candidates for the state bureaucracy. and brought glory to her family and ancestors.

So this cannon fodder left home with her luggage, traveled a great distance to Zhao Ge City, and spent a fortune to secure a place in Song Hai Academy.

But when she decided to come, Song Hai Academy only accepted male candidates. The little cannon fodder had no choice but to enter the Academy disguised as a man. A decision led to her being jailed later on.

The little cannon fodder had learned some characters from his father, figuring it shouldn’t be too hard being a student in an Academy. But the students in Song Hai Academy were mostly from top officials’ families. The kind of education they received was vastly different from what ordinary people could get.

Lack of proper education made her a laughing stock in the Academy. In the shadow of her princeling classmates’ arrogance, her willfulness, the result of her wealthy commoner father’s indulging, was suppressed. She became increasingly cautious, timid, and cowardly.

As an overindulged child, the little cannon fodder had never been subject to this kind of unfair treatment, and the notion of escaping from this Academy had more than once crossed her mind. But she had fallen in love with the main male character in the novel, not willing to let go of her budding love.

In the end, she was used by the number one scheming supporting female character, and the fact that she disguised herself as a man was exposed. Charged with the crime of deceiving the Emperor, she was sentenced to jail.

The crime of deceiving the Emperor carried severe punishments for the nine branches of her family. Wen Yantong’s family was all sentenced to jail, their servants were dismissed, and assets, wealth were all confiscated.

How tragic is that!

Entering the Academy disguised as a man was the source of all these tragedies, and setting herself against the female main character was the direct cause of her tragic end. There was a simple way to alter the ending: leaving Song Hai Academy and returning to Chang’an City.

But After transmigrating to the novel, Wen Yantong became exhausted because of that rooster, lacking enough brainpower to plan to escape. What’s more, Song Hai Academy only allowed students to go out on resting and bathing days. The opportunity to escape hadn’t presented itself yet.

But now, Wen Yantong’s immediate concern was to have a good night’s sleep, and then she could consider how to return to Chang’an City.

“This boy’s head must have been damaged by his high fever, doing something like this. His hunger even drove him to kill a crowing rooster. A lowborn commoner didn’t know a rooster working for the scholars is not supposed to be eaten. If word of it leaked out, the outside world would think our Academy has mistreated him.”

As she was sleeping, leaned against a wall, a string of derisive words suddenly came to her ears.

Even though her name was not mentioned, apparently, she was the target.

Wen Yantong was furious, and she opened her bloodshot eyes to stare angrily in the direction of that voice, thinking what kind of low-life dared to gossip about her in front of her.

But when she opened her eyes, the first person entering her eyesight was not the gossiping low-life, but a handsome young man dressed in silk embroidered leather jacket, standing among a group of young masters.

His dark eyebrows and eyes were very delicate. Aged around eighteen, he stood above those standing around him. His red cape was embroidered in cloud patterns with silver threads. Under the brilliant sunlight, something embedded on the cape reflected a sparkling light.

A jade hairpin pinned his long hair. Contrasted by his snow-white fox leather jacket, his eyes had an intense black tone. A Glance was enough to proclaim his extraordinary status.

But Wen Yantong didn’t have time to withdraw her angry look. With a distance not far, not near, the young man saw her facial expression clearly.

Following closely, that gossiping lowlife added.” Chi San Shao^[2]TL’s note: Chi was the family name. San Shao means the third born young master,This boy dared to stare at you! He must lack a proper dressing-down. Now he thinks he can do whatever he wants.”

Once she heard the word” Chi San Shao,” she immediately turned away. Despite that young man’s handsomeness, she didn’t dare to linger her eyes on him a moment longer.

There was only one Chi San Shao in Song Hai Academy and Zhao Ge City.

And he was not a man to be messed with.