Short Story

Two years after my daughter’s death, I traveled to the capital.

The people there asked me, “Who are you looking for?”

I replied, “I am looking for my child’s father. His name is Shen Zhao.”

Everyone laughed. They said Shen Zhao was the capital’s premier noble scion.

“He is Princess Xunyang’s Prince Consort now,” they said. “How could someone like you harbor such delusions?”

I laughed, too.

Good. Because the one I intend to kill is precisely the Prince Consort.

At our wedding, I whispered something in my husband’s ear.

Upon hearing it, he suffered a total breakdown and leaped to his death right then and there.

After he died, countless people-including the police-asked me what I had said.

I remained silent.

Five years later, while I was living in poverty, someone tracked me down. They offered a massive reward, wanting to buy those words from me.

He wanted to know exactly what kind of sentence could kill a man.

In that moment, I was overcome with excitement.

The person I had been waiting for had finally arrived.

It had been three months since I completed my mission and logged off.

The System tracked me down, looking frantic and disheveled. “You have to go back! Your husband has lost his mind!”

I calmly continued washing my cat. “Oh, please. He was never normal to begin with.”

“He’s in the black market right now, trying to sell your son!”

I cursed under my breath and slammed the teleport button.

A moment later, I found two White Tigers-one large, one small-huddled in a corner of the black market.

The large one was covered in blood. Next to his paw sat a small sign. It read in bold letters: SELLING SON EARLY TO FUND FATHER’S FUNERAL.

“Fine, I’ll be the one to marry him.”

The moment the words left my mouth, a sudden sense of relief washed over me.

It was no big deal. In fact, I suppose you could even call this a blessing, couldn’t you?

The day before our wedding, I accidentally stumbled upon a chat log between him and one of his old buddies.

“I’ve never met anyone so easy to fool.”

“She’s from a single-parent household, you know? She’s starved for affection.”

“So, even if I treat her just a tiny bit well, she comes crawling back to lick my boots.”

…

Honestly, I once believed he was the one who rescued me from the mire I was sinking in. As it turns out, he was just playing me for a fool the entire time.

I thought I had found love, but all my sincerity had been thrown to the dogs.

During the year of our purest love, Chen Ming and I shared a kiss in front of everyone when we won the Zhengfa Cup debate competition.

But later, when our son was diagnosed with autism, we both came to regret it.

After ten years of love, the wear and tear of life had transformed us from a match made in heaven into a pair of bitter rivals.

Time skipped forward to our son’s fifth birthday.

Chen Ming and I were in the car, arguing once again over our child’s illness.

Right in front of our son, we cursed each other, screaming for the other to drop dead.

The next second, an out-of-control heavy truck barreled toward us.

Chen Ming went against his instincts and jerked the steering wheel to the right, but the violent impact swallowed all the shouting and cursing anyway.

When I woke up again, we were back on the day we won the Zhengfa Cup.

This time, facing a stadium full of cheering and jeering, we pretended we barely knew each other.

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?”

Mengyu was the last daughter of the Gu Family still waiting to be wed. Her two older sisters had both married poorly.

One had been wed to a scion of a prominent family who was riddled with venereal disease.

The other had married a rising star from a humble background who favored his concubines and mistreated his wife.

When it was finally her turn, the prospects were even worse.

She was bound by a betrothal made back when the Gu Family had yet to find success-a childhood engagement to a poor scholar.

With a fierce mother-in-law, a spiteful sister-in-law, and a spineless husband awaiting her, even Mengyu’s parents felt too ashamed to ask her to go through with it.

Yet, Mengyu spoke with gentle composure. “There is no need for you to be troubled, Mother, Father. From what I can see, all men in this world are the same. What difference does it make who I marry?”

I was trapped in the company building, dying in a loop ninety-nine times.

The ways I died were varied: the elevator falling, electrocution from the copier, a pen tip piercing my brow…

Each time I opened my eyes, it was nine o’clock sharp on the same morning, just as I sat down at my desk.

After seeking help multiple times, my Physics Professor Husband finally believed me.

Following his instructions, I searched step by step for a way to escape the cycle of death.

But on the hundredth time, I saw the Jade Bracelet my husband had secretly bought, worn on the hand of an Aloof Female Colleague beside me.

…

On the 101st attempt, I decided to face the desperate situation head-on, determined to leave the building alive!

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.