Translator: Dj2203
Editor: Dj2203
Advance chapters available for patrons on Patreon. And a chapter can be sponsored by buying me a ko-fi.
Before buying the house and getting the ownership transferred, Lu Huan carefully reviewed the information about this world and found that it was not as simple as in the Yan Kingdom, where one could buy a piece of land and a mansion simply by providing silver and an official document from the Ministry of Revenue. In fact, it required layers of review and was extremely cumbersome.
So he started preparing in the middle of last month.
On two separate days, while Su Xi was taking a nap, he came over to look at the apartment a few times through an agent.
All the new apartments in this area were pre-sale, so the only option to buy one was a second-hand apartment. Lu Huan initially disliked second-hand apartments, but surprisingly, he found one with a very clean and well-decorated style, looking almost brand new.
It was also very close to Su Xi’s school, so she could come over for lunch break instead of sleeping on her desk.
After thinking about it, Lu Huan felt that the house was very suitable, so he quickly prepared the money.
If someone was a minor, they needed a guardian to buy a house or open a bank account, which was very troublesome. The middleman who got Lu Huan an ID card said that he could arrange for Lu Huan’s resume for the first ten years or so of his life to be placed in a welfare home in the city, and then he could find an old man surnamed Lu for him. As long as a sum of money was paid, that man could become his guardian.
However, Lu Huan had no relatives in Yan Kingdom, and in this world, he hoped that Su Xi would be the only person on his household registration.
So when Lu Huan applied for his ID card, he simply moved his age back a few months, making him appear as if he had just come of age.
This way, it was clean and efficient, saving a lot of trouble.
The real estate agent was stunned to see that the young man was paying in full, rather than taking out a loan from the bank. The previous landlord, fearing Lu Huan might change his mind, was very cooperative, so the matter was quickly resolved. The entire process of buying the house took less than half a month.
Before things had settled down, Lu Huan was worried that something unexpected might happen, so he didn’t tell Su Xi.
Once everything was settled, he planned to bring Su Xi over tonight to give her a surprise.
Su Xi was indeed pleasantly surprised. She wandered around the apartment, excitedly looking at every corner, her mind filled with ideas on how to decorate each area.
After the previous owner moved out of the apartment, Lu Huan had already skilfully ordered cleaning services through 56.com, so the apartment was now clean and tidy, but there was not much furniture.
Su Xi walked to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and excitedly said, “I can go to the supermarket after school tomorrow and buy some food to fill the whole refrigerator!”
She could already vividly imagine life with Lu Huan lounging on the sofa, eating potato chips, scrolling through Weibo, and playing games!
Lu Huan followed behind her and said, “We’ll get the bed, table, lamp, and other furniture another day.”
“And another thing!” Su Xi turned around abruptly. The floor had just been waxed and was very slippery. So she leaned back and almost fell, but Lu Huan quickly caught her. Su Xi’s excitement made her completely forget everything else. She just looked up at Lu Huan with burning eyes: “Can I keep a cat here?!”
Which girl wouldn’t want to raise a cute and cuddly kitten? Every time Su Xi went shopping, she couldn’t help but stop at the cat cafes and pet shops on the street. However, Mother Su was a clean freak and would never let her raise one. She had been begging and pleading for more than ten years, but to no avail.
But Mother Su never expected that if you don’t let your daughter support a cat, someone else will buy a house for your daughter to support it!
Su Xi’s heart was pounding with excitement. She suddenly hugged Lu Huan’s waist, wrapping her arms and legs around him, and looked up at him: “Lu Huan, let me raise a cat!”
Lu Huan’s heart was pounding so hard he couldn’t keep up.
Without a second thought, he was about to agree, but he stopped himself just in time— if she got a cat, wouldn’t she have new kittens? Would she still have time for him then?
Lu Huan was very suspicious.
