Drama

In the two years since my wedding, my husband had never once come home.

Lonely beyond endurance, I bought a convicted slave to warm my bed.

He was certainly diligent between the sheets, but as a person, he was far too vain.

My purse couldn’t take it, so I simply kept him on a poor man’s budget.

Unable to stomach a life of coarse tea and plain meals, he roared, “I don’t want to be your husband anymore!”

Puzzled, I said, “I’m already married. You’re just my kept man.”

His eyes went bloodshot as he gnashed his teeth. “You’re this broke, and you’re still trying to keep a lover on the side like everyone else?!”

And with that, we went our separate ways.

I packed my things and returned to the capital, where I heard that my long-missing brother-in-law had finally come back.

He was kneeling in the ancestral hall and had been given ten lashes.

My mother-in-law was so furious she cursed, “You actually fell for a married woman! Have you no shame at all?!”

I hurried forward to plead on his behalf.

To my surprise, my brother-in-law turned his head, looked at me, and slowly smiled. “Sister-in-law, have you been well?”

I was stunned.

Wasn’t this my vain, status-obsessed kept man?!

Shen Wudu and I spent seven years breaking up and getting back together.

I was in charge of breaking up. He was in charge of getting us back together.

But after the last time I said it was over, he stopped trying to win me back. Instead, he took in a lover who looked almost exactly like me.

To make her famous, he stole my resources.

The Best Actress award I had chased for ten years-he handed it to her with effortless ease.

At the awards ceremony, a reporter asked if I regretted breaking up with him.

I smiled and raised my hand, revealing the diamond ring on my finger.

“I’m getting married.”

The moment the words fell, everyone saw the coldest, proudest Young Master of the Shen Family suddenly turn red-eyed.

I risked my life to save the Commandery Prince and my half sister from drowning.

But because my clothes were soaked through,

they slapped me with the filthy accusation of “deliberate seduction and forcing a marriage to climb the social ladder.”

From the woman who had saved their lives, I became a scheming tramp reviled by all of the capital.

On the day of our wedding, Murong Ling did not even lift my veil. His eyes were filled with disgust.

“You used such despicable means to force me to marry you. I, the Commandery Prince, will never let you have an easy life.”

Yun’e, whom I had dragged ashore with my own hands, twisted her handkerchief, her face full of grievance.

“What a deep schemer you are, Sister. When you saved me, you were swift and decisive, yet under the water, you lingered so intimately with the Commandery Prince for so long…”

I had poured my heart out to save two lives, only to end up condemned from both sides.

I endured every torment the Commandery Prince’s Manor could throw at me.

When I opened my eyes again and saw the two of them bobbing in the river,

I neatly changed direction.

Then I strolled into town and bought a skewer of candied hawthorns.

I took a bite-

So sweet.

In my senior year of high school, the school beauty, Song Shuyao, once came to me to borrow money for medical treatment and asked me not to tell anyone.

As it turned out, she used it to get an abortion. She hemorrhaged and died on the operating table of a shady little clinic.

Years later, Lu Jingnian-the untouchable top student everyone had once admired from afar-pursued me obsessively and proposed to me.

Then, when I was eight months pregnant, he locked me in a basement in the suburbs.

He cut open my belly while I was still alive and said, “This is what you owe Yaoyao and our child.”

Only then did I learn that before Song Shuyao died, she had held his hand and told him not to blame me.

But he was convinced I had deliberately killed the woman he loved and their child.

That day, I died under Lu Jingnian’s butcher knife, my eyes wide open in hatred.

Then, carrying a hatred vast enough to drown the heavens, I returned to the day Song Shuyao came to borrow money from me.

My elder sister once saved Prince Cheng in Yangzhou, back when he was afflicted with muteness.

When he recovered, he personally came to our door to ask for her hand.

But by then, my elder sister was already married and had borne a child. Holding her newborn in her arms, she smiled warmly.

“I am five years older than you, and I only gave birth to this child a few days ago.”

“My younger sister, however, is only a year apart from you. Perhaps she would be a better match.”

Later, Prince Cheng truly did ask to marry me.

But after our wedding, he treated me with the utmost cruelty, forever complaining that my temperament was worlds apart from my sister’s.

“I was wrong. For the bright moon in my heart, I settled for second best and made do by marrying you.”

“And because of that, I have spent my entire life making do.”

Now that I had been reborn, it was once again the day Prince Cheng came to our door.

My elder sister was just about to bring me up.

I spoke first, smiling calmly.

“Sister, I don’t like older men either.”

To whitewash my scheming persona, I kept a respectful distance from the Best Actor on a dating variety show.

But in the livestream, the Best Actor burst into tears.

“Teacher Bai and I have a very pure relationship. Purely speaking, I’m her simp-and I can’t even get her to notice me…”

“Right now, I just miss the days when we were filming together. In the drama, Teacher Bai loved me to death. Unlike now-she won’t even acknowledge me, and she’s out here making ship content of me with other women.”

Meng Yuanxi and I were rescued from the fire at the same time.

But after we woke, her talent shocked the world, and her policy essays stirred the hearts of all who read them.

Even my fiancé, the Crown Prince, wanted to break off our engagement for her sake.

She said that in this world, she was destined to be the winner.

But I only said lazily, “After getting the chance to do it all over again, you still haven’t improved at all…”

The day my childhood sweetheart and I had our worst fight,

he slapped me for the sake of the young woman he loved.

And I, in a fit of rage, broke three of his ribs.

He screamed that he wanted a divorce, but I refused.

I thought we would keep dragging each other down like this until the day we died.

But reality proved me wrong far too quickly.

Three months later, I fell head over heels for a sweet, innocent younger guy.

He kept chasing me for an official title.

So I had no choice but to pull that familiar number out of my blacklist.

When the call connected, the young woman’s playful voice came from the other end.

“Su Yi, you’re too late. Even if you crawl over like a dog and beg for forgiveness now, Ah Xu won’t spare you a second glance.”

Faced with her provocation, I only said calmly, “Tell Zhou Xu I want a divorce.”

The next second, the phone on the other end seemed to be snatched away. A burst of rustling static followed before Zhou Xu’s voice finally came through, trembling despite his best efforts to restrain it.

He said, “Su Yi, don’t you dare.”

I served at the Empress Dowager’s side for twenty years as her chief palace maid.

Steady, dignified, respected by all.

No one knew.

I had borne two children for the Son of Heaven.

Only on her deathbed did the Empress Dowager discover our secret affair.

She held my hand, seeming to sigh.

“Silly child. You kept this from me for so many years.”

“I will issue an imperial decree at once and have you enter the palace as a consort, so mother and children may be reunited.”

In my previous life, I truly did enter the palace.

But by then, Zhao Xun already had a Noble Consort he cherished above all else.

He favored me for a time, then cast me aside without a second thought.

Even my own children acknowledged another woman as their mother.

Now, reborn into this life,

I no longer wanted to be his consort.

Beside the Empress Dowager’s sickbed,

I kowtowed heavily. “This servant would never dare presume upon imperial favor.”

“I beg the Empress Dowager for mercy. Please allow this servant to leave the palace.”

The year Shen Jiuyuan picked me up, I was like a stray dog.

For ten years, I took bullets for him, rooted out traitors for him, and knelt to lick the blood from his shoes.

Everyone said I was Master Shen’s most loyal dog.

Until that night, when he gripped my chin and asked, “What reward do you want?”

I kissed his bloodstained fingertips. “I want you.”

He gave a low laugh and pressed a gun into my hand. “Then kill the person behind you for me.”

I took the gun and turned around, and the mirror reflected my pale face.