At the Beginning

In the year 189, Luoyang, Suzaku Avenue, Drunken Immortal Pavilion.

The once-glorious Han Dynasty was nearing its twilight.

Yet the imperial capital, Luoyang, remained bustling and prosperous.

After all, a starving camel is still bigger than a horse, isn't it?

On the second floor of the Drunken Immortal Pavilion along Suzaku Avenue sat a handsome youth of about fourteen. Though not particularly tall, he was full of vigor, his eyes bright and piercing as he sipped wine and observed the endless flow of people along the street.

Soon, his thoughts drifted to another time and place.

***

Donghai City was a thriving coastal metropolis.

Towering skyscrapers rose one after another.

With limited land and a dense population, the city had no choice but to compete with the sky for space.

The proliferation of high-rises gave rise to a new service industry: high-altitude cleaning. Many buildings soared tens or even hundreds of meters high.

Even looking down from inside could induce dizziness. The lower floors were manageable, but once the glass on the upper levels became dirty, cleaning it posed a serious challenge.

Not everyone had the courage to open windows dozens of meters above ground to wipe the glass — after all, this was a matter of risking one's life to earn a living.

Thus, the high-altitude cleaning service was born.

Yuan Xi was bold and, most importantly, unafraid of heights. A graduate of a second-tier university struggling to find a job, one day while sitting in the city park and gazing at the towering buildings, inspiration struck. He began working in cleaning. Though the workload was light, the high-risk environment meant that each cleaning job paid well—three to five thousand coins at least—enough to make Yuan Xi hesitate to move without good reason.

West Garden Elegance Apartments was one of Yuan Xi’s major clients. The building stood twenty-seven stories high, over a hundred meters tall, and under his contract with the property management, the glass was to be cleaned ten times a year.

The August sun was scorching, capable of burning skin, but Yuan Xi had no choice but to bring his team here. After a recent rain, dust had stained the entire building, turning it into a patchwork of dirt.

To avoid the midday heat, Yuan Xi scheduled the work from five to ten in the morning, dividing tasks carefully.

He sat on a suspended chair, cleaning floor by floor from top to bottom.

If you’ve seen scenes in movies where a character named Jing Hao cleans windows, it was something like that.

On the eighteenth floor of West Garden Elegance Apartments,

Li Guo’er returned home utterly exhausted. She had worked through the night again, yet her tasks remained unfinished.

As an editor for online literature, Li Guo’er loved her job, though she occasionally grumbled about the unsightly dark circles under her eyes.

Thankfully, this busy period would soon pass, and she thought to herself that then she could finally rest.

***

Li Guo’er didn’t collapse onto her bed to sleep after entering. The worst drowsiness had already passed with the dawn.

Instead, though tired from sitting all day, she headed to the bathroom, filled the tub with hot water, and planned to soak and relieve her exhaustion.

“Ah, the water’s just right,” she murmured.

Looking into the mirror, Li Guo’er admired the curvaceous, seductive figure reflected back at her, a faint smile of pride curling her lips—the perfect S-shaped silhouette.

“Truly beautiful. Even I’m tempted,” she said to herself.

Recalling the covetous gazes of men, she felt no embarrassment; as a modern woman, she was proud. “Hmph, they can drool all they want.”

“Such a stunning beauty, so alluring and charming; what a pity no one knows which beast she’ll end up with. Alas, what a shame!” she teased herself with a smirk.

Li Guo’er, indulging in her vanity, stepped gracefully into the pool.

Leaning back, she let the rippling water lap at her smooth skin and picked up a finely bound book from a nearby chair.

Thus, Li Guo’er quietly immersed herself in reading.

The book was titled The Yuan Clan. Besides editing, Li Guo’er also wrote online novels, but unlike many women who favored romance and love stories, she preferred historical works.

Deep in concentration, she remained oblivious to a beast outside the window—a man suspended in midair, humming as he cleaned glass.

But soon, the humming ceased entirely.

With a piggish face and drooling, he stared hungrily at the woman through the glass.

Li Guo’er’s perfect, exquisite figure was just a meter away from Yuan Xi’s eyes.

It seemed as if Yuan Xi could reach out and touch her.

The gentle ripples of water could not conceal the perfection beneath.

Yuan Xi was stunned, swallowing hard without realizing it.

A sound escaped him, and Li Guo’er, absorbed in her reading, finally sensed a feeling of being thoroughly watched.

She realized she was being seen.

Seeing the drool on the glass, Li Guo’er raised a delicate brow and suddenly stood up from the water.

She flung open the window and confronted the shameless voyeur.

“Hmph, enjoying the view, are you?”

***

With a slight frown, Li Guo’er did not scream but casually grabbed a towel to wrap her graceful body before rising slowly.

“Ah, uh, well, I wasn’t doing it on purpose. I’m cleaning the glass. I—I’ll leave right now,” Yuan Xi stammered, his face flushed with embarrassment.

“Alright then. I’ll pretend your earlier actions were unintentional. But what are you doing now?” Li Guo’er flicked her hair, her tone teasing yet indignant.

“Well, I’m not—” Yuan Xi was dumbfounded, his mind blank. He knew women today were fierce, but surely there were limits.

Besides, he didn’t want to stare, but with her showing off her figure like this...

If he didn’t look, he wouldn’t be a man. Yuan Xi took a deep breath.

Damn it, things had already come this far—didn’t that say something? He was definitely branded a pervert now.

Having read many romance novels, he couldn’t help but feel a protagonist’s sense of destiny.

Perhaps this was a match made by heaven.

Maybe this beauty he’d seen through would secretly fall for him, refusing to marry anyone else.

With such thoughts, Yuan Xi’s hand, like a mischievous spirit, reached out to touch the pair of soft, exquisite curves so close at hand.

Li Guo’er never expected this shameless pervert to dare reach out like that. Was he mad? Her precious assets were being grabbed.

Instinctively, she swung the thick book, The Yuan Clan, at Yuan Xi.

***

For two hundred years during the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Yuan family’s ancestors, beginning with Yuan An, had, through generations of painstaking effort, built the Yuan clan into the greatest aristocratic family of the late Eastern Han, unmatched across the land for over a century and a half.

Yet all things rise and fall, be they individuals, families, or nations.

Behind the Yuan family’s honor in the late Eastern Han lay endless decay.

The birth of Yuan Xi brought new vitality to the Yuan clan.

Emperor Taizong of Jin, Emperor Xuanwu, Yuan Xi, the Three Kingdoms, and the end of the Han Dynasty.