A Maidservant in the Ming Dynasty

Overnight, Tao Xiang transmigrated into the Ming dynasty as a hereditary servant in the Marquis of Wuqing’s household.

Her grandfather was a firewood-shed laborer, her grandmother mended clothes in the sewing room, her father watched the side gate in the back lane, and her mother worked as a kitchen helper. The whole family couldn’t scrape together two strings of cash in monthly wages.

A look through the family tree showed nothing but hereditary servants!

Her mother had gone to great lengths to arrange an excellent childhood betrothal for her, and the match was a hereditary servant too.

Damn it, wouldn’t that make her a female slave marrying a male slave, then giving birth to a whole brood of little slaves?

And this was the Marquis of Wuqing’s household, whose entire family would soon be wiped out after the Coup of the Gate!

She couldn’t just avoid getting married, she also had to free herself from her registered status to escape disaster!

At death’s door, Tao Xiang shot upright and immediately got to work planning her career.

The eldest young lady was now old enough to be betrothed, and the madam was choosing her accompanying servants. Tao Xiang thought it over: she wasn’t much of a cook, her specialty was accounting, and her strong suit was makeup.

Since she was still too young for anyone to believe she could keep accounts, she might as well compete for a position as a maid who did hair.

#A Ming Dynasty Graduate’s Guide to Finding a New Job#

#A Maid’s Journey to Freedom#

Reader’s Guide:

1. The heroine has a love interest, but the romance comes in the middle and later parts.

2. This story is set during the Jingtai and Tianshun eras of the Ming dynasty, but everything serves the plot. It’s entirely fictional, so please treat it as a parallel world and don’t scrutinize the historical details too closely.

3. There’s a little bit of household infighting, but the main story follows the heroine and her family as they strive to free themselves from their registered status.

Coming soon: A Widow’s Escape from the Chaos

In the ninth year of the apocalypse, Su Li transmigrated into the body of a widow.

From the start, it was the end of a dynasty, with natural and man-made disasters everywhere and corpses strewn across the land. The moment she opened her eyes, she had to lead a family of elderly, young, sick, and disabled people on the run.

Su Li: It’s fine. She’d been fleeing disasters for nine years already! At least there weren’t any mutated zombies here…

Su Li quickly packed up and set out with the others.

At first, everyone worried that a woman with five elderly and infirm people in tow would only slow them down.

Then they saw her recognize medicinal herbs and wild vegetables, find their bearings and locate water, and take down bandits with a single stroke of her blade!

Everyone spoke in unison: We’ll follow Madam Su!

Su Li crossed dusty plains, climbed over barren mountains and ridges, and endured winter cold and snow.

Her goal was simple: find a safe place with mountains and water, clear a few acres of land, build a courtyard, fill the house with grain and meat, and have three or five friends and relatives nearby. That would be enough!

*

Years later, Su Li had achieved her goal and was leisurely enjoying the shade in her courtyard, eating grapes that a young man had washed and fed to her. Her eldest son suddenly rushed in from outside, looking as if he’d seen a ghost.

“Mother! Mother! Father… Father! I just saw Father!”

When Cui You saw that Su Li didn’t believe him, he turned to Cui Zhuo beside her. “Uncle, Uncle! I saw him clearly. It really was my father. He’s still alive!”

Su Li: “You saw wrong. Your father’s been dead for ages.”

*

Cui Mancang wasn’t just alive, he’d become a lieutenant and taken another wife.

When the new wife learned Su Li was still alive, she insisted that Su Li had to be the secondary wife!

Su Li: “No, no, no. He’s all yours. I’m not fighting you for him. I can divorce him, but he has to give me half his private land and a year’s salary.”

The woman and Cui Mancang agreed on the spot.

Once it was all settled, Su Li held the divorce papers in one hand and the land deed in the other, grinning from ear to ear.

Walking beside her, Cui Zhuo asked softly, “Do your feet hurt today? Want me to carry you?”

Smiling, Su Li expertly climbed onto his back. “Cui Zhuo, the sunset looks so beautiful today.”

Cui Zhuo looked up at the sunset on the horizon. It wasn’t as beautiful as the person on his back.

Theme: Stand on your own two feet and keep thriving.