Short Story

The year I turned fifteen, I buried my foster mother and entered the imperial palace.

I became a princess.

They said the late empress had cut me from her womb before setting herself on fire.

That I looked exactly like her.

How could I not?

Fifteen years of going hungry at every meal and swallowing medicine every day had seen to that.

At least all that effort had paid off.

I had finally wormed my way into the palace!

After my Imperial Mother Consort died, I was given three foster mothers in succession.

Of those three foster mothers, some were deposed, and the others were ordered to die.

In the end, I landed in Beauty Lin’s care.

For three years, she and I lived together in peace, without incident.

Until she offended the wrong person and was thrown into the Office of Punishment.

My heart gave a jolt. Oh no. It looked like I was going to have to change foster mothers again.

Worse still, this time, she was the only one I wanted.

The emperor woke from a nightmare in the dead of night. In his dream, he had a daughter who had been lost among the common people. So he offered a handsome reward for any news of the princess’s whereabouts.

Everyone said His Majesty was a man of deep feeling.

But I knew there was another reason behind it.

The capital had gone a full year without rain. National Preceptor Xuanxiu advised the emperor that the only way to end the drought was to sink a princess into the river as a sacrifice to the gods.

The emperor had only one daughter, born of the Empress, and he treasured her like the apple of his eye.

And so, at long last, he remembered that sixteen years ago, when he had been living among the common people, he had once had another daughter.

He offered a great reward to find her so that daughter could take Princess Mingzhu’s place.

And die.

On the night I married Lu Boya, my buddies warned me, “Professor Lu is a refined scholar with a delicate constitution. You’d better be gentle with him!”

I gave them a ferocious grin. “Gentle? Not happening. This lady has plenty of strength-and plenty of tricks!”

The next day, my voice was hoarse and my eyes were swollen as I shouted at Lu Boya, who stood there in a crisp suit and gold-rimmed glasses.

“Liar!”

Refined scholar? Delicate constitution? All lies!

Chapter 0

Even now, the fact that I ended up on a blind date with a university professor still feels completely surreal.

I have a car, a house, money… The only thing I lack is education. He has a car, a house, money… and an education!

So what exactly does he see in me?

After breaking up with Zhou Yanxu, Ying Xu steals his family’s treasured white pet snake and takes it home.

Floating comments soon reveal that her new pet is actually Zhou Ci, the Zhou family’s ancient patriarch—a snake god who has waited thousands of years for her.

As Zhou Ci sheds his harmless disguise and coils himself into every corner of her life, Ying Xu begins to uncover a bond that reaches far beyond her disastrous romance.

Their reunion may have begun by accident, but some promises are written into the soul.

Three months after I moved into Old River Bend, the old lady next door died. While I was helping clear out her belongings, I found a diary.

The first page read: “My daughter died three years ago. The person living next door to me is a ghost.”

But I knew there was something wrong with her daughter from the very first day, because I’m a ghost, too.

My father, the emperor, once traveled through Jiangnan in disguise and encountered a diviner.

The man exposed his identity at a glance and left him with a prophecy: ‘The one who will plunge my realm into chaos stands even now at Your Majesty’s side.’

Even after my father ordered him beaten to death, he refused to name the traitor.

And so my mother, the most favored consort in the Six Palaces, was given a bowl of arsenic by that brutal, suspicious emperor.

After her death, he ordered her hair draped over her face and her mouth stuffed with rice chaff, so that even her ghost would be too ashamed to face anyone and unable to speak.

All because she had been the only person beside him that day.

But there was one thing my father did not know.

At nine years old, hidden behind a curtain, I had heard everything too.

The enemy army pressed against the border. To humiliate our dynasty, the Xiqing Tribe specifically demanded that the Empress be sent for a political marriage.

In the court, the Emperor resolutely defied the majority opinion and was determined to protect me.

I pondered all night. This was the land my beloved had sworn to defend to the death. This was my home, my roots. I could not run away.

Outside the Capital gate, I questioned him:

“Three years ago, when the enemy army was outside Yuezhou City, didn’t Pei Yu send you six urgent requests for reinforcements?”

“Xiao Jince, why didn’t you send troops?”

As the School Belle, I swapped souls with the fattest and poorest girl in the whole school.

We exchanged secrets, shared our lives, and tried hard to return to our original selves.

Until one day, she disappeared.

The teacher said her whole family had moved abroad.

I saw her again ten years later.

She was standing beside my Childhood Sweetheart, having become the CEO’s Wife.