Quick Transmigration: The Villain Is Too Pampered and Alluring - Chapter 51

Sheng Nuan passed away quietly one morning, resting peacefully in Ye Nanxun’s arms. Beside her, Ye Nanxun had grown old, his hair completely white.

As her consciousness withdrew and left the world, she turned back for one last look.

Ye Nanxun, now old and white-haired, slowly bowed his head and kissed the top of the head of the person in his arms, who had long since fallen silent. Tears fell from his eyes.

He whispered, “Nuan Nuan, wait for me. I’ll see you off myself, and then I’ll come find you…”

They had spent their whole lives together, hand in hand. Even though they never had children, it never affected their love for one another.

Everyone knew that the head of the Qing family and his wife had a deep and loving relationship. Since their youth, he had cherished his wife as a treasure.

It was well-known that, years ago, after the movie star Sheng Mian had made inappropriate remarks about Sheng Nuan in public, she was openly blacklisted, leaving the once prominent actress with no way to sustain her livelihood. She was even forced to go to the marketplace to sell clothes.

Later, he handed the Qing family business to a junior relative from the clan and spent his time traveling the world with his wife, no longer concerned with mundane matters.

One story often told was how on his wife’s 30th birthday, President Qing had purchased a star and named it after her…

They were the epitome of true love and legend in everyone’s eyes.

And now, they had walked together to the end of their lives…

As Sheng Nuan’s consciousness was pulled away from her body, she found herself in a blank, white space. There was nothing in the room except herself.

Soon, a familiar mechanical voice echoed in the room.

“Congratulations to the host for successfully completing the first mission. Mission grade: A.”

Sheng Nuan raised an eyebrow, “How many levels are there?”

Customer service replied, “The grading ranges from E to A, increasing in rank. Above A is the special superior grade: S.”

Sheng Nuan clicked her tongue. “So it’s not an S yet…”

After a moment, she asked, “Where’s Ye Nanxun?”

Time flowed differently between the system space and those small worlds. After checking, the system quickly responded, “After he finished arranging your funeral, he passed away the next day. The two of you were buried together in that world.”

Sheng Nuan fell silent.

Customer service then informed her that due to protection mechanisms, 90% of her memories from the first mission world would be erased. Sheng Nuan didn’t object and nodded her head…

After a brief moment, when she opened her eyes again, she tried to recall things but found that she could no longer remember anything about the first mission world.

All she could recall was that she had completed one mission, but the people and events of that world had become blurry and indistinct.

She didn’t dwell on it and opened the transparent control panel in front of her, ready to receive the storyline of her second mission world.

The background of the second mission was from a revenge novel about a male protagonist. The main character was Xiao Dingcheng, the Heir Apparent to the Duke of Zhenbei, and her role was as Xiao Dingcheng’s cannon fodder concubine, Sheng Nuan. Her presence was limited to a brief period before the male lead’s fall from grace.

The Emperor of Tang had granted the marriage, forcing Xiao Dingcheng, the Duke of Zhenbei’s heir, to marry Princess Lin’an and become her consort husband. However, Xiao Dingcheng had no feelings for her at all.

Princess Lin’an was not favored, naturally cold in temperament, and suffered from an old illness. Moreover, Xiao Dingcheng already had a sweetheart: the daughter of the Minister of Revenue, Liu Rumian.

Liu Rumian was born a concubine’s daughter. Originally, Xiao Dingcheng had planned to marry her as a secondary consort after wedding his primary consort. He wanted to love and cherish her properly. But his status changed when he became the princess’s consort, and Liu Rumian’s status was reduced from secondary consort to concubine.

Regardless of whether Liu Rumian was to be a secondary consort or a concubine, Xiao Dingcheng had already made up his mind. After marrying Princess Lin’an, he would keep his distance from the princess and bring Liu Rumian into his household to care for her.

Princess Lin’an was not favored, and Xiao Dingcheng’s father, the Duke of Zhenbei, was a powerful lord. This made Xiao Dingcheng brazen in his actions. Not long after the wedding, he proposed taking a concubine, and naturally, the one he wanted to marry was Liu Rumian.

For a prince consort to take a concubine, it would naturally bring shame upon the princess.

Xiao Dingcheng feared that once Liu Rumian entered the household, she would be resented by Princess Lin’an. So on the same day that Liu Rumian entered the house, he married another concubine: Sheng Nuan, the daughter of a minor official. He pretended to favor and pamper Sheng Nuan to divert the princess’s attention away from Liu Rumian.

Thus, Sheng Nuan, who came from a small family and had long admired Xiao Dingcheng, married him with great anticipation. However, she didn’t realize that from the very day of their marriage, she would become a shield used by her husband to protect another woman…

On the day Sheng Nuan was brought into the Duke of Zhenbei’s manor, naturally, as the daughter of a minor official, she entered after the minister’s daughter Liu Rumian. However, the moment she was carried into the house, Xiao Dingcheng severely punished a servant, as he wanted Sheng Nuan to enter the house first.

