The life swap begins with Consort Hua becoming Lady Qin.

It felt like a needle pricked my heart.

But Qin Zhengyang still held onto a sliver of hope. He bent down and reached out, wanting to pick it up and examine it closely.

Wang Ruofu snapped out of her daze, alarm bells ringing in her mind.

"Ouch!" he cried out, ignoring the pain in his forehead, and lunged forward to snatch the post back.

"Second Brother Qin, you can't look at this!"

Her movements were so hurried that Qin Zhengyang, still shaken, hadn't noticed her actions.

A muffled "bang" was heard.

Their foreheads collided solidly!

Qin Zhengyang groaned in pain, and stars flashed before his eyes.

Wang Ruofu herself was also teary-eyed from the impact, but seeing Qin Zhengyang's even paler face, she was so frightened that she forgot her own pain and repeatedly said, "I'm so sorry! Second Brother Qin, are you alright?"

She was anxious and flustered. With one hand, she rubbed her reddened forehead, and with the other hand, she subconsciously reached out to rub Qin Zhengyang's forehead to make up for her mistake.

However, she was always stronger than the average girl, and at this moment she was flustered and confused. She didn't control her strength well, and with a soft click, she actually knocked the jade crown that Qin Zhengyang was using to tie his hair askew!

The exquisite white jade crown, already somewhat loosened from the earlier collision, was freed from the hair bun by this last straw. It gracefully arced through the air before landing precisely in the koi pond beside the corridor!

Wang Ruofu: !!

She stared at the rippling water, then at Qin Zhengyang's disheveled black hair, and froze, wishing time could turn back.

"I...I..." she stammered, filled with regret, finally stamping her foot in frustration: "I'll go get it for you right now!"

As she spoke, she took off her embroidered shoes as if she were about to jump into the water.

It's early spring now, but it's actually just past the New Year, the coldest time of the year. The pond water still carries a bone-chilling cold. Qin Zhengyang was so frightened by her reckless and impulsive actions that he was half-scarred. He had no time to think about Sun Baoqi's engagement. Almost instinctively, he reached out and grabbed Wang Ruofu's waist, pulling her back as she was already halfway out of the water!

"Don't go! The water's cold!" he cried urgently.

The man's cool aura, mixed with a faint scent of ink and paper, instantly enveloped us, and the arm around his waist was strong and powerful.

In all his life, Wang Ruofu had never been so close to a man other than his father and brothers. He was struck dumb, instantly freezing into a puppet. His cheeks, ears, and even neck turned bright red at a visible speed, and his mind was buzzing and completely blank.

Feeling the girl in his arms stiffen instantly and her body temperature rise alarmingly, Qin Zhengyang immediately realized that their posture was inappropriate. As if he had been burned, he abruptly let go, took two steps back, and his disheveled hair added to his disheveled appearance.

His ears turned red, his eyes darted around, and he stammered, "Miss Wang, I acted rashly in a moment of panic and had absolutely no intention of offending you!"

Wang Ruofu was still reeling from the earth-shattering encounter, her heart pounding like a drum. Hearing Qin Zhengyang's explanation, she snapped back to reality, waving her hands frantically and stammering, "I understand, I understand! Second Brother Qin, you're a true gentleman, you're just afraid I'll drown myself... no, no! I mean, you're just afraid I'll cause more trouble, I understand, I understand everything!"

She tried hard to gloss over the matter and hide her embarrassment, but then she remembered the culprit's post and quickly tried to salvage the situation: "Brother Qin, you're a good man! A truly good man! A good man will definitely find a good wife! As the saying goes in the folk tales, 'There are plenty of fish in the sea, and a real man need not worry about not having a wife; those destined to meet will find each other even from a thousand miles away…'"

She spoke more and more urgently, wanting to pile up every kind word she knew, but alas, her knowledge was limited, and she quickly ran out of things to say, soon revealing her true intentions:

"In short, I wasn't here today! You didn't see what I had in my hand! There's nothing here! Second Brother Qin, your exam is coming up soon, you absolutely can't let a little... a small setback ruin everything!"

Otherwise, how could she face her good friend Shilan?

"As the old saying goes, 'If you're unlucky in love, you're bound to be lucky in the exam!' Second Brother Qin, you see, it's actually a good omen that Heaven has arranged for you to find out now! It means you'll definitely pass the exam with flying colors and bring glory to your family!"

She started to ramble incoherently.

This long string of words was more difficult for her than reciting the accounts for an entire season. Wang Ruofu spoke breathlessly, her big eyes looking at Qin Zhengyang with a nervous yet sincere expression.

Qin Zhengyang, whose heart was originally heavy and suffocating with pain as if a boulder was pressing on it, found that listening to her unorthodox yet quick-witted encouragement, the grief and disappointment that had been building up in his heart were strangely diluted.

He couldn't hold back any longer. With his hair down, he chuckled softly. The laughter was tinged with bitterness, yet also contained a sense of relief that he himself didn't realize.

He shook his head, looked at the girl before him with a flushed face and bright eyes, and said softly, "Alright, thank you for your kind words, Miss Wang. I will do my best."

Since things have come to this, we might as well look forward.

He once studied to reach for the moon in the sky, but as he grew older, he realized more and more that supporting the Marquis's mansion was the greatest meaning of his studies and taking the imperial examinations.

He could disregard his biased parents and Qin Nanyan's marriage, but he could never allow his younger sister Shilan, who had devoted herself to him since she was a teenager, to have no one to rely on in the future.