The Hearthside Scion

Shen Zhibai transmigrated to the Great Liang dynasty and became the second son of Shen Song, the Hebei Regional Commissioner known as "the most corrupt official under heaven."

The original owner was a notorious wastrel in the border city, fond of cockfighting, horse racing, drinking, and brothels. He was buried in tavern debts and couldn't do a single respectable thing.

His first assignment was to escort his father's birthday tribute for the Longevity Festival to the capital, a journey of more than twenty days along the postal roads.

No one knew that this seemingly useless Second Young Master Shen had a whole set of long-lost traditional crafts in his head. Not only could he smelt iron and forge steel, he could also fire ceramics, make ink, grind cinnabar, and mix lacquer. Every ancient craft handed down by the ancestors, from firing temperatures to ingredient ratios, was at his fingertips.

But the Great Liang dynasty favored civil officials over military ones, and the Shen family commanded tens of thousands of frontier troops. They were already the family the emperor had the most reason to keep an eye on. If the son of a frontier commander privately employed craftsmen or made objects in secret, either offense alone would constitute treason.

He could only hide his skills. He wore one layer after another of his wastrel disguise, and the fire in his furnace never dared burn above half strength. He couldn't reveal even the slightest hint of his edge.

All he had wanted was to survive, pretend to be foolish for the rest of his life, and slowly recover in this life the old methods he hadn't had time to restore in his previous one.

But as he traveled south, he saw the frontier troops' battle sabers shatter at the slightest impact and the commoners' hoes break with a single dig. In the end, the fire in the furnace simply couldn't be held down.