Josei

I was a terrible stickler for the truth.

When my husband returned from war, he brought a woman home.

The moment she saw me, she dropped to her knees and declared that she wanted to marry the marquis, even if she could only be his concubine.

I said nothing at the time.

But after tossing and turning until midnight, I could bear it no longer and knocked on her door.

My husband wasn’t the marquis.

The marquis in this household was my widowed father-in-law; my husband was only his third son, born to a concubine.

Her dimming eyes suddenly lit up at the word widowed.

introduction:

[1v1 guaranteed sweetness + romance reality show + playfully going wild with memes + heartthrob + romantic battlefield + male lead]

Ning Xi lived for 21 years before realizing she was the universally disliked fake heiress in a novel where the rich family dotes on one child-a foil and stepping stone to the Real Heiress.

In the book, everyone who adored the Real Heiress got everything they wanted and became wildly successful, while anyone who went against her ended up miserable.

Ning Xi was silent. Ning Xi had an epiphany. Ning Xi got excited:

“I get it! I should chase after the Female Lead too! Be good to the Female Lead!”

So –

When the Real Heiress put on a brave face and spoke gently in front of Ning Xi’s fiancé, Ning Xi looked at her with genuine concern: “I know you want to be strong, but you don’t have to be strong anymore – I’ve got you!”

When the Real Heiress shed tears in front of Ning Xi’s Childhood Friend, Ning Xi yelled at him: “If you make her shed a single tear, I’ll make you bleed! If you break my sister’s wings, I’ll bring down your entire heaven!”

When the Real Heiress fainted in the arms of the Prince of Xiangcheng, Ning Xi swooped her up and warned him: “My girl – don’t touch, don’t steal, don’t even think about her. If you lay a finger on her, 110 takes me away, 120 takes you away!” (110 = police, 120 = ambulance)

When the Real Heiress was exposed for dating multiple guys and her reputation was ruined, Ning Xi fumed: “Even if we take ten thousand steps back, are those guys totally blameless?”

After going wild, Ning Xi’s whole mental state improved a lot.

But then, everyone else started acting weird.

The hot-tempered, sharp-tongued Childhood Friend started sending her abs workout videos; the cold fiancé’s eyes turned red and his voice shook as he begged her to get back together; the Villain Boss was willing to play the third for love.

Even the Real Heiress, who always put her down, was teary-eyed: “I thought I was just clever, but I didn’t expect you to truly love me.”

Ning Xi: ?

Everyone’s lost it…

My best friend and I ended up inside the same novel.

She was the scheming second male lead’s hopeless admirer.

I was the obsessive villain’s substitute lover.

In public, we pined for men who didn’t love us.

In private, we spent their money like there was no tomorrow.

After three years of living it up, the heroine—the woman they supposedly truly loved—came back.

Once we learned that both men would lose their minds over her, my best friend packed a little bag and knocked on my door late at night.

“I’ve saved enough.

Have you?”

“Not quite,” I said.

“But I can spend yours.”

So we faked our deaths and ran away together.

Three years later, she had the misfortune to run into her ex-husband.

“I’ll cover for you!”

I told her.

“Run!”

Then I turned around and walked straight into a solid chest.

The obsessive villain calmly undid his tie and bound my hands.

“Try getting away yourself first.”

My husband—an arranged match—and my boyfriend had swapped bodies.

But I didn’t know.

All I knew was that my husband had been very happy lately.

Something about finally being official.

My boyfriend wasn’t nearly so brooding anymore, either.

He kept saying things like, “As long as it’s the man I am now that you love.”

Until one day.

My boyfriend asked me when I was getting divorced.

My mother taught me never to trust a man’s affection.

When a marquis’s family chose me to marry their reckless third son, I saw my chance to rise.

He already kept a pregnant mistress, but I had no intention of fighting her for his love.

I would save her, secure my place, and make myself indispensable.

In a house full of secrets, every crisis could become a rung on my ladder.

After a fight with my husband, I went to my boyfriend for comfort.

Then we got caught.

My boyfriend stepped in front of me and told my husband, “The one she doesn’t love is the other man!”

I said, “Keep your voice down!

Is this something to be proud of?”

I was the late emperor’s younger sister, the reigning emperor’s own aunt, and the only Grand Princess of Great Jin.

On my sixtieth birthday, my husband’s supposedly dead first wife appeared at my door with the daughter she had borne late in life.

“The first wife is the lawful wife; her successor must take a concubine’s place.

But Your Highness is far too exalted for me to ask that of you.

I am willing to become a concubine myself.

I ask only that you show mercy and allow Mian to be entered in her father’s clan register, so that father and daughter may be reunited.”

Only then did I learn that the husband who had shown me such love and devotion had been keeping her in another household for forty years.

My youngest sister had been flirting with three men.

Unfortunately, she had used my name and our middle sister’s.

All three came to ask for her hand.

To smooth things over, our parents suggested that we each marry one of them.

My other sister wavered.

I refused.

There was nothing wrong with me.

Why should I marry a man who had loved my sister?

Didn’t I deserve a love untainted by all this?

I looked up at my youngest sister, who kept avoiding my eyes, and said evenly: “First, tell me exactly what happened between you and those three men.”

Years ago, I saved the crown prince from a falling beam.

It broke my leg, and I became the capital’s notorious young lady with a limp.

Later, when he ascended the throne, he sat high in the imperial hall and asked what reward I desired.

Everyone thought I loved him deeply and would surely ask to enter his palace as a consort and remain at his side.

After all, no official family in the capital would take a woman with a limp as its mistress.

What they did not expect was that I would ask for a title of my own and the revenues of a thousand households.

As they whispered among themselves, no one noticed the faint tension in his brow vanish.

“Then let it be as you wish.”

My mother had come from another world, and she believed firmly in monogamy.

When she discovered that my husband was keeping a mistress, she stormed into his princely residence, demanding that I divorce him and come home with her.

I stared at her.

“Mother, your daughter already has power and wealth.

Why should I care if he keeps another woman?”