Historical

I bought a eunuch off the street. On his very first day in the manor, he started throwing his weight around.

When the others refused to follow his orders, he turned right around and complained to me.

Everyone waited for him to be put in his place, but instead, I said, “From now on, whatever Pei Yunchuan wants, you give it to him.”

He was about to gloat over his newfound power, but he hadn’t even let out a laugh before I continued with my announcement.

“He is the man I am going to marry.” He froze, his voice shrill as he shrieked, “You deranged lunatic, what kind of nonsense are you spouting?”

In my third year as Empress Dowager, my greatest fear is not the court officials, nor the brushes held by the court historians.

It is the moments when I wake from a dream in the dead of night and instinctively call out the name of Xie Wuyang.

As the palace lanterns flicker to life, I am reminded that three years ago, I was the one who personally wrote the secret order sending him to his death at Yanhui Ridge.

My Elder Sister and I have been bitter rivals since we were children.

At three, we fought over our mother’s attention; at five, we fought over the little boy across the street.

When we were six, people from the Marquis Manor came to claim her, saying my Elder Sister was their long-lost legitimate daughter who had been taken away as an infant.

I was so furious I didn’t sleep a wink that night. Later, my father-who had been away fighting at war for fifteen years-returned with a promotion and a fortune to take me away as well.

Once I arrived at the General’s Manor, the first thing I did was rush over to the Marquis Manor.

I stood there shouting for Gu Ruan to come out and face her doom, when suddenly, a small head poked out from the entrance.

She had my Elder Sister’s face. She toddled toward me, swaying unsteadily on her feet. “Mother is dead. Auntie, hold me~”

On the day my lady and I fled, I went east while she went west.

Dressed in her clothes and carrying her token, I drew the pursuers away for her.

At death’s door, I was rescued. My lady’s betrothed mistook me for her.

Badly wounded and stripped of my memories, I was cherished by him and carefully nursed. He even married me.

Five years later, he brought back a battered woman. It was my lady. Convinced that I had deceived him, Qi Yu hated me to the bone and sent me to my death with a cup of poison.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day I lured the enemy away for her.

I returned her clothes and token, then smiled and told her: “Go east. And don’t look back.”

When I was thirteen, I traded myself for a bowl of chicken soup. From that moment on, I knew I was born for this life. I used it to trade for one head after another.

After my rebirth, my mother held me in her arms, teasing me playfully.

“Jiaojiao, which one of them would you like as your husband?” I looked at my two young elder cousins.

In my past life, one of them killed me, and the other killed my body double. Both were ruthless, predatory men.

If I ever got involved with them again, would I even survive? I couldn’t help but burst into tears.

Clinging to my mother’s neck, I acted spoiled and pleaded, “Mother, I don’t want either of them.” “Then… you shall have both.”

My mother’s expression was one of absolute determination. Me: ??

On the day of the grand wedding, every guest in the hall witnessed Ah Ying take a sword strike intended for Gu Yanzhi.

No one knew that the blades, arrows, and poisons she had endured for him throughout her life were already enough to have killed her many times over.

All she had ever waited for was to die in his arms and hear him call her name just once.

On the day I was deposed and consigned to the Cold Palace, Yan Yuheng came personally to see me off.

Before the palace gates were locked, he asked whether I hated him.

I touched the old gold hairpin hidden in my sleeve and smiled. For three years as Empress, I learned to speak like her, to carry myself like her, and to love him the way she once had.

But even as I was dying, he never understood: I was never like Shen Zhaotang. I had only acted too well.

The day I was escorted onto the Sacrificial Altar, Emperor Pei Yuheng personally pressed his seal onto the list of my crimes.

The entire court decried me as a Nation-Wrecker Sorceress, yet only I knew that his life was something I had reclaimed from the King of Hell, one blade-stroke at a time.

However, every time I saved him, he would forget a little more of me.

By the end, he couldn’t even remember the lantern he once held when he promised to marry me.

The Prince Consort’s carriage plummeted over the cliff. Even in his unconscious state, he still gripped his childhood sweetheart’s hand tightly, refusing to let go.

I replaced the doctor meant to save him with a Taoist priest who could bind souls, sealing his spirit within a jade pendant. I want him to see it with his own eyes.

I want him to see that the childhood sweetheart he yearns for is nothing but a fickle, unfaithful woman.

That the sister he protected with all his heart is a cold-blooded, ungrateful soul.

That the mother he respects and loves is a person who would abandon all honor for the sake of profit. Only this is the punishment he truly deserves.