Historical

After being reborn, I met Song Shixing again.

He was slumped at the end of an alley, covered in wounds and barely clinging to life.

I knew that in three years, he would become the ruler who stood at the pinnacle of the world.

And I would be his empress. Power and riches would all be within my grasp.

But this time, I didn’t want to save him.

Song Shixing, in this life, I don’t want anything to do with you ever again.

Chapter 0 I went to the capital in search of my fiancé.

Before formally presenting myself at his door, I first made some inquiries about his character.

That was when I learned he had a childhood sweetheart who had grown up with him, as well as another young lady he had admired for many years.

The romantic entanglements among the three of them had become the talk of the city.

I knew then that this marriage could not go through.

So I exchanged the marriage contract for a promise from the Madam of the Marquis Manor: I would withdraw from the engagement of my own accord, but as a lone orphan, life in the capital would not be easy for me.

I hoped the Marquis Manor would raise me for a few years as they would one of their own daughters.

Once I turned sixteen, I would leave on my own.

The Madam of the Marquis Manor agreed.

From then on, I lived and ate at the Marquis Manor.

Like the young ladies of the household, I studied, practiced calligraphy, and learned the ways of the world.

But the Heir of the Marquis Manor, Xie Rujue, did not believe me.

When I studied, he said that no matter how many books I read, he would never like a wooden-headed girl like me.

When I learned riding and archery, he laughed and said that if I had that much time, I would be better off learning to dance, so I could please my future husband.

When I learned accounting, he joked to others that he would never let the Marquis Manor’s fortune fall into my hands.

Later, when someone came to propose marriage, he drove the man out, saying that in life or death, I belonged to the Xie Family.

But in the end, I still walked out through the gates of the Marquis Manor, while he could only watch with an ashen face, unable to stop me.

Because this time, what I had received was an imperial decree.

When Wei Zhao married me as his lawful wife, all of Shangjing City laughed.

The once-proud Eldest Young Master of the Wei Family had fallen so low that even a phoenix in decline was no better than a chicken.

In the end, he had only managed to marry a maid who tended the fires and cooked the meals.

Later, when Wei Zhao achieved fame and success, noble ladies from aristocratic families who wished to marry him were too many to count.

So I made an appointment with a well-known matchmaker in the capital, intending to take in two honored concubines for him.

But just as I was about to leave, Wei Zhao, who should have been handling affairs in Yangzhou, blocked me at the front gate.

Travel-worn and furious, he was trembling all over. “Try stepping out of this gate today. I dare you.”

The day my fiancé came to break off our engagement, my mother was so excited that tears streamed down her face.

As it turned out, I was not her biological daughter.

She had adopted me only so I could take the calamity meant for her real daughter.

She said, “Now that the ordeal has been fulfilled, you ought to return to your own family.”

I packed my bundle. There was little I could take with me, which made for easy travel.

My birth mother was waiting by the back gate.

She had a booming voice and had come driving an ox cart-every inch an uncouth peasant woman who knew nothing of proper manners.

Because of her, everyone in the Marquis Manor looked down on me even more.

And yet, the one who would bring me back to the capital in splendor was precisely her.

Ever since Noble Lady Lin fell into the water, it was as if she had become a different person.

She had originally been born lowly and kept to herself, so much so that the Emperor barely noticed there was someone like her in the Harem.

But now, she had won His Majesty’s favor.

In just half a year, she was exceptionally promoted to Noble Consort.

Whenever it was just the two of us, she would flash me a brazen smile.

“Lu Lan, sooner or later, your seat as Empress will be mine.”

She was a transmigrator. I couldn’t beat her.

So the next day, I pushed another consort into the water.

And just like that, in the Harem under my command, there were now two transmigrators.

The emperor died too soon, and I became Empress Dowager at a young age.

To secure my son’s throne, I had no choice but to yield to the Prince Regent and become his illicit lover.

Later, when my son came of age, he finally reclaimed imperial power.

I sent the Prince Regent to the underworld with a cup of poisoned wine.

But I never imagined the Prince Regent had poisoned me as well.

As I coughed up blood in agony, he held me tightly in his arms and laughed madly in my ear: “If we die, we die together. Once we’re dead, we can be reborn together.”

