Romance

The Emperor’s beloved Noble Consort, his one true love, was dead.

His one true love?

It was almost laughable.

And yet, the rumor had spread throughout all of Dayan.

The day I decided to divorce Pei Qingshu was an ordinary one.

Only the night before, he had promised that he would send Miss Liu away the next day, then celebrate my birthday properly with me.

It finally seemed as though our life was about to get better.

Delighted, I rose early, opened my dressing case, and carefully drew my brows while looking into a copper basin.

Then I dug an old pomegranate-red skirt out from the bottom of the camphorwood chest.

After seven years of marriage, I did not own a single decent piece of jewelry.

Seeing my bare ears, I pinched off a balsam blossom and tucked it behind my bun.

On my way out to buy vegetables, I ran into Chunxiang’s mother, who caught my arm with a teasing smile.

“I saw Master Pei buy two hairpins the other day—one gold, one jade. Let me see which one you’re wearing.”

Then she noticed the balsam flower in my hair and froze.

Meng Fanyu carried himself with effortless distinction.

I thought that even if we eventually broke up, having him as my first love would leave me with no regrets.

So I pursued him with everything I had.

Eventually, I won him over, and he laid down three rules: we would date, never marry, and break up when we graduated.

For three years, we loved each other with abandon.

On graduation day, I was the one who ended it, but he went back on our agreement.

Our conversation fell apart, and Meng Fanyu lowered his proud head with a bitter laugh.

He told me I had better pray we never met again.

From then on, I did everything I could to avoid him.

But with the slightest turn of fate, the world can become very small, and two people who once belonged to each other are bound to meet again.

The first time I stayed over at my boyfriend’s place, his ex-girlfriend suddenly burst into the bedroom in the middle of the night.

I could clearly feel his body stiffen. The room fell into a dead silence.

“Song Yuan,” she choked out, her voice so hoarse it was barely recognizable.

But he acted as if nothing was happening, pinning my wrist down and nonchalantly continuing to kiss me.

He Qiong was hailed as the strongest Demon King the demon realm had seen in a thousand years, and every demon expected him to lead them in an assault on the Nine Heavens.

Unfortunately, before that grand ambition could be realized, a beautiful young phoenix lured him into the Celestial Emperor’s ambush and his soul was destroyed.

I fought desperately to seize one fragment of his soul, then hid across the mortal realm like a hunted dog and nourished him with my heart’s blood for five hundred years until I finally brought him back.

Surely hardship revealed true devotion, and after everything I had sacrificed to save him, He Qiong would finally understand who truly loved him and who deserved to stand at his side.

I thought his return would begin a tale of the Demon King bathing the Nine Heavens in blood, but instead it became a tortured romance between him and the Goddess of the Nine Heavens-the little phoenix who had stabbed him in the back a thousand years ago killed herself for love afterward, and the moment he learned the truth, he forgave every betrayal.

Fine, they could keep their tragic, undying love; I knew when I had lost, and I wanted no part of it.

But the love belonged to them while the suffering belonged to me, because just before I left, He Qiong held the phoenix’s last soul fragment and said, “Du Nan, your heart’s blood brought me back after five hundred years, so you can bring her back too, can’t you?”

Jiang Yu broke up with me again.

This time, I planned to do what I did when he first dumped me at eighteen-go clear my head by the river.

But the wind off the water was freezing, so I decided to just head back. On the way home, I passed a barbecue stall. I thought I’d be like my twenty-year-old self, too heartbroken to swallow a single bite.

Instead, I found that the owner’s grilling skills were actually top-notch.

When I finally made it home, I intended to write him one of those long, pleading essays for a reconciliation, just like I did when we went through our routine breakups at twenty-two, twenty-three, and twenty-four.

But then my boss told me I had to go on a business trip. After nearly a month of being busy, I was practically entering a second honeymoon phase with my career in a neighboring city.

Jiang Yu finally couldn’t hold out any longer and called me. “Why haven’t you come to apologize yet?” Only then did I realize I’d forgotten something. Going through a breakup when you’re a little older is truly a hassle.

I could only ask him tentatively: “I’m so sorry, really. I’ve been so busy lately that I forgot to write the essay.” “How about… we just stay broken up?”

My wife and I were a couple of influencers with over a million followers.

After she passed away, the account stopped updating.

Until one day, a stranger sent me a private message.

“I look a lot like her.

“I can be her double.”

Five hundred years after my death.

The people who had once benefited from my kindness had long since forgotten me.

Only my sworn enemy crouched at my grave, huffing and puffing as he dug for three whole days.

And dug me out.

As twelve bolts of tribulation lightning crashed down,

I saw Ye Yu’s face-unchanged from five hundred years ago.

The moment he saw me, his face lit up with excitement. “Shen Xi, come fight me!”

My gaze drifted past his shoulder

to the nervous members of the Righteous Path hurrying over behind him.

Those people had once been my master and fellow disciples.

They were also the ones who had killed me back then.

At the sight of them, I suddenly clutched my chest and collapsed into Ye Yu’s arms while he was watching the show.

In a soft, delicate voice, I said, “Big brother, this freshly reconstructed body is still so weak. Be a dear and take care of those small fry for me, will you?”

In an instant, I felt the body I was leaning against go completely rigid.

When I lifted my head again, the arrogant, untouchable Demon Lord was blushing so hard he looked ready to burst into flames.

My childhood friend Jiang Yan thought I was too clingy, so he hypnotized me and deliberately made me pursue someone else.

He had no idea the hypnosis was fake—or that chasing Song Yaozhou would lead me to the person willing to be my knight and teach me to become my own.

I disguised myself as a man and spent twelve years in the barracks as a no-good soldier-only to suddenly learn that I was the Prefect’s true daughter.

The impostor daughter clutched my sleeve, sobbing as she shook it.

“Sister, I know I stole the place that should have been yours. I only beg you not to take away the love Father, Mother, and our brothers have for me.”

What she didn’t know was that I had no interest in stealing her love.

All I wanted was to get my brothers-in-arms some military pay.