Short Story

While I was playing with my cat’s tail, the B-king school heartthrob suddenly video-called me.

“Stop touching him.”

“That part of me… I think it has an Empathy Link with your cat’s tail.”

I didn’t understand, so I asked him, “What part?”

His face flushed scarlet. Abandoning all dignity, he simply tilted the camera downward.

Holy crap. Was I even allowed to see this for free?

Was he hiding a bottle of mineral water in his pants?

I stole my sister’s man.

During the year she was abroad, the man she’d been longing for all these years came to me with her photo in hand.

“Do you know the girl in this photo?”

I took off my mask, revealing a face identical to my sister’s, and smiled sweetly.

“Are you looking for me?”

When my elder sister was preparing to marry Marquis Ding’an,

she caught the eye of the Crown Prince.

Our entire family was overjoyed.

To give the marquis’s household an explanation, they pushed me out in her place on the day of the wedding.

After we were married, Marquis Ding’an despised me.

Again and again, he mocked me to my face:

“Crude and vulgar. You don’t compare to your sister in the slightest.”

“You can’t even read an account book. Astonishingly stupid.”

I felt wronged too. I smashed my rouge and powder at him and cursed,

“My sister is the Crown Princess now. If you’re so capable, go steal her back, you coward!”

And so we spent our entire lives at each other’s throats.

When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to when I was sixteen and not yet married.

My elder sister looked at me with smiling eyes and coaxed,

“Little sister, would you like to marry into the marquis’s household and become the Marchioness?”

[Does Chinese Taoist magic work on foreign ghosts?]

[I have no idea. I’m on my way to a cemetery castle right now. I’ll let you all know when I get back.]

My reply to the post was voted to the top of the comments.

Everyone said I was bragging, but what they didn’t know was that I am the sole Earth Master successor.

And the thing inside that British Castle is far more terrifying than any ghost.

I was being bullied.

My bullies even threatened to show up at my house.

I begged them not to go.

They had no idea that I was the only normal person in my family.

My father is a serial killer.

My mother is a yandere.

My brother has an antisocial personality disorder.

I am the only one who is a delicate, pitiful little flower.

In the dead of night, I received a phone call. The caller ID showed it was my husband. With a voice of utmost gravity, he told me that I would die at two o’clock in the morning.

But right now, he was clearly lying right beside me, fast asleep.

When the Crown Prince ascended the throne, he installed his Crown Prince’s Secondary Consort as the Empress.

The reason was simple.

It was written in the Destiny Book that his first Empress would die from a hail of arrows piercing her heart.

On the day the imperial decree for the installation was issued, my elder sister-the Crown Princess Shen Chengyun-entered my palace with a beaming smile and gave a rather sloppy bow.

“This consort offers her congratulations to the Empress.”

She leaned in close, her bright red lips curling into a venomous sneer.

“Shen Ruoruo, you’d better cherish these few days of luxury. Don’t get too ahead of yourself, though. If you do anything to upset me… well, whether you receive an honorable posthumous title after you die will be entirely up to me.”

“Is that so?”

I took a step back and spoke in a low, steady voice.

“Then Sister had better make sure she doesn’t die before I do.”

Both my younger half-sister and I were bound to a Palace Struggle Points Shop.

She used hers to exchange for peerless beauty, a captivating singing voice, and extraordinary dancing skills.

I, on the other hand, exchanged mine for the loyalty of generals, the allegiance of virtuous scholars, and the submission of merchant guilds.

Later, my sister became the Noble Consort, enjoying unrivaled favor. She came to my palace to flaunt her power, saying, “Sister, your palace is truly desolate. I’m afraid His Majesty the Emperor has already forgotten you ever existed.”

I offered a faint smile. “The less His Majesty the Emperor remembers me, the better.”

That way, my intention to replace him would not be exposed too soon.

Young General Yan was having a spat with the girl who held his heart.

During the night banquet, he had hidden a stem of Evening Magnolia.

He declared that whoever found that flower would become the General’s Wife.

The noble ladies all turned their heads, scanning the room to see where the Evening Magnolia had landed. I remained silent.

I simply used my foot to quietly kick away the flower lying behind my seat.

A moment later, Yan Ci’s nonchalant voice rang out. “I wonder which lady has picked up my flower?”

In the ancient villages at the foot of the Shennongjia mountains, there is a secret ritual: using grown women as bait to lure a Wild Man.

This time, the village chose me.

If luck is on my side, I will become pregnant and give birth to the hope of the entire village.

But this time, luck is not on their side.

Because they have no idea that I am the sole Earth Master successor.