Josei

By the time the Female Lead appeared, I was already pregnant with Zhou Shiyu’s child.

I failed to fight against fate. He once risked everything to break off his engagement with her for my sake, but eventually, he grew to hate me to his very core. Even a single glance at me filled him with nothing but disgust.

Finally, I grew tired of it all. I let go of our tangled emotions and even gave up on the child.

It wasn’t until an evening six years later.

A young child knocked on my door.

With a stern, stoic expression that mimicked an adult, he said, “My dad doesn’t want me anymore. Can I stay with you?”

My sister was beautiful and brilliant, always effortlessly winning people over.

Compared to her, my plain self was like a timid little mouse.

My parents used to say, “How can you even compare yourself to your sister?”

My childhood friend said, “Jiajia and you don’t look like sisters.”

I asked him, “Then what do we look like instead?”

Sniffling, he replied:

“Like a princess and her maid.”

That was until I met Cen Yi.

My parents were clinging to my sister, introducing her to his family and boasting about how exceptional their daughter was.

I stood off to the side, stealing glances at the cookies on the table.

But he bypassed everyone else and pulled me into a tight embrace.

“Mine,”

he said.

I am the most pathetic Marchioness in all of the capital.

Marquis Jing’an married me for one reason only: I was honest, kind, and easy to manipulate.

Before our wedding, he told me quite bluntly, without a shred of hesitation:

“As long as you treat my beloved Concubine Bai well once you enter my home, and as long as you don’t get jealous or pick fights with her, I will grant you the dignity and status you deserve.”

For the sake of my family, I had no choice but to marry him.

From then on, whenever Concubine Bai sat, I stood.

When Concubine Bai ate meat, I drank the broth.

Whenever rewards arrived from the palace, Concubine Bai got first pick; I only received whatever she didn’t want.

I thought Marquis Jing’an was satisfied with my performance over the years, yet when I prepared to leave, he blocked the doorway, his hands trembling.

“You are my wife! You aren’t going anywhere!”

Me: “?”

I’m literally making room for your sweetheart!

Pei Ling’an said he wanted to break off our engagement again.

This time, it was because I refused to give the golden hairpin I had won for my poetry to my younger cousin.

“The Shen Family has fallen. No matter which daughter I choose to marry, Shen Tongzhi wouldn’t dare say a single word against it.”

He rested his chin on his hand, looking at me with a faint, mocking smile. “Break the engagement, or give the hairpin to Yuchi. Shen Yusu, the choice is yours.”

Everyone was waiting for me to bow my head.

Just as I had done countless times before.

But this time, I only tightened my grip on the golden hairpin and said softly,

“Then let’s break the engagement.”

Shao Yuhan lost his memory in a car accident, forgetting the fact that he had once forced me into a relationship through sheer coercion.

As soon as his family found out, they wasted no time in helping him divorce me.

In less than half a day, I found myself standing in a different city, dazed, holding a divorce certificate in one hand and a massive check in the other.

After being subjected to Shao Yuhan’s obsessive, forced love for so long, I felt a strange sense of displacement the moment I finally gained my freedom.

I settled down in this new city and began a quiet, ordinary life.

One day, while out buying groceries, someone suddenly covered my mouth and nose.

When I opened my eyes again, I was in a dark yet familiar basement. A man’s cold, clear voice rang in my ears.

“Be my woman, and I can give you everything you want.”

… Very well. It was exactly the same as back then.

I am the most indolent concubine in the Imperial Harem.

The Emperor is currently reading my Annual Slacker Report.

“This year, your name tag was flipped nineteen times. Of those, you were intercepted thirteen times. You actually served in the bedchamber six times, during three of which the Emperor couldn’t perform.”

“This year, you knelt over a thousand times. You called the Noble Consort a ‘bitch’ over ten thousand times, but the number of times you actually said it to her face was zero.”

“Do you remember the Mid-Autumn Banquet?”

“The talent you performed was balancing a pot of wine on your upturned backside, which resulted in half a month’s stipend being docked.”

“This year, your rank and salary have seen no change from last year. In fact, this situation has persisted for three years now.”

“Your keyword for this year is ‘Trash.’ Please keep it up next year.”

Oh no. Am I about to be slacked all the way into the Cold Palace?

My Eldest Senior Sister was a brilliant talent, yet she died young, a victim of schemes and conspiracies.

My Little Junior Sister was charming and lovely, yet she died after being possessed by a Demon Creature and suffering endless torment.

Then there was me-the plain, unremarkable Second Senior Sister of the Sect. I never drew any attention, but I lived long enough.

Eventually, I became the Sect Ancestor, taking on countless disciples. I finally passed away peacefully of old age, surrounded by the weeping of my many students and their successors.

When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to my youth.

At that time, Eldest Senior Sister was already the Prodigy everyone looked up to, and Little Junior Sister had just joined the Sect.

The two of them hadn’t yet become bitter rivals over a man; they were still sisters who loved and cared for one another.

Looking at the two of them in their prime, I made a firm resolution:

I still need to keep my head down. As long as I lay low and survive long enough, the Magical Artifacts and immortal elixirs will all be mine eventually.

However, this time around, both Eldest Senior Sister and Little Junior Sister took a liking to visiting my place.

Eldest Senior Sister once asked me with a heavy heart,

“Second Junior Sister, he always says that Little Junior Sister is better than me. I know it’s not her fault, but I still feel a spark of jealousy. Am I truly that terrible?”

I replied, “Eldest Senior Sister, one thought leads to divinity, another to the demonic. Has he caused a heart demon to take root in you?”

Eldest Senior Sister’s expression turned solemn, and she cupped her hands toward me in respect.

“Thank you, Junior Sister. I have learned much from your words.”

She turned around and immediately broke off her engagement with her Fiancé.

Little Junior Sister also came to me to complain, looking lost.

“The Senior Brothers have all given me so many things. Sometimes I really can’t use them all, but I’m afraid of offending people, so I rotate through them every day. It’s much better here with you, Senior Sister; it’s always so peaceful. But don’t you find it a bit lonely?”

I hummed in agreement and gave a gentle answer.

“I don’t like letting too many people into my life. I think things are perfect just as they are.”

Little Junior Sister dithered for a moment, her eyes shimmering with envy.

Later on, she started becoming someone not to be trifled with, systematically removing a great many people from her life.

Ironically, those people were the ones who refused to let go.

On the first day after I died, my boyfriend brought his first love back home.

They kissed passionately on the sofa I bought, acting as if no one else were there. They ate the celery dumplings I had made by hand and played with the gaming console I had given him.

One day, his first love asked curiously, “Where’s An’an?”

My boyfriend’s voice was calm. “We had a fight a few days ago. She applied for a business trip with her company.”

Oh, he still doesn’t know that I’m dead.

I was a fake heiress.

When I was thirteen, my nanny suddenly told me I was her daughter, a fake heiress, and demanded that I take money from the Su family to support her and my biological brother.

I looked at her, then turned around and reported her.

Wei Ze’s first love got divorced after her husband cheated on her.

Without a moment’s hesitation, he broke up with me and posted to his social media feed:

“I really wish I could go back eight years and change Xu Nianxia’s fate so she never married that scumbag.”

Xu Nianxia was the woman he had never stopped pining for.

Later, he and I both traveled back in time to eight years ago.

He set out to change his first love’s fate of marrying a scumbag.

I set out to change my fate of being with him.