He always felt that Su Xi’s feelings for him were unreliable. Was it really the kind of feelings a girl had for a boy? Could it be that she had transferred the mentality of raising a child in a game to raising a child in real life?
Su Xi pinched his back and asked, “What’s wrong with you? Still not going to agree?”
“Put your clothes on properly.” Lu Huan reached out and pulled down Su Xi’s pajamas from under her loose coat, covering her collarbone.
His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he looked away, deliberately feigning hesitation: “Hmm, I’ll have to think about that.”
“Still considering?” Su Xi was furious. What happened to being accommodating? Had her son grown too big for his britches?!
“Then what would it take for you to agree?” Su Xi asked.
Lu Huan said, “First, let the cat sleep in the living room or on the balcony; it can’t crawl into your bed.”
Su Xi thought to herself, “Isn’t the whole point of raising a cat to pull a soft, cuddly little cutie out of the blankets? Not letting a cat into bed is utterly inhumane! Lu Huan, you are utterly inhumane!”
But who cares? I’ll just agree for now. What if Lu Huan barges into her room and throws the cat out?
So she smiled and said, “Of course, no problem, I understand. You’re worried about cat hair shedding, and when I wash the sheets, I get the washing machine dirty, which will affect your sheets.”
Lu Huan: “…”
He thought to himself, no, you don’t understand.
Su Xi asked, “Are there any other treaties? What about the second and third?”
Lu Huan said matter-of-factly, “I haven’t thought about the second and third ones yet. I’ll come to you to fulfil your promises when I do.”
Su Xi was a little speechless, suspecting that Lu Huan had recently been watching “The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber”[1] on his new phone and was starting to imitate Zhou Zhiruo[2]. But seeing the kitten so close at hand, she agreed anyway. What else could Lu Huan possibly ask for? At best, he might just want a birthday present or to eat a meal she cooked herself.
That night, after Lu Huan took Su Xi home, she spent most of the night searching online for reputable catteries, filled with excitement and anticipation, planning to pick up a soft, fluffy kitten as soon as possible.
Bringing a cat home involved a lot of things, such as buying a cat bed, scratching post, cat food, etc. So after visiting the cattery, Su Xi immediately went to Taobao and happily added a bunch of nutritional supplements to her shopping cart.
After changing back into the white silk and white crown he had worn when he arrived, Lu Huan returned to the prince’s residence to rest and couldn’t help but open the curtain to glance at her.
When he saw her staring at her phone screen with a perverted grin at four in the morning, he thought: …
Although a gentleman’s word is as good as his bond, Lu Huan truly regretted agreeing to it.
….
Before heading to guard the imperial mausoleum, Lu Huan visited General Zhenyuan and Grand Commandant Yun, among others, to discuss and explain the upcoming matters.
Now that the Crown Prince was under house arrest, the Prime Minister’s faction had fractured and scattered, and the power of the imperial relatives was no longer as strong as before, which suited the Emperor’s wishes perfectly. The Second Prince, who had been lying low for a long time, was now gradually revealing his ambitions. A contest between him and the Fifth Prince was thus inevitable.
The situation in the capital would not be calm; it would only escalate.
Lu Huan spent a year in the imperial mausoleum. Although it was his own request, no one outside knew this and everyone thought that he had been demoted by the emperor. This made the other princes less wary of him.
In this way, while these people were fighting, he could do many other things without being disturbed.
One of these tasks was the still unfinished Task Sixteen: to advance the reform of corvée labor and taxation in the Yan state.
Lu Huan discussed with the Minister of War that it was almost impossible to reduce corvée labor and taxes and alleviate the burden on the people in the short term.
Even if a memorial was submitted to the emperor, it would be thrown back directly.
After all, the reality must be considered—Yan was not a wealthy land, nor was its treasury empty. Although the northern enemies, whom they had just repelled, were unlikely to attack again in the near future, Yan still needed to maintain its military strength as a precaution. All of this required spending money.
