Romance

In my dreams, I kept giving myself over to wild passion with a man.

One day, I finally saw his face.

It was Li Jici, the icy Chief Justice of the Court of Judicial Review, a man said to have no interest in women.

When my brother is falsely accused, Li Jici mocks me for begging him for help—yet that very night, the man in my dreams is more passionate than ever.

Only after a drunken guest reveals the peach-shaped birthmark on Li Jici’s chest do I realize the truth: the beautiful dreams we have shared belong to both of us.

At our wedding, Duan Yingze’s first love showed up in a bridal gown to steal the groom.

“Duan Yingze, if you still love me, come with me.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, he took her hand.

He left me alone to face the pity and ridicule of every guest in the room.

Everyone thought I would be devastated, that the pain would destroy me.

What they did not know was this: The one I had never stopped loving had come back too.

Duan Yingze was nothing but a poor substitute.

I no longer cared about him at all.

At twenty-five, the eldest son of the Cui family lived a life of such restraint and purity that he still had no intention of taking a wife.

Madam Cui could wait no longer.

With tears, tantrums, and threats to hang herself, she forced Cui Lanzhang to choose a bride.

At his wits’ end, Cui Lanzhang pointed at me at random.

And just like that, I landed myself one very eligible catch.

Later, I asked Cui Lanzhang why he had chosen me.

After thinking for a moment, he said, “That day, when you saw me, your cheeks were flushed and your eyes were hazy.

I assumed you must have liked me.”

I spent the entire night debating whether to tell him the truth.

My cheeks had been red because I had put on too much rouge, and my eyes had been hazy because I had stayed up reading storybooks the night before and was exhausted the next day.

I never expected that I would accidentally end up becoming colleagues with my ex-husband. After all, it had only been three months since we finally ended our miserable three-year marriage-a marriage that was nothing but mutual torture.

The daughter of the Yong’an Marquis Estate had committed a grave breach of etiquette within the palace, accidentally shattering a relic of the Late Emperor.

Furious, Grand Princess Anping ordered her to be seized and brought back to the Princess Manor immediately.

That night. The Heir of the Yong’an Marquis Estate knelt at the foot of my steps.

I reclined on my daybed, my fingertip tapping rhythmically against the armrest.

My gaze swept slowly over him, tracing the line of his brow, his Adam’s apple, and the breadth of his shoulders.

After a long silence, I finally uttered a single word: “Strip.” Those slender hands, which had once composed the most brilliant of essays, trembled as they reached for the buttons of his slate-blue official uniform.

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.

After an argument with Zhou Mingyu, I jumped from the thirtieth floor with my five-month-old daughter in my arms.

When I opened my eyes again, time had actually returned to yesterday.

On this day, because the baby wouldn’t stop crying, Zhou Mingyu snapped at me for the first time: “Chen Ran, you don’t have a mother yourself, so it’s no wonder you don’t even know how to take care of a child!”

Our relationship had always been good, so I thought he hadn’t meant it; I blamed it on my own volatile temper and for taking things too hard.

But time continued to flow backward, and I discovered that this wasn’t the first time Zhou Mingyu had said such things: During my postpartum recovery month, he joked, “If your mother were still alive, my mother wouldn’t be so exhausted.”

On the day I was hospitalized to give birth, in response to the nurse’s questions, he said with a smile, “Her mother passed away, so who else could be her caregiver but me?”

At our wedding, he held my hand and vowed, “Chen Ran, I will definitely take good care of you in your mother’s stead!”

… It turned out he had always cared about the fact that I didn’t have a mother.

But the strange thing was, why didn’t I have any memory of my mother at all?

Had she ever truly existed?

If time continued to flow backward, would I eventually see her?

During the year our love was at its peak, the young general whose name shook the borderlands used all his military merit to petition my Imperial Father for my hand in marriage.

But three years later, a woman arrived at our door clutching a child, weeping and begging me to take them in.

My husband claimed he had simply had too much to drink and made a terrible mistake.

My mother-in-law said that since I had already ruined my husband’s career prospects, I could not go so far as to sever his bloodline as well.

My closest kin advised me to be magnanimous, telling me that this was simply how every mistress of a household in the capital lived.

Only my sister, with whom I had never seen eye to eye, patted my back and told me: “In the past, you let your Imperial Brother make your decisions for you.” “Later, you let your husband make your decisions for you.” “Now, it is time you learned to grow up on your own.” “After all, you have a little girl of your own now.”

I looked down at the tiny daughter in my arms, who was still sucking on her fingers.

I understood that if I were weak, my daughter would never know how to be strong.

If I were easily bullied, my daughter would never know how to be independent. This time, it was my turn to act.

Chi Ye, a young master from the elite Beijing Circle, had just been rejected after a public confession.

I eagerly squeezed through the crowd, hoping to scavenge whatever was left behind.

I was just waiting to pick up the 999 roses he didn’t want anymore so I could sell them.

Suddenly, Danmaku appeared before my eyes: [What are you doing picking up flowers at a time like this? Go pick up the man!]

[What a money-grubber. She only has eyes for cash; she completely missed Chi Ye’s handsome face.]

[Lin Ran is so stupid. You and Lin Wan are twins; don’t you know how to play your cards right using that face?]

[If you land Chi Ye, you can scavenge every trash can in the luxury districts within a fifty-kilometer radius. Isn’t that better than slaving away at a milk tea shop?]

My hand, which was reaching for a rose, froze.

I looked up at Chi Ye and asked, “My sister and I look exactly the same. How about you date me instead?”

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?