Romance

Chi Heng pretended to be poor and became my kept boyfriend.

Each month, I scraped together five hundred yuan from my living expenses to give him, and this went on for a year and a half.

As graduation approached, I finally found out:

He wasn’t a poor student on loans, but a young master who spent money like water.

He’d even been using someone else’s name the whole time.

The young master condescended to invite me to go abroad with him.

His friends all said I was lucky-with just a kind little white flower persona, I could climb up the social ladder.

Under his gaze, brimming with confidence that he’d get what he wanted,

I shook my head and said gently, “Better not.”

“I’m here to break up with you.”

In my last life, Xie Wujiu stormed the capital, and blood ran like rivers before the palace gates. In this life, before he could fall into darkness, I forced him into a private school and made him recite The Analects every day.

Only later did I understand: asking a starving person to speak of benevolence and righteousness can itself be cruel.

My mom works as a housekeeper for Jiang Chuyi’s family, so I’ve lived in the Jiang Family home since I was little.

Jiang Chuyi is the model student in adults’ eyes.

Top grades, a good personality-he’s a child of heaven.

But the moment he took a knife and slit his own wrist-

I was the only one who saw it.

When the master hosts a banquet, he often has beautiful women serve wine.

If a guest refuses to drink, the beauty is executed on the spot.

Unluckily, I am that unfortunate beauty.

Tonight’s guest of honor is an aloof and distinguished scholar, Yan Xuan.

First cup: he complained the wine was cold and wouldn’t drink. A sword swung, a head fell.

Second cup: he complained the server was vulgar and wouldn’t drink. Blood splattered on the spot.

By the third cup, the serving maid pleaded pitifully, but his expression never changed.

Now it’s my turn to offer wine.

The swordsman beside me sharpened his blade ominously.

I raised my hand and splashed the wine across his face.

“Are you just asking for it?”

The insanely hot guy upstairs is six-two, with cool-toned fair skin and gold-rimmed glasses. He looks aloof and abstinent, but apparently, he’s actually a beast.

The very night I moved in, the upstairs unit went at it all night.

So passionate. So impressive.

It would have been even better if I hadn’t been the one suffering through it.

When they were about to start up again, I finally couldn’t take it anymore.

I opened the property management WeChat group and added the hot guy from Unit 802, Building E.

“Hi, you’re the resident of Unit 802 in Building E, right?”

“Could you two keep it down?”

“It’s so loud I can’t sleep…”

He replied, “I’m working overtime at the office.”

I shot up from my deathbed of exhaustion, suddenly smelling the scent of piping-hot gossip.

The next second, he transferred me eight hundred yuan.

Him: “Bro, help me block the door. I’ll be there right away.”

The Xie Family came to my door to break off the engagement, offering me two options.

Either the First Young Master and I dissolved our betrothal, and from then on, he and I would marry whomever we pleased, with nothing more to do with each other.

Or we changed the match: I would marry the Second Young Master instead, and I would still become a daughter-in-law of the Xie Family.

The First Young Master was a dragon among men. He had rendered great service while away on official business, and once he returned to the capital, he would be able to enter the Hanlin Academy. As an orphaned girl, my status was no longer worthy of him.

The Second Young Master was a concubine-born son of the family. Though he could not compare to his elder brother, he was still quite learned.

They were certain I would agree to the change. After all, no one could withstand the pressure of gossip and rumor-not to mention the Second Young Master was exceptionally handsome.

But what did any of that have to do with me?

I only asked calmly, “Is this the First Young Master’s wish?”

“It is! The First Young Master said that times change and circumstances shift. A clever young lady like you will surely know how to judge the situation.”

Later, I entered the palace and became a female official.

The Xie Family was about to be punished for their crimes.

The First Young Master Xie knelt outside the palace gates, begging me to pass a message inside.

My gaze fell on him without sorrow or joy, and I said mildly, “Young Master once told me to judge the situation. I have always kept that lesson close to heart and have never dared forget it.”

I was fighting someone in the street when Young Madam took a liking to me on the spot.

She gave me fifty taels of silver and asked if I was willing to become her husband’s concubine.

They say a debt of recognition should be repaid with one’s body. Fair enough.

But was this really the way to repay it?

Still, I was desperately short on silver, so I gritted my teeth and agreed.

Only after entering the manor did I learn that my husband was introverted, my mother-in-law was tyrannical, and my sister-in-law was insufferably arrogant.

Young Madam hadn’t bought me back to serve anyone at all.

She had brought me into this family to be King Yan.

My mother was a farm girl who couldn’t read a single character, yet she still supported my father all the way until he passed the provincial examination.

On the day my father married the Prime Minister’s legitimate daughter, my mother obediently became his equal wife.

My father thought my mother loved him, which made her easy to control.

My father’s principal wife thought my mother, born and raised in the countryside, could never be a match for her.

And so, beneath their contempt, my mother played the fool while hiding her claws, raising me into someone whose worth was beyond measure.

The year Shen Jiuyuan picked me up, I was like a stray dog.

For ten years, I took bullets for him, rooted out traitors for him, and knelt to lick the blood from his shoes.

Everyone said I was Master Shen’s most loyal dog.

Until that night, when he gripped my chin and asked, “What reward do you want?”

I kissed his bloodstained fingertips. “I want you.”

He gave a low laugh and pressed a gun into my hand. “Then kill the person behind you for me.”

I took the gun and turned around, and the mirror reflected my pale face.

I served at the Empress Dowager’s side for twenty years as her chief palace maid.

Steady, dignified, respected by all.

No one knew.

I had borne two children for the Son of Heaven.

Only on her deathbed did the Empress Dowager discover our secret affair.

She held my hand, seeming to sigh.

“Silly child. You kept this from me for so many years.”

“I will issue an imperial decree at once and have you enter the palace as a consort, so mother and children may be reunited.”

In my previous life, I truly did enter the palace.

But by then, Zhao Xun already had a Noble Consort he cherished above all else.

He favored me for a time, then cast me aside without a second thought.

Even my own children acknowledged another woman as their mother.

Now, reborn into this life,

I no longer wanted to be his consort.

Beside the Empress Dowager’s sickbed,

I kowtowed heavily. “This servant would never dare presume upon imperial favor.”

“I beg the Empress Dowager for mercy. Please allow this servant to leave the palace.”