Romance

In my previous life, before my elder sister entered the palace to become empress, she bent her head to tell me, “Ah Ting, when I’m gone, you must take care of yourself.”

I promised her through my tears.

Five years later, the empress fell out of favor.

Her enemies had her raped, and that night she hanged herself.

The emperor decreed that the deposed empress of the Meng family was without virtue.

No one in the capital was permitted to wear mourning white.

I went to beg forgiveness on behalf of the Meng family.

Struck by my beauty, His Majesty took me into the palace, where I became the most favored woman in his harem.

The day I dragged him into the flames to die with me, he closed his hands around my throat in a rage.

“I have treated your family well!

For your sake, I even overlooked that defiled, deposed empress!”

I let the fire climb over me as though I could feel nothing.

“I didn’t.”

When I woke again, it was the day my sister entered the palace.

She stroked my head, then turned toward the palace that devoured people.

I stripped off my fine clothes and jewelry, then turned toward the bloodshed of an army camp.

Let us see whether that imperial bastard would still dare call her “deposed empress” when I surrounded his palace with my army.

I was the poor relation living under the Marquis of Ning’an’s roof.

When the marchioness saw my flawless complexion and natural beauty, she decided I should become her eldest son’s honored concubine.

My cousin, the heir, refused.

“With her background and her looks, if I took her in, what position would that leave my future wife in?”

Oh, what an exceptionally decent man. A pity he wasn’t meant for me.

So I put the thought aside and sensibly found another path for myself.

But just before my wedding, my cousin seized me and refused to let go. His eyes were bloodshot as he trembled. “You can’t marry him! I won’t allow it!”

“…”

The betrothal gifts had already arrived, and my dowry list was finished.

Who did he think he was, telling me not to marry now?

My husband brought home a young woman.

I waited for her to bow and pay her respects, but she started shouting that “all people are born equal.”

I suggested she become his concubine, and she clung to my husband, demanding “one man, one woman, for one lifetime.”

My husband told me to be more accommodating toward her.

I was silent for a long while.

Then I kicked him straight into the sewage ditch.

“You’re the one who’s born equal to dogs. The two of you can go be a pair of dogs for life!”

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 marrying a blind CEO, I took full advantage of the fact that he couldn’t see me and kissed him again and again.

Blushing, he kept saying, “Miss Lin, please don’t.”

Later, he backed me into a corner, his gaze dark and intent.

“Come here, sweetheart.

I need a cuddle.”

On my wedding day, a certain "ex-boyfriend" sent me a message.

"Do you know what you did wrong?

"If you do, we can get back together."

I stared blankly at my phone, then at the contact name on the chat: "8/12-Six-Pack, Great Dresser, Terrible Drinker."

I sank into thought.

"?"

When I did not reply for a long time, he sent another question mark.

"I'm getting married today."

After some thought, I decided it was best to be direct.

"How far along are you?" he replied at once.

"I've already changed into my reception dress," I answered honestly.

"It's time to go make the rounds and toast the guests."

A deep, mellow male voice sounded beside my ear.

With it came his scent-a cool, distant trace of bamboo mingled with the sea.

It was Lu Yuzhi, the man I had married.

"Okay."

I gave him a stiff smile and locked my phone the instant I heard his voice.

What I did not know was when he had come up behind me-or how much he had seen.

Lu Yuzhi and I were joined by a business marriage, not love.

Even so, no one would be happy to see their new spouse talking to someone of the opposite sex saved as "8/12-Six-Pack, Great Dresser, Terrible Drinker" on their wedding day.

I married a pig butcher in my young mistress’s place. On our wedding night, I said, “From now on, you slaughter the pigs and I’ll sell the meat. As husband and wife, we’ll work together and make a good life for ourselves. When we have children, we’ll send them to school and do our best to free them from the fate of becoming butchers.”

Then my rather handsome husband pressed a hand to his forehead and laughed.

I’d finally scraped together enough money for an immortal sword.

Then some godforsaken sword cultivator used Ten Thousand Swords Return to the Source and summoned mine away.

When it flew back, it had thirteen notches in its blade.

Damn you!

Give me my sword back the way it was!

My younger sister stole the man I was supposed to marry, and the empress’s public reprimand seemed to destroy what remained of my future.

Then my sworn rival arrived to laugh at me—and I heard the thoughts behind his smug smile.

She could have spared herself all this trouble by marrying me.

So I asked him, in front of everyone, if he would.

The next instant, his face turned scarlet.

After ten years by my side, my husband brought home a beauty and announced he would make her empress.

He said, “You have no son, but I need a crown prince.”

“What man under heaven doesn’t have three wives and four concubines?”

“When did you become so jealous, so incapable of tolerating others? You’ve changed. You’ve become hideous.”

That very night, I took my Young General with me and charged out through the city gates without looking back.

After I left, he said with red-rimmed eyes, “Ning Huan, come back.”

Of course I would come back.

Clad in the imperial yellow robes, I led three hundred thousand troops back to the capital, my loyal Young General standing at my side.

“Men, drag the Deposed Emperor and that beauty out and behead them. Hang their heads from the city walls. Let them go to hell and reflect on their disloyalty and lack of filial piety.”