However, just a few months ago, the joke that the Duke of Jing's mansion had no direct heir to inherit the title was suddenly shattered.

It turns out that the young master Shangguan Hong was once assigned by the emperor to carry out an official mission in the Jiangnan region when he was just over twenty years old.

During this time, he met a beautiful and gentle woman from Jiangnan, and the two secretly pledged their lives to each other.

Just as their love was blossoming, Shangguan Hong was hastily summoned back to the capital by an imperial edict.

The woman from Jiangnan never saw her lover again until her death.

Later, Shangguan Hong returned to the capital and married a noblewoman, but soon after their marriage, he injured his body and became unable to have children.

From then on, the Duke of Jing's mansion became a laughing stock among the nobles of the capital.

Two months ago, the Duke of Jing's mansion suddenly announced that they had found the eldest son of the young master who had been living away from home.

The eldest son's birth mother was naturally that woman from Jiangnan, but unfortunately, she had long since passed away, which saddened the Duke greatly.

But at least now the world knows that Shangguan Hong has a son, and that he has brought this illegitimate child back to the Duke's mansion and registered him under his wife's name.

Naturally, he became his eldest son.

Furthermore, in order to solidify the status of this eldest son, a marriage was arranged for him with Pei Lanyi, the granddaughter of the Earl of Yongchang.

Liu Yingying never expected that Pei Lanyi's fiancé was actually Shangguan Ren!

For some reason, although she had never met Shangguan Ren, whenever she heard his name mentioned, she would involuntarily think of Meng Renhun!

Recalling that day on the street when she saw that familiar face in the carriage, Liu Yingying had a bold guess in her heart…

The second piece of gossip she heard was about the Yong'an Marquis's mansion.

In fact, Liu Yingying went to such lengths to gather as much information as possible about the Yong'an Marquis's mansion.

If necessary, this information could become a sharp weapon aimed at the Marquis of Yong'an's residence!

It is said that Lin Jiaorui, the eldest daughter of the Marquis of Yong'an, fell into the water as a child and injured her brain, becoming an idiot ever since.

A noblewoman from a prestigious family suddenly became an idiot.

When she reached marriageable age, families of equal social standing would naturally be unwilling to marry such a woman and invite ridicule.

In this situation, if the Marquis's family wants to marry off their daughter, they can only do so by marrying her down!

Even if she were to marry down, the prestigious Yong'an Marquis's mansion would still become a laughing stock.

So, in a fit of anger, Marquis Yong'an made a decision to raise his daughter in seclusion.

Anyway, a noble family like ours can afford to support a young lady, so why send our legitimate daughter away to be mistreated?

And so, Miss Lin remained unmarried until she turned twenty.

A year ago, things suddenly took a turn for the better.

A renowned physician traveled to the capital and gave Miss Lin a pill. After that, Miss Lin slept for three days and three nights.

When I woke up, I was completely back to normal!

The Marquis of Yong'an and his wife were naturally delighted that their daughter had recovered.

Thinking back to how her eldest daughter's marriage had been delayed due to her mental disability, now that she had recovered, it was only natural to arrange a good marriage for her.

However, women in this era usually married at the age of fourteen or fifteen. Even if they were noble ladies from noble families, by the time they reached twenty, they were considered old maids by others, and it was not easy for them to find a suitable marriage.

But perhaps it was a stroke of luck that last year coincided with the triennial scientific expedition.

At that time, there was a poor scholar from Ningzhou who passed the imperial examination with flying colors and won the favor of a young lady at a banquet in the Marquis's mansion.

Although he comes from a poor family, he is not young anymore; I heard he has already reached the age of thirty.

Miss Lin is a full ten years older than her!

Fortunately, the scholar was refined and handsome, and he and Miss Lin fell in love at first sight.

Although they were from humble backgrounds, the Marquis of Yong'an's mansion was enjoying the Emperor's favor.

With the support of the Marquis's mansion in the future, as long as he works hard enough, it shouldn't be difficult for him to get into the Three Departments.

After hearing this story, Liu Yingying's focus was not on this seemingly perfect match.

If a person suffers a brain injury in childhood and becomes mentally disabled, even if they regain consciousness many years later, their intelligence will never exceed that before the accident.

How could she possibly fall in love at first sight the moment she woke up?

She had a bold guess: could this legitimate daughter of the Marquis's family also be a substitute who transmigrated from another world, just like herself?

But what does this have to do with her?

Her immediate priority is to gather as much useful information as possible to deal with the Marquis of Yong'an's mansion.

This one is obviously useless!

However, she also gleaned some useful information from the words of those nobles.

The position of the heir of the Yong'an Marquis's mansion is extremely secure!

In this way, the chances of those illegitimate sons inheriting the title by bypassing the legitimate son are extremely slim!

If the sons of concubines wanted to rise in society, they would have to find another way.

Among them, Prefect Lin of Ningzhou Prefecture was such a case.

He wanted his career to be successful, so he didn't hesitate to use underhanded methods to curry favor with the powerful and influential.

It's no secret throughout history that many powerful and influential people in the capital had a penchant for child molestation.

So they searched far and wide for handsome young boys, trained them, and then sent them out to serve those officials.

It is said that even the Vice Minister of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices, Lord Luo, had male prostitutes sent in by Lin Shichang...

Liu Yingying was originally troubled by the fact that the investigation into the missing children had run out of leads.

But now things have given her a glimmer of hope.

She immediately summoned Zhang Xiaohu and asked him to send a few of his men to secretly keep an eye on the Luo residence.

If we could get the chance to meet that child, perhaps we could get some useful information out of him…

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