To achieve this, the prerequisite was that the Yan state’s treasury must first become wealthy.
As the saying goes, “open source and reduce expenditure.” On the one hand, they must vigorously promote planting techniques among Yan farmers to enhance productivity. On the other hand, they must also start with corrupt officials. Just as it was previously discovered that the Crown Prince had amassed a fortune, there were countless other corrupt officials, both big and small, in the court. Investigating them one by one would take time, and they must not alert them.
Lu Huan went to the imperial mausoleum, taking advantage of the year to secretly send his subordinates to complete these tasks.
….
As for Mission Seventeen, after the Emperor adopted the curfew measure and allowed it to be piloted in various prefectures, Lu Huan received a congratulatory message: [Congratulations on completing Mission Seventeen: Investigate the murder case in the capital, reduce the crime rate, and implement it in all prefectures! Gold Coin Reward +3000, Points Reward +15.]
Su Xi and Lu Huan both discovered that the tasks after reaching 200 points all became extremely difficult, and almost all of them were related to improving the policies of the entire Yan Kingdom.
No wonder when Su Xi first did those tasks to gain the old lady’s favor for Lu Huan, the system said the difficulty was only a few stars, and even when he was promoted to the fourth rank, the difficulty was only in the twenties!
The real difficulty was yet to come!
The current mission, number seventeen, was already at a difficulty level of forty-five stars!
Not to mention the sixteenth task of reducing taxes and promoting reforms, which was already at a difficulty level of sixty-five stars.
And that was not even full yet.
Su Xi was highly sceptical about just how abnormal a task with a difficulty level of one hundred stars really would be.
….
After completing Task Seventeen, their total points reached 215. Due to the increased difficulty, the progress began to slow down. Lu Huan then pressed on, urging the system to quickly display Task Eighteen.
Task 18 was: [The Yan Kingdom has always lacked order in its foreign trade and diplomatic relations. Please regulate the Western Region merchants who trade with the Yan Kingdom and establish a foreign trade oversight agency. The reward is 4000 gold coins and 18 reward points.]
The Yan Kingdom had been growing too big to be controlled in recent years. The emperor was not exactly incompetent, but he was indeed unable to take care of the Yan Kingdom’s economy, people’s livelihood, military defense, and other aspects.
As a result, many merchants from foreign countries bought a lot of rare timber and medicinal materials from the Yan Kingdom at very low prices, and in exchange, they received some seemingly beautiful but actually useless gemstones.
Even many officials were deceived, buying the gems only to find they shattered upon impact.
The foreign trade market was in complete chaos. Because large quantities of medicinal herbs were being plundered from the people of Yan, the state had to purchase them from foreign countries when it wanted to replenish its treasury. Over time, Yan naturally became increasingly impoverished, while the foreign countries gradually became wealthy.
In Su Xi’s parlance, the situation in Yan needs to be reversed to a trade surplus in order to improve people’s livelihoods.
Lu Huan accepted the eighteenth mission, but this mission was also a long-term one, requiring some officials to submit memorials to the emperor.
There was no need to rush it.
Guys, ads are my only source of revenue, so please do not turn on the AdBlock when you are accessing this website…. Thank you, this would be a great help…
You can buy me a ko-fi and sponsor a chapter on: https://ko-fi.com/midnightrambles
Or become a Patron and access advance chapters on: https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=45665005
If you support me, I would be able to provide more chapters….
Previous • Table of Contents • Next
[1] The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber (倚天屠龍記), also translated as The Sword and the Knife,[1] is a wuxia novel by Jin Yong (Louis Cha) and the third part of the Condor Trilogy, preceded by The Legend of the Condor Heroes and The Return of the Condor Heroes.
[2] Zhou Zhiruo is one of the two female lead characters in the wuxia novel The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber by Jin Yong. Jin Yong describes Zhou Zhiruo’s physical appearance as “beautiful, pure and free of worldly traits”
