Transmigrated as the Princess Consort of a Fallen Nation-Chapter 90.1

Qin Zheng had never seen Chu Chengzhi display such an expression before, so she asked, puzzled, “Can’t you talk about it?”

“It’s not that,” Chu Chengzhi said, looking at her. “My surname is Chu, and I am from Longxi.”

Although Qin Zheng was somewhat surprised that his last name in his previous life was also Chu, she quickly calmed down, thinking more about the common occurrence of characters with the same name and surname in transmigration stories.

She simply said, “That’s quite a coincidence.”

Chu Chengji pursed his lips slightly and continued, “I was born with the death of my mother, considered an ominous sign. I was sent to a temple for cultivation while still in my infancy.”

Qin Zheng felt that his experience was somewhat familiar, but most of her attention was focused on feeling sorry for him, so she didn’t react for a moment.

She comforted him, “A woman’s childbirth is like passing through the gates of hell. Your mother carried you for ten months, surely with great joy and anticipation for your birth.

If she were still here, who would dare to say you were an ominous sign? It’s none of their business how others speak; you shouldn’t think like that.”

Chu Chengji’s only impression of his mother was that he had caused her death.

Growing up in the temple, where Buddhism emphasizes detachment from worldly attachments, he had always been indifferent to familial affection.

When relatives from the Chu family occasionally came to the temple to offer incense, they would also take a look at him. “Ill-fated star” was their nickname for him.

Perhaps due to their limited interactions, the monks in the temple never mentioned parents or siblings, so Chu Chengji never took the words of those family members to heart.

To him, those relatives were merely part of his karmic affinity in the Buddhist sense.

His so-called father, after his mother’s death, remarried and had children of his own, living harmoniously without much to do with Chu Chengzhi.

Every time he saw Chu Chengji, he would scold him, as if by doing so, he could demonstrate that he still remembered Chu Chengzhi’s mother.

When Chu Chengji first entered the world, he thought this patron was probably insane.

Now, looking back after experiencing the world, he found it somewhat ridiculous.

Later, when the wars broke out, his father died in battle as the military governor of Longxi.

His master at the temple told him that his worldly ties were not yet severed and advised him to leave the mountains to mourn his father.

There was no need to return to the temple.

His stepmother was wary of him, fearing that he would come back and vie for the family’s wealth with her own sons.

She spread rumors that he had caused his mother’s death, even claiming that his father’s death in battle was because he had visited the temple not long ago and brought bad luck.

The Chu family regarded him as a disaster, a harbinger of misfortune.

Throughout his life, Chu Chengzhi only received kindness from the Chu family. After bowing three times before his father’s spirit, he left the Chu family, heading alone to report his father’s vengeance and repay his debts in Dilong camp.

His stepmother couldn’t wait for him to leave earlier, but after he left, she cried and cursed him as a disobedient son, successfully persuading the elders of the Chu family to remove him from the Chu family genealogy.

Chu Chengji never cared about these things back then, and he certainly wouldn’t now.

At first, he thought he only left the mountains to avenge his father.

Later, when he saw war and famine spreading, with people resorting to eating bark and grass roots, and even cannibalism, it sent shivers down his spine.

He witnessed the Buddhist concept of Avīci Hell on earth.

Compared to chanting scriptures for the dead, he believed it was more important to help the living.

So, he picked up the butcher’s knife and fought his whole life.

Three hundred years ago, some said he rose to power, attributing it to the influence of the Chu family of Longxi.

However, the Chu family initially feared him like a flood or a fierce beast, and indeed, he did not rely on a single soldier or a single coin from the Chu family.

It was only later, after the Chu family was dispersed and his stepbrother was promoted to the position of military governor but proved inadequate, resulting in the loss of Longxi.

His stepbrother, as the commander, was disemboweled and hung from the city walls to intimidate the enemy.

A few relatives from the Chu family fled and sought refuge with him.

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After he recaptured Longxi with his army, Longxi finally came under his full control.

Chu Chengji didn’t like to reminisce about these past events.

Apart from slaughter, it was all slander.

