The Cannon-Fodder Younger Brother in an Imperial Exam Novel Lives Off His Parents

Pre-release: The Peddler's Daughter's Everyday Life of Supporting Her Family. Please add it to your collection!

Blurb:

I transmigrated into an imperial-examination novel as the male lead's younger sibling, a girl disguised as a boy and a doomed cannon-fodder character who keeps courting death. What should I do?

Jiang Huai thought of her wealthy father, her mother who loved her more than life itself, and her older brother, who would one day achieve the rare honor of placing first in all three imperial examinations, enjoy a boundless future, and rise to the Grand Secretariat.

What else could she do?

Of course she was going to live off her family.

Live off her father now, then her brother in the future.

After she died, she could even count on her nephew to wear mourning clothes for her. What a blissful life.

*

Step one of living off her family: "My parents adore me."

Jiang's father and mother were so delighted by her sweet talk that they willingly spent and spent and spent on their precious son (daughter).

Step two of living off her family: "My brother loves me!"

"Brother, how do you read this character? How do you read this sentence?"

"Brother, the teacher scolded me today, my classmates picked on me, and a dog on the street barked at me!"

"Brother, help! What am I going to do about the county exam? Hurry and teach me!"

Jiang Jinyan really had no idea what to do with the sibling who was supposedly a good-for-nothing, and truly was one.

He had thought he would play the part of a good older brother, but in reality he became Jiang Huai's good playmate, good bodyguard, good teacher, good cook...

Jiang Jinyan said sternly, "Huai, you're a man. You have to learn to stand on your own two feet. You can't depend on other people so much."

Jiang Huai squeezed out a few crocodile tears. "Does Brother hate me now? All right... Then I don't love you anymore, either."

Jiang Jinyan: "...I was wrong. Come here and let me hug you."

As he kept hugging her, Jiang Huai discovered two problems.

First, her good-for-nothing persona had fallen apart. She had actually passed the imperial examinations and become a jinshi! Jiang's father declared that his family ancestors must have made their graves glow with good fortune!

Second, she accidentally overheard Jiang Jinyan say:

"If only Huai were a girl. If only Huai could stay by my side forever..."

Jiang Huai was horrified. "Brother! Get a grip! Your mission is to become a pillar of the court, not to get into a romance with another man!"

*

Jiang Jinyan had spent fifteen years as an adopted son in a farming family, living under someone else's roof and suffering every kind of humiliation.

He had great ambitions, but life never went his way.

He had thought this was how his life would be, until a boy claiming to be his younger brother showed up, crying and calling him "Brother" before stubbornly dragging him back to the Jiang family.

Huai was adorable. Huai was clingy. Huai was... a little slow on the uptake, but that didn't matter. He secretly vowed to protect Huai for the rest of his life.

But who could have guessed that one day Huai would turn out to be Huai's younger sister...

Reading Guide: This is a fictional world with a hodgepodge setting and countless original details. Please don't nitpick the historical accuracy. The heroine has no golden finger. She's genuinely a good-for-nothing who turns her life around.

Pre-release: The Days Spent Cooking in a Bandit Stronghold. Please add it to your collection!

Blurb:

What's it like to transmigrate as an impoverished concubine-born son disguised as a boy, only to be kidnapped and taken to a bandit stronghold?

The realm is in chaos, her father has fled, bandits have stormed the city, and her home has been ransacked.

And the damn bandit chief has a blood feud with her family.

Jiang Tan imagined a hundred different ways she might die and gave a bitter smile. "I want to die with some dignity, and quickly." But the sinister bandit chief just glared at her with a cold laugh. "You want to die? It won't be that easy."

She and several other unfortunate young masters from wealthy families were kicked into a smoky, blazing-hot kitchen to do hard labor, supposedly to atone for once "oppressing the people and bleeding the common folk dry."

Fetching water, chopping wood, washing vegetables, gathering pigweed, feeding pigs, doing laundry, working the fields... The chores were quickly divided up.

Jiang Tan looked at the enormous iron pots. "So... I'm the cook?"

*

The bandits of Qingfeng Stronghold thought they weren't picky eaters. A little too much salt or not enough wasn't a big deal, but what was with the bitter food, the undercooked food, and even food that made them foam at the mouth?

Their boss wouldn't let them go down the mountain to find a decent meal or rob the common people, either. How were they supposed to live like this?

But lately, they'd discovered that a new cook had arrived at the stronghold. He made Dongpo pork that could make anyone's mouth water, along with soy-braised pork hocks, red-braised pork, lion's head meatballs, and pork belly braised with preserved mustard greens. The aroma could knock out half a mountain, making everyone so hungry they wanted to plow two li of fields on the spot.

They'd also noticed that their boss, who used to look like a bandit through and through, had started grooming himself and looking like a proper gentleman.

*

As a bandit chief, Lu Xiao had principles.

He was chivalrous and generous, robbing the rich to help the poor. He only targeted wealthy landlords and corrupt officials who oppressed the weak and exploited the common people.

At first, he looked down on Jiang Tan. A delicate young master who couldn't even kill a chicken, all pale and frail. What good was she besides looking pretty? She needed to suffer a little and shed that air of money and fake refinement.

But one day, after Lu had already been rewarded for helping the new emperor seize the throne and been made a prince, he muttered that today he would restore his authority as a husband, then carefully tapped on the bedroom door.

"A Tan, have you cooled off? Can I come sleep inside tonight? I'll even sleep on the floor!"

Meaning: Always be grateful for what you have.