The sky over Danzhou City suddenly turned gloomy, the dark clouds overhead heavy, like sodden rags, or cotton candy cooked for too long, hanging over everyone's heads.

But the people who lived by the sea were long accustomed to this kind of weather, knowing that there was still plenty of time before the rain and wind would come, so they weren't particularly alarmed. Unlike in previous years, the handsome illegitimate son of the Sima Earl's residence always liked to run to the roof of the residence's courtyard before the summer typhoons arrived and shout to the whole city, "It's going to rain! Everyone, hurry and take in your clothes!"

"Young Master Fan, why haven't you been telling everyone to take in their clothes lately?" Along Danzhou Port's only main street, filled with food stalls and trinkets, the vendors looked at the handsome boy walking through the crowd and jokingly called out.

Fan Xian smiled shyly and didn't say anything, leading the large maid by the hand as he walked towards the residence, a piece of tofu resting in his other hand.

Everyone knew that the Earl's illegitimate son was different from the average noble young master, preferring to help the servants, especially the maids. They were used to seeing it and weren't surprised.

It had been nearly six years since Fei Jie left Danzhou. Fan Xian had grown into a handsome young man with a hint of composure.

Back in the residence, he first had the servants take the tofu to the kitchen, then paid his respects to the ailing old mistress, slipping a piece of paper from beside the old woman into his pocket. Only then did Fan Xian return to his study. He took out the letter sent by his sister from the capital, placed it beside the paper, and the expression on his face immediately became interesting.

This year, the Emperor of Qing suddenly, unexpectedly, changed the era name to Qing Li. The era name was the same as the country's name, which felt somewhat strange. Although the civil officials and nobles in the capital dared not voice any objections on the surface, they would grumble a few words in secluded corners. Especially those pedantic scholars, whether from the Modern Text School or the Ancient Text School, whether old fogeys from the National Academy of Education or porridge-drinking novelists, couldn't help but offer their opinions in articles submitted for review by the Eighth Office of the Supervisory Council.

The sequel to the era change was the implementation of new policies, but the new policies seemed to lack novelty, focusing only on rectifying officialdom. The only thing that the subjects of the realm found new and wonderful was that, in the first year of Qing Li, an imperial decree suddenly came from the palace: the inner court was starting a newspaper.

Newspaper? No one understood what that thing was. It wasn't until the inner court actually printed the first newspaper that everyone finally made a sound of understanding, then no one took it seriously anymore.

Because this newspaper was a product exclusively controlled by the palace, and the sample copy of each day had to be personally approved by His Majesty the Emperor before it could be printed, it was simply impossible to publish any articles that would cause trouble for the empire's rule.

And after several issues of the newspaper, priced as high as one silver coin, were bought by those in the capital who loved to try new things, some powerful and wealthy families couldn't help but feel that they had been tricked by His Majesty the Emperor. Were they preparing to build a new garden in the palace again?

The thin sheet of paper contained no valuable content. It only wrote about scenic spots around the country, biographies of figures from the previous dynasty, and the largest part of the page, with cloud-like floral borders printed around it, recorded the private lives of many officials in the capital, such as the director of the Military Academy being brutally beaten by his shrewish wife, or why the commander of the capital garrison had lost a front tooth, things like that.

There were also some gossip news involving neighboring Northern Qi and Dongyi City, but Qing officials only paid attention to their own affairs. At first, they could laugh and joke, but when it was their turn to be exposed, they realized the taste of embarrassment. They wanted to find trouble with the newspaper, but how could they when the backstage boss was the Emperor? They could only reluctantly give up.

Very few copies of the newspaper were printed. There were only two copies in the entire Danzhou Port, and one of them was exclusively for the Earl's residence.

When Fan Xian stole the newspaper that the servants were gossiping about from his grandmother's room, after quickly skimming through it, he really couldn't control his facial expressions. He opened his mouth wide, wishing he could stuff his fist in it... What era is this? There's actually a gossip newspaper... supervised by imperial order!

...

...

Another new policy was the imperial promulgation of the "Postal Law." Nowadays, postal routes were smooth, so the brother and sister could secretly communicate without fear of being discovered by others.

Fan Xian frowned, looking at the newspaper in front of him. During this time, he had heard many people on the street talking about the new policies. In his opinion, these were purely the products of His Majesty the Emperor's nonsense, but everyone in the world knew that His Majesty the Emperor was not a person who did nonsense.

Fan Xian had no desire to change this world, and no interest in changing this world, but when certain aspects of this world became somewhat similar to his previous world, he naturally wanted to know what was hidden behind these things.

After this very convoluted thought process, he still couldn't figure it out. He smiled bitterly and pushed the newspaper aside, thinking to himself in self-deprecation, could there be another person who had transmigrated over, and a particularly ambitious one at that?

But these things were none of his business, while the letter next to the newspaper was inextricably linked to him.

In Fan Xian's memory, Fan Ruoruo was that little sister who was somewhat related to him by blood, who had spent a short childhood in Danzhou City many years ago, who was dark and skinny, and not as pretty as this shell of his.

He hadn't seen her for many years, and he didn't know what the little girl looked like now, whether the sparse yellow hairs on her head had turned black, whether she had become prettier. Fan Xian even forgot whether his sister should be called Fan Ruo, or Fan Ruoruo.

"I really am an unqualified brother," he thought to himself in self-deprecation. Although he had a strange soul that had lived two lifetimes inside him, he was still that girl's older brother by blood, and he had indeed shown her less concern on weekdays. After Fan Ruo started school two years ago, she often sent letters from school to Danzhou Port, while Fan Xian was practicing that domineering True Qi, receiving grueling training from the blind Wu Zhu, and reviewing the book of toxicology left behind by Teacher Fei Jie, so he rarely replied.

Counting it, Fan Ruoruo should be ten years old this year. For some reason, perhaps the childhood ghost stories left too deep an impression, this legitimate young lady of the Earl's residence was very dependent on her brother far away, and often sent letters of greeting. In the first half of the year, the letters often expressed her longing for her grandmother and memories of life in Danzhou, but in the letters of the past half year, she only occasionally talked about family matters, mostly talking about the boring days in the capital's residence.

Fan Xian's fingers gently traced across the letter, a hint of worry on his beautiful face.

The letter was in his sister's slightly immature handwriting, writing about her recent life in the capital, entering a school that only daughters of noble families could enter, and it seemed that everything was following the trajectory that everyone like her in this world should follow.