Today, when he mentioned these things to Qin Zheng, it was just the beginning, and she comforted him in many ways.

After the initial shock, there was a sense of inexplicable tranquility.

Three hundred years ago, he was a demon, a monster.

Three hundred years later, he was a god of war who knew no defeat.

Everyone thought everything that happened to him was natural, except for the person in front of him who treated him with compassion.

Chu Chengji smiled, “I don’t think so.”

Although he stopped believing in Buddhism later, he had to admit that practicing meditation in the first half of his life truly tempered his character.

Despite the torrent of evil words, they never broke him, nor did they ever make him lose his sanity, leading to any irreversible mistakes.

Suddenly, Qin Zheng remembered something and asked, “What about later? Did you always stay in the temple to practice?”

She had previously guessed that he might be a cultivator due to his temperament, but it turned out he practiced meditation, not cultivation.

It seemed to make little difference.

Chu Chengji held her with one hand, and with his fingertips, he picked up a strand of her hair scattered behind her. “Later, there was fighting in the mountains, and the people were suffering. So, I went down the mountain, fought many battles, and became an emperor.”

Qin Zheng froze, raising her head to stare at him wide-eyed.

Chu, from Longxi?

Sent to a temple for cultivation since childhood, later went down the mountain to fight, and became an emperor?

Why did it sound more and more familiar?

She swallowed hard. “Was the temple you practiced in also called Yun Gang Temple?”

Chu Chengji nodded. “My original name is Wu Jia.”

Qin Zheng didn’t speak for a long time. J

ust when Chu Chengji was about to say something else, Qin Zheng suddenly leaned over and used the back of her hand to test the temperature of his forehead. “You don’t have a fever...”

Chu Chengji: “...”

He grabbed her hand from his forehead and furrowed his brows, “Don’t you believe me?”

Qin Zheng met his gaze and remained silent for a while before saying, “Let me digest this first.”

After Chu Chengji released her wrist, Qin Zheng sat up on the soft couch, wandering around the room as if in a daze, before turning to Chu Chengji with a bewildered look, “Are you really Emperor Wu Jia?”

It wasn’t that Qin Zheng didn’t believe him, but the news was just too shocking for her.

If he had said he was some big shot from the cultivation world, Qin Zheng might have found it easier to accept.

Since she had been here, the people had deified Emperor Wu Jia.

As the ancestor of the crown prince, Qin Zheng had noticed that he was not the original crown prince, but she never expected that the person inhabiting this body was actually Emperor Wu Jia himself.

Actually, this explained his lack of respect for the Chu royal family and his indifference towards the Temple of Martial Emperor.

Everything he said now made sense, but she needed some time to process this unexpected revelation.

Chu Chengji said, “If it’s too hard to accept, you can just think of me as the Crown Prince of Chu.”

Qin Zheng sat down on a low stool beside the soft couch, shaking her head. “It’s not particularly difficult to accept, it’s just...”

She looked up at Chu Chengji and said, “It’s just very unexpected.”

Seeing her calm down, Chu Chengji asked, “Are you not afraid of me?”

Qin Zheng waved her hand dismissively. “You come from three hundred years ago, I come from a thousand years later. We’re even, so what’s there to be afraid of?”

With all the secrets laid bare, Qin Zheng felt an unprecedented sense of relief.

She asked, “When did you come here?”

Chu Chengji looked down at her with her chin in her hand, seemingly lost in thought. “The day the rebel army broke into Bianjing, the moment you stabbed the commander of the Forbidden Army with a dagger, I woke up.”

He remembered having several fatal wounds from years of warfare and frequent use of potent medicinal herbs.

By the age of twenty-eight, he was nearing the end of his life.

As he closed his eyes, he heard the sorrowful cries both inside and outside the palace, signaling the end of an era.

He had led a life of shallow relationships and had nothing to regret.

However, in a moment of daze, those cries turned into desperate screams, pulling him into their turmoil and preventing him from walking towards the endless darkness, so he woke up again.

When he opened his eyes, it was three hundred years later.

The dynasty he had founded stood for more than three hundred years, and now was the time of its downfall.