Furthermore, the courtyard Xiao Dingcheng prepared for Sheng Nuan was far more luxurious than Liu Rumian’s, and Sheng Nuan was assigned two more maids than Liu Rumian… So, the entire Zhenbei Manor believed that the young lord was particularly fond of Madam Sheng.

As a result, on the very night she entered the household, Princess Lin’an, claiming to be unwell, ordered Sheng Nuan, the new concubine, to attend to her.

Sheng Nuan, after receiving a few token words of comfort from Xiao Dingcheng, was sent to Princess Lin’an main courtyard. There, she realized that Princess Lin’an had actually ordered her, the newly arrived concubine, to attend to her during her bath.

This is basically the work of servants.

While concubines were scarcely better off than servants, Sheng Nuan, believing that as a daughter of an official and being newly entered into the household on her first day, should not have to perform menial tasks such as attending to the princess. As a result, she was given a pretext and punished by being made to kneel.

While she knelt in the cold night under the eaves, Xiao Dingcheng was elsewhere, indulging in tender affection with his beloved Liu Rumian in their decorated bridal chamber.

The next day, Sheng Nuan was pale, exhausted, emaciated, and embarrassed, while Liu Rumian was glowing, her eyes full of springtime charm, clearly having been well-loved.

And this was just the beginning…

The Lin’an princess seemed to find it boring to torment a lowly concubine, so she didn’t do much after that. However, Sheng Nuan, as a shield, was never idle.

The old matriarch of the Zhenbei family, unhappy with her grandson’s decision to take concubines, feeling guilty toward the princess, found excuses to have the new concubine sent to serve her. Xiao Dingcheng, filial to his grandmother, had no choice but to send his “favored” Sheng Nuan to endure the old lady’s scolding.

Liu Rumian adored cats. When the cat Xiao Dingcheng had bought for her bit the princess’s pet bird to death after only two days of raising it, the princess held her accountable. Xiao Dingcheng, with a face full of shame, told his mother that the cat was actually bought for Sheng Nuan.

Naturally, Sheng Nuan was punished.

Even when Sheng Nuan unintentionally saved the Ninth Prince’s life, and the Emperor of Tang wanted to reward her, Xiao Dingcheng forced Sheng Nuan to let the pregnant Liu Rumian take the credit.

Using this favor, Liu Rumian was promoted to Xiao Dingcheng’s equal wife¹, and with that, Sheng Nuan’s purpose as a shield was no longer needed. She was completely forgotten and left in a corner.

Servants from prestigious families are skilled at discerning social status. Seeing that Concubine Sheng had fallen out of favor, one by one they no longer regarded her with any respect. Her monthly allowance was withheld, and the servants assigned to her found excuses to transfer to Lady Liu’s courtyard

Yet, this wasn’t even the worst of it.

Not long after Xiao Dingcheng made Liu Rumian his equal wife, the Duke of Zhenbei’s household faced a major upheaval. Duke Zhenbei, Xiao Wencai, was suspected of treason after dying in battle at the border, leading to the confiscation of the Duke’s estate. From the elderly matriarch to Xiao Dingcheng himself, everyone was demoted to commoners.

Princess Lin’an died due to a relapse of an old illness, and Xiao Dingcheng, now living with his grandmother, mother, Liu Rumian, and Sheng Nuan in a decrepit house in the southern part of the city, was struggling to survive. Both the old lady and the former princess’s health deteriorated rapidly, with their lives hanging by a thread.

Desperate, Xiao Dingcheng actually sold Sheng Nuan, the beautiful concubine.

Sheng Nuan was originally the daughter of an official, with the prospect of marrying into a respectable family as a proper wife. But because of her love for Xiao Dingcheng, she had lowered herself to be his concubine, only to be sold like a common prostitute in the end.

Unable to bear the humiliation, Sheng Nuan took her own life by hitting a pillar the night she was sold, her body discarded in a mass grave. It was only later that her aged, disgraced father—who had been dismissed from his official post—managed to borrow a cart and retrieve her from the grave to give her a proper burial…

1. equal wife (平妻, Píngqī) – refers to a wife who holds a status equal to that of the main or legal wife (正妻, Zhèngqī), but who was married later. So in the duke’s household, the hierarchy of wives is as follows: Main/Primary consort (王妃, Wángfēi) > Secondary consort (侧妃, Cèfēi) > Concubine (妾/姨娘, Qiè/Yí Niáng).
   So if Liu Rumian is promoted to equal wife, she would be on the same footing as Princess Lin’an who is the wangfei and zhengqi of the Heir Apparent.
   A noble household also typically has multiple bed-warmer servants (通房, Tōngfáng) who serve their master intimately but are still ultimately a servant, so they are of the lowest ranking ‘wives’ if you can call it that. Xiao Dingcheng however doesn’t have a tongfang or it isn’t mentioned in the story.
   Xiao Dingcheng is a Prince Consort (驸马, Fùmǎ), so since his official wife’s status is a princess, Liu Rumian’s status is downgraded to that of a prince consort’s concubine (驸马小妾, Fùmǎ Xiǎoqiè). ↵

T/N: Help meee… these historical arcs are so hard to translate (˃̣̣̥ᯅ˂̣̣̥)