The Heir's Stratagem: A Concubine-Born Son Takes Charge of the Household

## The Heir’s Strategy: The Concubine-born Son Takes Charge

Chapter One: Keeping Watch at the Ancestral Hall on a Bitterly Cold Night, a Hidden Edge in the Shadows

It was the twentieth year of Qing’an, under the Great Zhou dynasty.

The snow was falling in great, fluffy flakes, as if the heavens were giving it away for free. It came pouring down, blanketing the entire city of Qing’an in a hush and turning everything white.

In weather like this, most people would have burrowed under the covers long ago, cuddling their warm wives and sipping a little wine. Now that was the life!

But Chen Ke was the concubine-born son of the third branch of the Chen family in Qing’an. He had no choice but to stand shivering at the entrance to the Chen ancestral hall in a tunic as thin as paper.

Oh, mother of mine, what kind of lousy weather is this?

Chen Ke cursed every one of the Chen family ancestors in his heart.

If his seemingly “kind” legal mother, Madam Wang, hadn’t sent him here, would he be standing out in the cold like this?