Drama

A year after I married Xie Yunye, he met with danger at the border and was saved by a passing female physician.

To repay her for saving his life, he brought her back to the manor and took her in as his sworn sister.

Gu Qinghan never married after that. She practiced medicine all her life, healing the sick and earning the people’s deep respect.

Later, when Xie Yunye was poisoned, she tested medicines day and night. In the end, the accumulated poison took her life.

And I became the Old Madam of the Marquis Manor for fifty years.

My son was afraid I would be hurt, so he never let me enter the ancestral hall.

Only when I was on my deathbed and wanted to offer Xie Yunye one last stick of incense did I discover that a memorial tablet had appeared in the hall. On it were the words: Wife of Xie Yunye, Gu Qinghan.

My son sighed helplessly. “Mother, Father said before he died that only after meeting Aunt Gu did he understand who his true love was. Sadly, Aunt Gu was too proud to become a concubine, so he promised her burial beside him as his lawful wife.”

“Mother, it is only a title. Once a person dies, everything is empty. Please let Aunt Gu have it.”

When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day Xie Yunye brought Gu Qinghan home.

“Rong Yu, Qinghan has no father or mother. I want to take her in as my sworn sister. You…”

My expression was indifferent. “As you wish, my lord.”

“I once blew thirty-five thousand on a man in a single night.”

Everyone thought I was drunk and talking big, and the room burst into laughter.

Only one person remained expressionless. He was the star of the night.

The entire department had taken turns playing Truth or Dare, all for the sake of buttering him up and securing the seven-figure ad placement case in his hands.

When the drinking was over and everyone had left, the man looked at me, the only one who had stayed behind.

His gaze was indifferent, his tone laced with mockery.

“Director Yu, how many years ago was that? And you still remember it so clearly?”

I’m a good-for-nothing.

My husband, on the other hand, is a golden boy who has appeared on the cover of a finance magazine twelve times.

Later, he told me all of those covers had been bought and paid for.

Then, claiming he didn’t want to drag me down, he decisively asked for a divorce.

Wait… did I marry into a fake wealthy family?

I was airing out my belongings at home when a messenger suddenly arrived from the Capital, bearing news that the General’s Wife was gravely ill.

On her deathbed, she wished to see her best friend one last time.

By the time I rushed there, I found my dear friend lying on her sickbed, her life hanging by a thread.

Her husband hadn’t visited her even once.

Instead, only his favored concubine came every day to gloat:

“Sister is truly pitiable. You’ve feigned illness so many times that now retribution has finally caught up with you.”

My friend gripped my hand, her voice dry and raspy.

“Ah Fu, I’m dying.”

“I’ve left some things for you. You must…”

“I don’t want them.”

I interrupted her, casually picking up a gold hairpin and plunging it into the concubine’s throat.

“I’m here to settle your scores.”

My mother was mad for her entire life.

Before she died, she left me a vast fortune and a note.

The note read: Survival Rules for a Tragic Romance.

One: Never pick up a man by the roadside, especially one who has lost his memory.

If you have already picked him up, sever all ties with him at once.

Ignore this rule at your own peril.

Two: Remember that human beings possess an organ called a mouth.

Besides eating, a mouth can also be used to speak.

When someone misunderstands you, use your mouth to explain the truth in a timely manner.

Three: There are many ways to repay a debt of gratitude.

They do not include forcing your savior into marriage, then deliberately neglecting, suppressing, and abusing her.

If any of the above occurs, flee immediately.

“Sis, you can have the female lead role!”

At the wedding venue, I clutched the hand of the male lead’s unattainable first love, sobbing my heart out.

“Whoever wants it can take it. I sure don’t!”

After transmigrating into a docile-wife romance and learning that I was expected to give the male lead eighteen children, I immediately started looking for someone to take my place.

Who would’ve thought that the frail first love, who’d always seemed one breath away from death, would sit bolt upright from her sickbed and cry: “If you don’t want it, then I don’t want it either!”

As if by tacit agreement, our gazes both turned toward the trembling third female lead.

On the day I confessed to my crush, I suddenly discovered that I was just cannon fodder in a novel.

A sudden System notification informed me that the man standing before me was the Male Lead.

The plot was about to kick off, and the Female Lead would soon be making her grand entrance.

It was destiny; I was fated to be nothing more than a background character.

Suddenly, my rebellious streak flared up.

Before anyone could react, I leaned in and planted a loud kiss right on the Male Lead’s cheek.

Both the System and the Male Lead were frozen in shock.

I transmigrated into the daughter of a mistress.

When I arrived, my mistress mother was sobbing her heart out.

“What happened?” I asked.

She said, “The Qi family sent word: either they cancel Bai You’s engagement, or they replace her with Bai Zhuo.”

I rubbed my forehead. “And that’s worth crying over?”

My mother stared at me. “How is it not? Haven’t you studied this hard so you can enter a good university and become a better match for the Qi family’s young master? I lost to that woman my whole life. Must my daughter lose to hers too?”

In my fourth year as Song Jingyuan’s kept woman, he tired of me and asked to break up.

I had meant to cry, make a scene, and threaten to kill myself to keep him, putting on the same devoted performance that had pleased him countless times before.

But the floating comments before my eyes said he meant it this time.

He had fallen for someone else, and this truly would be the last time we ever met.

I fell silent at once.

While tears slipped down my face, I hooked a bill from the floor with my little finger, rolled it into my palm, and tucked it deeper into my sleeve.

In the year of famine, disaster fell upon our entire village.

My little brother was so hungry he no longer had the strength to cry, yet his small belly was swollen tight and shiny.

Mother held him in her arms and sat on the threshold, motionless, like a clay idol that had lost its soul.

In the pot was Guanyin clay boiled in clear water. Eating it made your stomach swell, and then you couldn’t pass it.

“Girl…” Father finally spoke. “Don’t blame your mother and me for being cruel… In the palace, in the palace there’ll at least be a mouthful of food.”

When the human trafficker came in, he brought with him a gust of dry, cold wind.

“She’s decent-looking enough, just a bit too thin and weak.

“Three pecks of millet. Not a grain more.”

I saw Father’s hand trembling violently as he pressed his handprint onto that sheet of paper.

Three pecks of golden-yellow millet were poured into the only broken grain jar in our home, making a soft rustling sound.

It was such a beautiful sound-the most beautiful sound I had ever heard.

My little brother would probably live through this winter.