After Reading Minds, a Farmer's Son Is Forced to Support His Family

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With the realm at peace, the Li family, once poor peasants, became the founding dynasty's Duke of Huguo.

Li Daniu, who had been planting rice seedlings with his grandmother, became the Duke's eldest legitimate son. Unfortunately, his birth mother had died young. The Duke returned home in glory, with a beautiful woman in his left arm and a precious little child in his right, looking like a happy family of three.

The dark, skinny Li Daniu was stunned.

Unexpectedly, he overheard the beautiful woman's thoughts: [The novel's three-dynasty grand councilor, a remarkable man who diligently governs the realm for his lovestruck family, was actually a pitiful little boy as a child?]

The little wretch was taken aback and realized things weren't as he had imagined.

The beautiful woman's name was Cui Yue. Captured with her former husband's child, she had later been given to the Duke of Huguo as a concubine. She looked like a bewitching fox spirit, but was so foolish she hadn't noticed the scheming beneath his honest appearance. She also loved gossip...

The Empress invited the families of the newly ennobled to a banquet. Cui Yue used her status as a concubine as an excuse not to enter the palace, inwardly lamenting: [Too bad I can't watch the scumbag emperor's wife-chasing-to-the-crematorium arc. But should I warn Niu Niu that the Empress is keeping the Duke of Huguo as a backup to make the emperor jealous? And... never mind. The Empress will feel guilty about it and adopt Niu Niu anyway.]

Niu Niu, now Li Zirui, listened to the emperor and empress kindly questioning him, and answered with an honest expression: "Concubine? Isn't Madam Cui my stepmother?"

"Father, you... You wronged my mother. Are you going to wrong Madam Cui, too, when she waited so long for you, prayed for your safe return, and knows about the twenty-seven scars on your body?"

The emperor, who had planned to eliminate a certain man whose achievements threatened to overshadow the throne: "??!"

When the Duke of Huguo got married, Li Zirui, serving as matchmaker, once again heard his stepmother's thoughts: [Why hasn't that Li fellow died yet? Being a concubine would be better. Then I could get paid to fool around. I'm sick of people nagging me to have a baby. Instead of that, why not study postpartum care for sows? I want roast suckling pig.]

Li Niu Niu gave his father a complicated look, then said considerately, "Father, don't just sit around with Mother. Have a little brother or sister! I'll take care of them!"

The Duke of Huguo looked at the book on postpartum care for sows that had been solemnly pressed into his hands and fell silent.

While managing the household, Li Zirui also helped his younger stepbrother make the list of successful candidates in the imperial examinations, setting him on the path from licentiate to provincial graduate. He felt he had done justice to the name Niu Niu.

Unexpectedly, he heard his stepmother's thoughts again, this time in a rather agitated voice: [Dear sister, please show yourself! Why doesn't Erdan want to lie flat like me? Why is he so determined to take the exams? What if someone finds out he's the former dynasty's little emperor?]

[What should we do? Maybe I should persuade Old Li to usurp the throne and steal the heroine? Then Niu Niu could be crown prince, and Erdan could at least become a prince?]

Li Zirui: "???"

Theme: Family affection has to be mutual.