Historical

My husband brought home a young woman.

I waited for her to bow and pay her respects, but she started shouting that “all people are born equal.”

I suggested she become his concubine, and she clung to my husband, demanding “one man, one woman, for one lifetime.”

My husband told me to be more accommodating toward her.

I was silent for a long while.

Then I kicked him straight into the sewage ditch.

“You’re the one who’s born equal to dogs. The two of you can go be a pair of dogs for life!”

Chapter 0

Pei Qian forgot me. All because, on the eve of our wedding, he got drunk, took a fall, and forgot he was supposed to take a bride. Was I to believe that, or not?

Naturally, I believed it with the utmost gratitude. Since he had forgotten me, my marriage to him could be written off in one stroke.

I packed up my money and dowry. Boling was no longer an option, so for the time being, I settled down in Hedong.

If my father had not died so early, I feared I never would have come anywhere near the gates of the Pei Family.

My father died after taking elixirs and running naked through the streets. Everyone praised him for being romantic and unrestrained-a true eminent gentleman!

He had only been a concubine-born son of a collateral branch of the Cui Clan, yet within a few days of his death, he had somehow become the pride of the Cui Clan.

For a time, the worth of my sisters and me rose with the tide. The great aristocratic families all came asking for our hands. Mother even forgot to fake her tears. Every day, she beamed with joy as she received one guest and sent off another.

This world had gone mad, and so had the people in it.

After much careful selection, Mother chose Pei Qian, the Second Young Master of the Pei Clan of Hedong, for me.

Everyone said he was elegant, graceful, wild, and unrestrained-the foremost romantic figure of Great Wei.

At that, I thought of my father, sprinting along with all that pale flesh jiggling in the wind.

I despised these so-called eminent gentlemen from the bottom of my heart.

As it turned out, he would rather change his name and identity than marry me. Excellent. That suited me perfectly.

Spending the night in an abandoned temple, I found a thin gauze handkerchief wreathed in fragrance. After nightfall, someone murmured beneath the window:

“My lady, have you perchance seen the handkerchief this humble scholar left behind?”

Through the crack in the door, the figure outside looked so ethereal that it seemed he might drift away on the wind at any moment.

At his words, I couldn’t help recalling the rumors about this place.

They said this temple had been abandoned for ages, and that seductive ghosts haunted the area. Any traveler who got entangled with them would either have their essence sucked dry or be dragged into another world, vanishing without a trace.

With that in mind, I hurriedly cracked open the window and tossed out the piece of cloth I had used to wipe the floor, the windowsill, and my stinky feet.

The other party caught it with lightning-fast reflexes.

Then he stared down at the gauze scarf in his hand, now crumpled and ruined like dried pickled greens, and fell into deep contemplation.

Lady Wang and I went into labor on the same day.

She bore a son, while I bore a daughter.

When I awoke, lines of floating comments suddenly appeared in the air.

[The supporting woman is going to die of rage when she finds out the emperor switched her son for some stray girl.]

[With a family like hers, do you think the emperor would ever have risked letting her get pregnant if it weren’t for our precious Lulu?]

[The emperor is willing to corrupt the imperial bloodline for Lulu. The god of pure love has fallen!]

The next moment, Pei Yangxi carried the baby girl to my bedside.

“Ah Ci, look how adorable our child is.”

Young General Yan was having a spat with the girl who held his heart.

During the night banquet, he had hidden a stem of Evening Magnolia.

He declared that whoever found that flower would become the General’s Wife.

The noble ladies all turned their heads, scanning the room to see where the Evening Magnolia had landed. I remained silent.

I simply used my foot to quietly kick away the flower lying behind my seat.

A moment later, Yan Ci’s nonchalant voice rang out. “I wonder which lady has picked up my flower?”

In the eighteenth year after I transmigrated, I finally became a proper maidservant.

When Old Madam and Second Master quarreled, I was the one who stepped in to smooth things over.

I knelt on the floor, clinging to Second Master’s leg, and begged him not to say things in anger.

Second Master pinched my chin and sneered. “I know Third Brother has his eye on you. But I insist on making you my concubine. Even if he finds out, what of it?”

Of course Third Master would not do anything to Second Master.

He would only kill me without a word.

I belonged to Third Master. He would rather have me dead than defiled.

In their eyes, I was a maidservant, a plaything to be fought over and snatched around.

I was a child bride, bought by the Song Family for five taels of silver.

But Song Jitong didn’t like me; he preferred the daughter of the family living at the east end of the village.

I originally liked someone as handsome as Song Jitong, but eventually, I simply gave up on those feelings. I planned to repay my debt of gratitude to the Song Family, see Song Jitong off to the capital to become the Top Scholar, and then leave.

However, Song Jitong later appeared with an imperial marriage decree in one hand and my redemption money in the other. In the middle of the night, he cornered me against a wall just as I was trying to sneak away with my bags packed. Gritting his teeth, he hissed, “Jiang Miao’er, don’t you dare try to run away.”

Before I could even answer, this elegant Top Scholar-as refined as iris and orchid-was the first to turn red-eyed, looking just as aggrieved as he did when we were children.

“Elder Sister, please don’t abandon me…”

Pei Qi traded cities for a beauty, a grand gesture that became a legendary romance. Unfortunately, I was not that beauty, nor was I Pei Qi; I didn’t even know him.

My husband was merely a soldier defending the city. Because he refused to surrender, he died in that war, though the city was ultimately held.

The following year, when Pei Qi traded cities for his beauty, I became that beauty’s Foot-washing Maid.

The Crown Prince’s White Moonlight, the woman he’d pined after for ten years, had finally returned.

She lifted her chin and looked down her nose at me. “You. Go back to where you came from.”

I lifted my skirts and stepped into the carriage, then turned back to smile at her. “Sorry,” I said lightly, “but this seat? You’re never getting it back.”

My parents had always told me that the less I spoke, the fewer mistakes I would make, so I became a girl of few words.

At the same time, they adored my older cousin’s bright, gracious manner and told me to imitate her in everything.

They loved her so much that when she refused to marry her impoverished fiancé, they did not hesitate to offer me in her place.

Smiling obsequiously at my uncle, my parents assured him, “Han’er is willing to help her sister out of this difficulty.”

My uncle stared at me in surprise and asked, “Han’er, are you truly willing?”

My parents frantically signaled for me to answer.

I nodded and gave them what they wanted.

“I am.”

Relief washed over their faces.

With no expectations of them left to lose, I finally spoke from the heart.

“Anywhere would be better than staying with a pair of fawning, spineless, shamelessly biased parents.”