Drama

My father was the most formidable businessman in the Republic of China. On my seventh birthday, the gift he gave me was a handgun.

I blinked at him. “But Papa, I’m a girl.”

Father pondered for a moment, realizing that it was indeed inappropriate. He then turned to the butler and ordered, “Go have a custom gun made for the Young Miss. Make it pink.”

The moment our daughter was born, my husband immediately named her Xingyue.

He looked at me gently and said, “From now on, you and Xingyue are my most precious treasures in this world.”

I was so touched-until one day, I discovered something.

His ex-girlfriend’s name was also Xingyue.

The tattoo on the back of Wei Yan’s neck was the initials of his ex-girlfriend’s name.

The only reason he had spared me a second glance in that vast sea of people was because my eyes and brows bore a striking resemblance to hers.

It has been ten years since I died.

After a decade, I have finally seen the first person to come and pay their respects at my grave.

It is a man, limping as he walks toward me.

It is my father.

It was the fifth year of our engagement, and Meng Cijun still refused to marry me.

The first time he turned me down, he said the King was placing great importance on him, so how could he indulge in the trivialities of love?

That made sense, so I nodded and waited another two years.

The second time he turned me down, he said that since the King had yet to choose a Queen, how could a mere subject like him marry first?

That made me angry. I felt the King was being completely unreasonable-I had waited so long that I was practically an old maid, yet he still wouldn’t allow Meng Cijun to marry me?

Meng Cijun and I had a fight. In a fit of pique, I left home, only to rescue a palace official who was trying to end his life by the river.

One of the girls selected for the draft had run away, and Wang Shiguan was so distressed he was ready to jump into the water.

“If I enter the palace, will I be able to see the King?”

Wang Shiguan looked at my hair, which was not yet pinned up in the style of a married woman, and my youthful face. He nodded with delight.

“Of course! If you find favor, you’ll see the King every single night!”

“Alright then,” I said, nodding as I gathered my skirts and stepped into the carriage.

Once I saw that King, I intended to ask him exactly why he wouldn’t let Meng Cijun marry me.

“Miss, if you leave, how am I supposed to explain this to Master Meng?” Xiao Tao asked, panicked.

I thought about it for a moment, then pulled back the curtain and waved a hand.

“Just tell Meng Cijun that Ah Wu is still mad at him and won’t be coming home for dinner tonight!”

My boyfriend was acting strange while we were getting intimate.

I was wearing the lace lingerie he’d been looking forward to for so long, yet he wouldn’t even touch me.

The lights were off as I leaned in and breathed into his ear, “I have a surprise for you. Do you like it?”

His breathing became ragged.

I felt a surge of joy, thinking it was finally working.

I hooked my arms around his neck and kissed him even more fervently.

But just then, my boyfriend’s voice suddenly drifted in from outside the door.

“The lights are all on, so why is no one here?”

I froze instantly, my blood rushing to my head.

If Jiang Chen was outside, then who was the man I was holding right now?

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.”

I found a bottle of women’s lubricant in my husband’s bag.

I didn’t argue or make a scene.

I quietly replaced it with a bottle of 502 super glue.

At 2 a.m., the new postpartum nanny was taken to the emergency room.

Discovering my husband’s affair was a trivial matter.

At a dinner with friends, he, who had always been aloof, suddenly took the initiative to serve food to everyone at the table.

Later.

I heard him softly reciting a line from Roman Holiday in the study.

“In order to shake your hand, I shook hands with everyone.”

Ha!

There is a palace rule in the Great Sheng Dynasty: regardless of rank or status, whoever gives birth to a child must raise that child.

Mother was the most insignificant Cairen in the harem.

Ever since I was born, I lived with her in the neglected Chengze Hall.

When I was eight, the Imperial Physician diagnosed Mother with a severe illness and said she did not have long to live.

That day, Mother jumped into the Taiye Pond and saved the drowning Third Prince.

She saved the Third Prince’s life, but lost her own in the waters of Taiye Pond.

Rumors spread throughout the palace. Everyone said, “The Third Prince stepped on Cui Cairen’s head, pushing her underwater so he could climb ashore.”

They fanned the flames, but I knew in my heart that Mother did it on purpose.

She used her own life to ensure that, after her death, I could be taken in by the Third Prince’s birth mother, Consort Qi.

Mother was so foolish.

She thought she had paved a path for me.

She forgot.

A child without a mother leads a bitter life.