Adult

I was a female scripture teacher who recited sutras for the madam of the household.

Yet in the middle of the night, someone cornered me behind the incense-draped curtains and asked me who was better-looking: him or the Bodhisattva.

That night, I did not choose the Bodhisattva.

Unfortunately, after barely three months, he came to bid me farewell.

I thought he had simply grown tired of me, so I agreed without fuss.

From then on, he lived beneath the glow of red lanterns, lost in endless pleasure, while I returned alone to the ancient Buddha and my solitary lamp.

Who would have thought that later, when he learned I had been drowned in a pond… He went mad.

A beautiful woman came into my shop one night to have her phone repaired.

With practiced ease, I installed screen-spying software on her phone.

After she left, I opened the monitoring terminal.

Everything happening on the woman’s phone appeared before my eyes in real time.

That thrill of peeping into someone else’s screen had me completely hooked.

Until late that night…

I saw something that made my blood run cold.

The man who had been sleeping in a separate room from me for the past six months was standing there with a pillow in his arms when I blocked him at the top of the stairs.

“The two of us together aren’t even fifty yet. We’re at the age when we should be all over each other. Is sleeping in separate rooms normal?”

He frowned at me, staring so hard that cold sweat prickled down my spine.

At last, he nodded. “Mm. It isn’t very normal.” Emboldened, I snatched the pillow out of his arms and grumbled, “You never used to be like this.”

“What did I use to be like?”

“You used to hold me every night when we slept, and before bed you’d call me your little baby.”

“…Did I?”

“You did!”

Look at me. Do these look like the eyes of a liar?

Chapter 0 My financial backer said I was the only pure white Jasmine Flower in the entertainment industry.

Because I never fought or schemed, because I was obedient and sensible, and because I was utterly devoted to him.

Lately, though, he had developed a particular fondness for a vulgar, gaudy peony.

So the two endorsements and the film role he had originally promised me all went to his new favorite instead.

Plenty of people in the industry were waiting to laugh at me.

I was the only one who let out a long sigh of relief.

At last, I had a reason to change backers.

And my new financial backer had already grown impatient waiting.

In the third month after our wedding, Shao Zhi took me back to Luoyang to pay respects to his clansmen. Along the way, he carefully explained the web of interests within his clan.

When he mentioned his eldest brother, his face filled with pride.

“My eldest brother is a very good man. He taught me riding and archery himself! ”

Now he serves in Luoyang as the Central Army Commander.

He is the one we are going to meet today.

” I hated Luoyang. There, someone had once forced me to drink a ladle of water from the Luo River and swear an oath: from then on, we would each marry another and never disturb each other again. Clutching the konghou in my arms, I only lowered my head and tried to refuse. ”

Ah Zhi, I was once a music courtesan.

I fear I might sully your honored brother’s eyes and ears.

It would be better if I did not meet him…

” Shao Zhi gathered me into his arms with pity and held my hand, telling me not to worry. ”

He won’t mind. I’ll secretly tell you a bit of gossip about my brother.

Before he married my sister-in-law, he once turned the whole world upside down over a music courtesan who played the konghou.

Later, afraid my sister-in-law would grow jealous, he forced that courtesan to drink from the Luo River and swear that they would each marry another and never disturb each other again.

“Besides, you are my wife now, and you play a fine twenty-three-string konghou. For my sake, my brother is sure to like you.”

I am the female lead of a PO novel, thrown into a clean romance novel by the system to be reformed.

Hilarious. I walked straight up to the male lead and said, “Hey, wanna kiss?” The male lead threw me in jail, claiming I had sexually harassed him.

Later on, he became even more unhinged than the male lead of a PO novel.

I am the Empress.

The Emperor wished to take my maid as a concubine, claiming that any child she bore would be recorded under my name.

Later, the imperial physician informed me that I had been pregnant for a month.

I said to the Emperor, “In consideration of your many years without an heir, I shall have this child recorded under your name.”

Because of a bet, Jing Shaochuan lost me to his twin brother.

I acted as if I knew nothing and spent a night of reckless entanglement with his brother.

The next day, I blushed and asked Jing Shaochuan to buy some ointment for me.

“Where are you feeling unwell?” He frowned slightly, his voice deep and cold.

I murmured softly, “You were too rough last night. You hurt me.”

Jing Shaochuan froze visibly.

I took a step forward, hugging him gently and intentionally acting sweet and spoiled.

“But, you were so different last night compared to how you usually are… I really liked it, though.”

I had been nursing a secret crush on Zhuang Jinyu for five years.

My home was filled with life-sized dolls made in his likeness.

While on a business trip, Zhuang Jinyu was caught in a mudslide and ended up comatose in the hospital.

I was wailing his name, sobbing uncontrollably after seeing the news, when a voice drifted down from above me.

It was a lazy, haughty voice, delivered with a biting tone I knew all too well.

“What are you screaming for? Trying to wake the dead?”

My crying jagged to a halt. I spun around in terror. The tall, exquisitely crafted doll standing behind me had actually come to life.

When I was sixteen, the Zhou Family bought me to be a breeder for their lame son, Zhou Yuqing, to bear him children.

Though the agreement was for me to arrive in June, I reported to the Zhou Family in March.

I did this for two reasons: first, to save my own family some grain, and second, to leave a good impression on my future master.

But Zhou Yuqing despised me for being a country bumpkin and called me stupid.

He said I wasn’t nearly as delicate or pretty as Miss Su next door.

Even as he shared my bed, he looked down on me for being dirty.

“You must bathe four times with green jasmine and white champaca, then comb your hair with osmanthus oil. Miss Su uses osmanthus oil-have you got that through your head? ”

“If you serve me well next time, this young master might just grant you a formal title.”

I nodded, scrubbing myself with a loofah until I nearly rubbed my skin raw.

Suddenly, someone grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and hauled me, dripping wet, out of the tub.

It was Madam Liu, the broker who had sold me. She was in a frantic rush as she dragged my naked, fragrant body toward the door.

“Good heavens! It’s all wrong, all wrong! It wasn’t the Zhou Family who bought you-it was the Zou Family!”