He was forced to accept the identity of the deceased Crown Prince of Chu and fled with the Crown Princess he had forcibly married, which led to everything that happened later.

“Guai Zhou, was that your courtesy name?” Qin Zheng felt him lost in thought and lightly scratched his palm with her fingertips, interrupting his thoughts.

Chu Chengji nodded. “My master gave it to me before I left the mountain.”

The old man said that when a young man reaches adulthood, an elder usually gives him a courtesy name.

After he left the mountain, he couldn’t return to the temple, and their master-disciple relationship ended there.

So, his master gave him a name as a parting gift.

Later, when he went to war and earned the title of the Butcher of Longxi, Yun Gang Temple distanced itself from him.

He didn’t want to bring any more trouble to the temple because of his courtesy name, so he never used it again.

Qin Zheng said, ” Chengji, Guai Zhou. Your name and courtesy name are quite fitting. I guess your master hoped you would walk this path.”

“Cheng” refers to the prosperity of the country and the security of the people, and “Zhou” refers to a boat, which is the ruler.

In that life, Chu Chengji experienced the most deception and betrayal.

After Yun Gang Temple distanced itself from him, he never returned to the temple again.

When Qin Zheng said this, and when he remembered the old man’s compassionate eyes when he left the mountain, something in his heart, buried in dust for three hundred years, finally broke through.

As the Buddha said, “If I do not go to hell, who will?”

He lifted the butcher’s knife back then, which could also be considered as entering hell.

The Zen he hadn’t understood in his previous life, he finally comprehended now.

Chu Chengji glanced at Qin Zheng leaning against him and smiled contentedly.

But even if he had comprehended it, what did it matter? He had willingly entered the secular world.

Qin Zheng, seeing him smiling at her, felt a bit puzzled and asked, “What are you laughing at?”

Chu Chengji clasped her delicate wrist in his palm and replied, “I’m laughing at Ah Zheng’s wisdom and insight.”

Qin Zheng looked at him skeptically, not quite understanding why he suddenly praised her.

Accepting his identity, Qin Zheng remembered something else. “Did Li Xin’s faction really dig up the imperial tomb?”

“I dug it up.”

Even though she was mentally prepared, Qin Zheng still choked a bit upon hearing him say those three words so matter-of-factly.

Immediately consoling herself, she thought, well, they were the tombs of his descendants anyway.

If he dug them up, then so be it.

She said, “Li Xin’s side was arbitrarily labeled with such a big hat.

They probably won’t just let it go.

Don’t rush to circulate the gold and silver treasures brought out from the imperial tomb through the Western Regions.

First, sell off the jewels and gemstones without any marks. If these things fall into Li Xin’s hands, they won’t be able to find anything.”

Chu Chengji agreed, “Let’s do as you say. Cen Daoxi inspected the Yuanjiang River and was worried that if Li Xin’s party becomes desperate, they might blow up the fish-mouth weir and flood the area south of Qingzhou.

We’ll dig a hidden river from Dakan Village to divert the water to the Chishui River, to protect the plains on both sides of the Yuanjiang River.

Doing this secretly is necessary in case Li Xin’s side becomes aware.

Since you’re planning to build a canal to supply water to villages far from the Yuanjiang River, we can use this as a cover.”

It was then that Qin Zheng understood why he suddenly suggested going to Hu Prefecture after spending a whole day surveying the river.

The amount of work required to dig a hidden river was incomparable to building an irrigation canal.

Using all the silver for digging the hidden river might not even be enough.

To achieve the desired flood discharge effect, they needed to calculate the maximum flood discharge limit of the main channel of the Yuanjiang River and the maximum amount of water that could flow into the river.

After diverting a portion of the floodwater from the main channel of the Yuanjiang River, the rest would have to go through the hidden river.

Therefore, they needed to calculate the width of the river, how deep the riverbed should be dug, in order to achieve the flood discharge effect.

Once the course of the river was planned, they could officially start digging. In this ancient era without excavators, the entire project relied solely on manpower.

If they wanted to speed up the construction progress, they would have to get more people to dig and excavate.

It would not only consume manpower but also financial resources.