Romance

“Fine. I’ll marry him.” I raised my hand from behind the other princesses.

Father had many daughters, but his favorite was Princess Changning, his eldest and the only daughter born to the Empress.

I was the most inconspicuous of them all; Father had probably forgotten I existed.

I went to the hospital and burst into tears in Uncle Tang’s arms—only for Mom to catch us.

I tried to run, but he caught my wrist. “We’re not even related by blood. What are you afraid of?”

After Wei Xuan and I had tormented each other for most of our lives, he finally grew tired.

On his deathbed, he refused even to see me.

He had our children deliver his last words instead.

“In my next life, I would rather be your brother for a lifetime than spend half a life as your resentful husband, with both of us losing the ones we truly love.”

Sure enough, the moment he returned to the past, he rushed to free his childhood sweetheart from prison and showered her with tenderness.

Then he forced his mother to take me as a goddaughter.

Smiling, I accepted the jade pendant and bowed with perfect obedience.

“May all be well with you, Elder Brother.”

His hand faltered, then dropped stiffly to his side.

Before long, we were each betrothed to someone else.

He remained in the capital.

I was bound for Lin’an.

Yet on the day my boat departed, he tore off his wedding robes, leaped into the river with no thought for his life, and clung desperately to the gunwale, begging me to stay.

At the age when palace maids are meant to leave, Ah Li asks the imperial guard she loves to marry her—only to discover that he is the emperor, and that she is merely a substitute for his cherished Consort Rong.

After he keeps her trapped in the palace and sacrifices her to protect his favorite, Ah Li quietly accepts a marriage arranged as an act of spite.

Her new husband, General Wei Yuan, can see the floating comments that have distorted everyone’s story, and he offers her something the emperor never did: honesty and protection.

When the emperor tries to steal her back, Wei Yuan defies the throne, forcing every supposed lead in this romance to face the truth.

I was the daughter of Princess Changning and a peasant from the countryside.

When I was seven, the Empress Dowager bestowed a name on me.

She said my very birth was a grievous wrong, and named me Luoyuan.

For years I lived in the palace, fearful and ashamed, keeping both myself and my heart imprisoned.

But someone told me I should be a bird with its wings spread against the sky, free to soar.

And so, in the end, I found the courage to be brave—for myself, and for him.

I have a temple in the human world.

Hardly anyone visits, but one girl came to pray three times.

The first time, she offered ten years of her life in exchange for her grandmother’s recovery.

The second time, she raised the offer to twenty.

The third time, she muttered, “Why won’t it work?”

“Because you’ve come to the wrong temple,” I said.

“I bury people.

I don’t save them.”

Unfortunately, she couldn’t hear me.

She still knelt and bowed, three times to her knees and nine times to the ground, then took five yuan from her pocket and put it in the offering box.

Who had lied to her?

I followed her out, back to a cramped, dilapidated alley.

A group of children crowded around her, laughing.

“The idiot’s here!

Come look at the idiot!”

She clutched her sleeves and said quietly, “I’m not an idiot.

“I’m just a little slow to react.”

The real princess consort was back.

It was time for me, the impostor, to go home and farm.

Before leaving, I gave everyone careful instructions.

When the vegetables in the back garden sprouted, they were to whittle stakes and put up supports for the vines.

When the fruit in the grove ripened, they mustn’t pick it all.

Leave some on the branches for the birds to get through winter.

Leave the swallows’ nest over the residence gates alone, too.

They would be back next year.

I said a great deal.

Everyone stood with their heads bowed, and no one answered.

Then I understood.

Ah.

Of course.

The princess consort came from a rich family.

Surely the money she had brought back would feed the entire household.

I no longer had to worry about keeping a dozen-odd people alive.

The steward asked, his voice thick, “Won’t you leave a word for His Highness?”

I thought about it.

“Well… tell him I hope he eats a couple more bowls of rice.”

I transmigrated into a novel, but there was no such character as me in the story.

For seventeen years, I lived as a wealthy and beautiful heiress in the book.

Just when I was about to forget that I was someone who had transmigrated into a novel, the Story Management Bureau finally assigned me a task.

I married into an ancient manor. My husband was handsome and gentle, spending every day personally selecting hairpins and picking out dresses for me.

Later, I discovered the manor’s secret, and my eyes welled with tears of terror.

He said, “You’re trembling. It’s not because you’re afraid of me, is it?”

“It’s alright. You just haven’t adjusted yet. I’ll teach you, slowly…”

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.”