Historical

To scrape together the money for my younger brother’s treatment, my father sold me to Yihong Tower.

On the eve of the day I was going to be forced to receive clients, Miss Zhao bought me.

Miss Zhao is my benefactor.

If she tells me to stab someone, I immediately sharpen the knife first.

If she tells me to set a fire, I ask her whether ten barrels of lamp oil will be enough.

If she tells me to go on a matchmaking date in her place…

Huh??

My eyes went as wide as bronze bells, and I asked Miss Zhao in horror, “What if Young Master Pei takes a liking to me?”

For three years, I washed the backside of the bedridden, paralyzed heir to the Marquis of Zhenbei.

He mocked me for it all the time.

“Chunxi, if you’re willing to wash even my most private parts, is there anything you wouldn’t do?”

“Do you think that just because the Chancellor’s daughter broke off our engagement, you’ll get to become my proper wife?”

“A lowborn woman like you, willing to stoop to anything to get ahead, isn’t even fit to be my concubine.

The best you could hope for is to warm my bed!”

Later, he learned to walk again, and I left with my silver.

Three years after that, he distinguished himself on the battlefield and asked for my hand as his reward.

But by then, I was already washing backsides at the Prince Regent’s estate.

“Heir Xie, aren’t you misunderstanding something?

I only agreed to serve you back then because the job paid three taels of silver a month.”

“Now I serve the Prince Regent’s heir for thirty taels a month.

Please don’t ruin this for me!”

I am the best cook in the capital. No one has ever said my food was bad.

That is, until my noble ex-fiancé-the one who broke off our engagement-ate a meal I prepared.

“This tastes awful. It’s a good thing I didn’t marry you.”

I calmly packed away the bowls and chopsticks. “It’s your Last Meal Before Execution. You’re still being picky?”

That’s right. I am a cook who specializes in delivering the Last Meal Before Execution to death row prisoners.

At seven, Jinxi is sold to the Marquis of Martial Valor’s household and trained to become a dowry concubine for its formidable legitimate daughter.

Knowing that one wrong move could cost her life, the transmigrated girl hides her intelligence and searches for a way out.

Her chance comes in the innocent Ninth Prince, but every kindness in the marquis’s household carries a price.

As Jinxi rises from purchased pawn to legitimate daughter and princess consort, she discovers that the ruthless women around her are neither as simple nor as heartless as they first appeared.

One year into her marriage, Xie Wu refuses when her husband asks to take Lin Manrou as his concubine. The feud that follows costs Xie Wu her unborn child, her reputation, and thirty years of freedom—only for her to learn that both women were pawns in her husband’s plan to marry the cousin he truly loved. Reborn on the day he makes the same request, Xie Wu says yes. This time, she will play the dutiful wife, give every rival exactly what she wants, and quietly turn the Marquis of Annan’s household into a board on which only she knows the next move.

When I went to the Capital to seek refuge with my elder sister, I saved two young noblemen who were being robbed by river bandits.

I had heard that nobles in the Capital loved nothing more than repaying a life-saving debt with their hand in marriage.

So I took both of their personal jade pendants.

My plan was to make careful inquiries about their character once I arrived in the Capital, then decide whether or not I wanted to claim that debt of gratitude.

Who would have thought that the moment I saw my sister, I would hear the strangest thing?

On her way to the Capital, the Marquis’s Mansion’s cousin young lady had saved the Fourth Young Master and the Fifth Young Master. Now, she was being honored as a distinguished guest.

As for me, a wild girl from Nanzhou, I was instantly made to look like a little beggar beside that refined and well-mannered cousin young lady.

Even my sister was worried. “Now the Old Madam will definitely be in a hurry to arrange a marriage for the cousin young lady first. What are you going to do?”

My mistress prides herself on being a virtuous wife, even as she forces her husband’s bedmaids to drink mercury-laced contraceptive draughts.

When one girl dies and another is sold, my mistress chooses me as the next woman for her husband’s bed.

She does not know that I was once a modern physician—or that I have stopped waiting for mercy.

If this household refuses to recognize its servants as people, I will teach its masters the price of treating women as things.

In her previous life, Jin Bao was a little zombie king. After transmigrating, she became weak and helpless, beaten by an aunt and uncle who weren’t even related to her by blood.

By a twist of fate, she was bought by the Marchioness of Loyalty and Bravery. One moment, she had just become the legitimate daughter of the Marquis’s Mansion; the next, the entire household was destroyed, its property confiscated and the whole family sentenced to exile.

Jin Bao awakened a random Heavenly Eye, granting her glimpses of the past and future.

On the road to exile, while others gnawed on tree bark and dug up grass roots to survive, the people of the Marquis’s Mansion picked up gold, unearthed ginseng, and ate fluffy white steamed buns with roasted meat.

The path of exile was fraught with danger: assassinations, ambushes, plagues, swamps…

Guided by Jin Bao’s Heavenly Eye, they quietly defused every crisis, then turned around and sent their enemies a delightful surprise package.

Everyone believed the bitterly cold Northern Frontier was nothing but barren wasteland.

But Jin Bao led her family to build a city there, reclaim the land, open trade routes, and train soldiers.

When chaos engulfed the realm and the people were plunged into misery, the world finally realized that the great city of the Northern Frontier, once dismissed as a savage, desolate land, had become the only sanctuary under heaven.

After rescuing my young nephew from the water, I went to the east wing to change my clothes.

But my brother-in-law, Zhao Hong, chose that exact moment to shove the door open and barge in, forcing me into a marriage with him as his second wife.

On the night before the wedding, my legitimate mother personally brought me a bowl of Sterilization Decoction.

I pushed the bowl away and looked up at her. “If you dare force me to drink it, the first thing I’ll do is make sure the Zhao Family has no descendants. Do you believe me?”

My legitimate mother flew into a rage and immediately went to complain to Zhao Hong.

Zhao Hong sneered. “Scheming women like her aren’t fit to bear my children.”

My eight-year-old nephew shouted too,

“Bad woman! You’re not fit to be my mother!”

I looked at Zhao Hong. “Since I’m not fit to bear your children, then don’t come to my bed.”

“From now on, the child’s food, clothing, lodging, schooling, future prospects, and dignity in front of the nobles… none of it has anything to do with me.”

“If my lord thinks I’m so scheming, perhaps he should raise the child himself.”

Before I transmigrated here, I worked in HR at a major tech company.

Aside from competence, the job also required knowing how to spot workplace PUA when you saw it.

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.”