Our blood mingled, and neither of us met a good end.

Before I died, through the haze, I thought: I had been such a pathetic Empress Dowager.

I had never lived a single good day.

If I truly could be reborn, I would stay far, far away from those two: the short-lived ghost and the madman.

But I did not get to be reborn into another life. Instead, I was reborn at the palace banquet where marriages were decreed.

The Crown Prince was about to hand the one and only Phoenix-patterned Jade Pendant to the woman he loved.

His gaze lingered on my face for an instant, as if he had made up his mind to give the pendant to me.

The next moment, I lowered my head and shifted slightly aside, letting him see Song Xiuying behind me clearly.

She was the one who had shared life and death with him in my previous life.

In the third month after our wedding, Shao Zhi took me back to Luoyang to pay respects to his clansmen. Along the way, he carefully explained the web of interests within his clan.

When he mentioned his eldest brother, his face filled with pride.

“My eldest brother is a very good man. He taught me riding and archery himself! ”

Now he serves in Luoyang as the Central Army Commander.

He is the one we are going to meet today.

” I hated Luoyang. There, someone had once forced me to drink a ladle of water from the Luo River and swear an oath: from then on, we would each marry another and never disturb each other again. Clutching the konghou in my arms, I only lowered my head and tried to refuse. ”

Ah Zhi, I was once a music courtesan.

I fear I might sully your honored brother’s eyes and ears.

It would be better if I did not meet him…

” Shao Zhi gathered me into his arms with pity and held my hand, telling me not to worry. ”

He won’t mind. I’ll secretly tell you a bit of gossip about my brother.

Before he married my sister-in-law, he once turned the whole world upside down over a music courtesan who played the konghou.

Later, afraid my sister-in-law would grow jealous, he forced that courtesan to drink from the Luo River and swear that they would each marry another and never disturb each other again.

“Besides, you are my wife now, and you play a fine twenty-three-string konghou. For my sake, my brother is sure to like you.”

I was the founding Imperial Tutor of a dynasty.

I came here burdened with a mission from the System: to save a collapsing, chaotic realm.

In the end, all I earned was the hatred of countless people.

The young chief minister I had known since our youth became a stranger to me, standing against me at every turn.

The Guardian General I had personally promoted despised me for monopolizing power and ruling the court as a dictator.

And the Young Emperor, the boy I had raised with my own hands… He hated me most of all for tearing him away from the one he loved.

So they laid a trap for me and forced me to drink poisoned wine, driving me to take my own life.

Then, after my death… They summoned a shaman to call forth my memories.

They wanted to expose every evil deed I had ever committed to the world.

But later, after each of them had seen my memories… Every last one of them went mad.

In the second year of the famine, just before my father was about to sell me at the human market, my mother secretly ran back to her maiden home.

The night she returned, she was covered in blood.

There was a hole in her belly, and one of her legs was gone.

She handed my father the tripod cauldron she had carried on her back.

“Take it. With this, you won’t go hungry. Don’t sell Ah Yu.”

The tripod cauldron was not very large, but it was packed full inside.

With one tug, a snow-white leg came out.

If you threw in a piece of cloth, an identical piece of cloth would come out.

If you threw in a chicken, another chicken would come out too.

My father was so overjoyed he nearly went mad.

He never noticed that, before my mother breathed her last, she said one final sentence to me.

On the day of my hairpin ceremony, my brother-in-law, tipsy from wine, barged into my room.

That same night, my mouth was gagged and I was taken to the Marquis’s Mansion.

My legitimate elder sister told me she could not bear children and needed to borrow my womb.

A year later, I gave birth to a son.

My legitimate elder sister brought me to the Bamboo Garden, where four old maids covered my mouth and buried me in a pit they had dug long before.

Before I died, I kept wondering what the point had been of someone like me coming into this world.

But I never imagined that I would be dug up again.

The person who found me was small and thin, yet he staggered along with me on his back for ten miles.

He covered me with the only clothing he had and gave me a chance to live.

An old man took me in. From that day on, I changed my name and became someone else.

Five years later, my wonton shop opened in Capital City, and I happened to run into my legitimate elder sister and her family being sold off.

She begged me to save her son.

But I pointed to the young man kneeling off to the side and said, “I’ll only save him.”