Romance

The princess ran away with her lover, leaving me behind with a male concubine and orders to impersonate her.

Terrified of being exposed, I had no choice but to play the part as convincingly as possible.

By the time the princess returned, I was pregnant.

She looked at me in shock. Why didn’t you use the male concubine I gave you? Do you not like him?

I was stunned.

If that’s the case, then who was the man making me beg for mercy every night?

Just as I was preparing to flee, that person returned in the middle of the night. Wait… why are there two of them?

After the college entrance exams, my brother and I got thrown out by our parents.

“I’ve put up with you two long enough.

Go stay with your uncle!”

Uncle was lovely.

He let us run wild in his mansion, though he did seem a little dead inside.

We thought we’d driven him to it.

Then we discovered he was heartbroken: the woman he’d adored for years had chosen someone else.

Looking at our mature, wealthy uncle, with his impossibly perfect looks and that vulnerable older-man appeal, my brother and I couldn’t understand what the other guy had on him.

“Uncle, want to take his place?”

Lately, I keep feeling as if there’s someone else in the house.

At night, while I’m studying in the Study, I hear a faint breathing sound behind the right wall, along with the soft rustling of clothing.

I’ve been living in my boyfriend’s house for two months now, and I’m familiar with the layout of this villa. There’s no room to the right of the Study-my boyfriend said so too.

But is there really not?

A courtesan cast out to die is rescued by a penniless scholar, only to lose him to the schemes of his former betrothed.

Returning to the pleasure house under her old name, Xiangsi trades everything she has left for revenge—but the cruel nobleman who claims to love her will not let either her body or her memories escape him.

On the day His Majesty traveled south to Jiangnan, the Empress Dowager took a liking to Miss Xu of the Xu Family in Yangcheng.

“Such a lovely, fresh-faced child ought to become a daughter-in-law of our imperial family.”

As she said this, the Empress Dowager’s gaze seemed to drift, intentionally or not, toward Fu Yanli at my side.

Fu Yanli was the current Fifth Prince, and also my husband.

Later, on the day Miss Xu was to be invested as consort, I stood at the palace gates, clinging to a sliver of hope. “Not even I may enter?”

The guards at the gate all knew me. One by one, they lowered their heads, not daring to meet my eyes. “The Empress Dowager said it wouldn’t matter if anyone else came, but Your Highness, as Crown Princess… you absolutely cannot enter the palace today.”

I nodded, returned to the manor, and picked up the bundle I had packed long ago.

The capital blazed with lights. All at once, I remembered Fu Yanli from that year, when everyone had turned their backs on him.

He had held me tightly, refusing to let go no matter what. “Jianxi, even if I die, I will never betray you.”

When the Crown Prince ascended the throne, he installed his Crown Prince’s Secondary Consort as the Empress.

The reason was simple.

It was written in the Destiny Book that his first Empress would die from a hail of arrows piercing her heart.

On the day the imperial decree for the installation was issued, my elder sister-the Crown Princess Shen Chengyun-entered my palace with a beaming smile and gave a rather sloppy bow.

“This consort offers her congratulations to the Empress.”

She leaned in close, her bright red lips curling into a venomous sneer.

“Shen Ruoruo, you’d better cherish these few days of luxury. Don’t get too ahead of yourself, though. If you do anything to upset me… well, whether you receive an honorable posthumous title after you die will be entirely up to me.”

“Is that so?”

I took a step back and spoke in a low, steady voice.

“Then Sister had better make sure she doesn’t die before I do.”

My stepmother had been my mom’s best friend, and she had always doted on me.

She spoiled me so thoroughly that Dad became utterly disappointed in me and turned to grooming his stepdaughter instead.

After Dad died, my stepmother swallowed up the inheritance and threw me out of the house.

I died on the streets one snowy night.

When I opened my eyes again, my stepmother was secretly stuffing money into the hands of my soon-to-be second-year high school self.

“Don’t worry about your dad. I support you studying music and chasing your dreams.”

On the night before our engagement, my fiancé got a call from his first love.

He left without a word and vanished for the entire night.

Calmly, I packed my things and called him to break up.

But when the call connected, a stranger answered.

“Who are you looking for?”

I contacted my fiancé’s parents, but they told me they were DINKs. They had no children, and they didn’t know me.

Everyone around me had forgotten that my fiancé had ever existed.

I touched my slightly swollen belly, horror crashing over me.

“Then who is the father of this child?”

When I was twenty-five, I had a child with one of the most powerful heirs in Beijing’s elite circle.

There was no future for two people as unequal as us, so I took the money and opportunities the He family offered and broke up with him.

Then, five years later, during a break on set.

A little boy who looked strikingly like He Jinnan came looking for me.

He pursed his lips, aggrieved yet stubbornly proud.

“My dad is He Jinnan,” he said.

“And you’re my mom.”

I looked at him and gave a faint hum of acknowledgment.

He hurriedly pulled a thick wad of cash from his backpack.

His eyes were full of pleading.

“Can I hire you for one day to come to my parent-teacher meeting?”

The year I graduated from high school, I rejected Gu Cong’s confession in front of the entire school.

I told him I already had a boyfriend.

He nodded politely and turned to leave.

At four o’clock the next morning, he boarded a plane to study abroad.

As for me, I continued my routine, heading out before dawn to snag a spot for my breakfast stall.

Eight years later.

Clutching my last seven thousand yuan, I boarded a train to the Capital with my gravely ill daughter in my arms.

After reviewing her medical records, the doctor shook his head.

“There’s probably only one doctor in the entire Capital who can perform this surgery.

“He’s a specialist who just returned from abroad. He once performed a successful operation on a patient with a condition very similar to your daughter’s.”

As he spoke, he called out to the man behind me with pleasant surprise.

“Let me introduce you. This is the man I was talking about-Gu Cong, Dr. Gu.”