Short Story

When I opened my eyes, I found I had been reborn in a vocational school bathroom.

The girl who had just given birth to me was wearing a shabby cotton-padded coat. She sat on the ice-cold tile floor, staring at me in terror.

She glared at me. Then she raised her bloodstained hands and reached to strangle me.

Right on cue, the System notification rang out: “Current location: the women’s restroom on the west side of the third floor of the teaching building at Maocheng Senior Vocational Technical School. Your first mission: survive your biological mother.”

Me: ? Damn. Straight into nightmare mode.

I knew nothing of the zither, chess, calligraphy, or painting.

Before I married Yu Huaiqian, the matchmaker asked me what I was good at.

I thought for a long while, then said,

“Picking rice.”

The whole room burst into laughter.

Yu Huaiqian laughed too, but there was no mockery in it.

He said, “Being able to pick rice is quite good. A household still has to eat.”

He was a famously refined young gentleman of the capital.

Everyone thought he should have married that childhood sweetheart of his, the one who could compose lyrics.

But he married me.

After the wedding, we each did our part and supported each other.

I asked him if he ever found me dull.

He placed a chopstickful of greens into my bowl. “Dull is good. I’ve heard enough of all that outside.”

I remembered those words for a very long time.

Until his childhood sweetheart broke off her engagement and returned to the capital.

At the Qushui Banquet, she casually recited a single line from a new lyric.

The wine cup in Yu Huaiqian’s hand froze in midair.

After the banquet ended, he sat in the study and filled an entire page with that one line.

I picked up the paper and looked at him. He immediately reached out to snatch it away.

“Don’t look.”

I asked, “Is it so good that I can’t see it?”

He was silent for a moment, then his voice lowered.

“You wouldn’t understand anyway. Why insist on asking?”

Ruan Yueying was born into the Ruan Clan of Chenliu. By all rights, she should have become the Crown Princess, but because Crown Prince Gu Ming insisted on marrying Qin Yunnong, she was made a Side Consort instead. In the Eastern Palace, she formed a brief yet precious bond with Qin Yunnong and Hu Mianmian. But after a wedding night spun out of control, and amid the pull of power, desire, and love, she was forced into the schemes of the deep palace. Hu Mianmian withered away for love. Qin Yunnong, desperate to protect her own love, grew more ruthless with every step. And through loss and revenge, Ruan Yueying rose to the position of empress. Years later, she possessed honor, children, and power, yet remained forever trapped in the waxing and waning of that moon-until, on her deathbed, she finally spoke to the emperor of the clearest hatred and deepest regret of her life.

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.”

After my elder sister learned she was a false heiress,

she disguised herself as a man and went out drinking at a pleasure house to drown her sorrows.

Who could have known she would accidentally enter the wrong room?

There, she spent a night of passion with Zhou Huaixu, who had come to investigate a case.

Zhou Huaixu had been drugged. His mind was hazy, and he did not know who the woman from the night before had been.

He only remembered that she said she came from the Qinghe Cui Clan.

The Zhou Family was known for its upright traditions, and Zhou Huaixu soon came to propose marriage.

But by then, my elder sister had already left.

As it happened, I had gone looking for her that night and did not return to the estate until dawn.

He mistook me for my elder sister and married me.

It was not until our wedding night that he realized he had the wrong person.

Filled with regret, he blamed me. “If you hadn’t been so vague, how could I have married you?”

Zhou Huaixu treated me with the utmost coldness, yet in bed, he showed me no mercy at all.

When I cried and begged him, he only covered my face and sneered, “She would never be as frivolous and lowly as you.”

Then I was reborn on the day Zhou Huaixu came to propose.

I spoke softly. “That night, I went to bed early and never left the estate.”

I was dragged into a horror game instance and forced to listen to a Siren sing.

I took off my hearing aids and stared blankly at the Siren baring its fangs.

“Sorry, sorry. I may not be able to hear, but I can definitely sleep!”

After a peaceful night’s rest, I safely survived the first day.

In the middle of the second night, someone quietly put my hearing aids back on me.

But then…

“Huh? I forgot to charge my hearing aids. Good thing I brought spare batteries.”

The Siren stared at me in silence, its expression dark and sinister.

Later, a group of Sirens gathered around the side of the ship, planning to pick someone to attack.

I performed CPR while playing “Most Dazzling Ethnic Style.”

The terrifying cruise ship turned into a blistering-hot party.

That day, every Siren sang off-key…

I was the eldest daughter of the family-the one no one favored.

From childhood, I was taught to be composed and proper, to serve as an example for my younger siblings.

And yet my fiancé was stolen away by my seemingly innocent and adorable legitimate younger sister.

My younger brothers remembered none of the good I had done for them. They only resented me for disciplining them too strictly. Even my parents saw me as nothing more than a tool to polish the family name, wholeheartedly taking my legitimate younger sister’s side.

Faced with all this, I spread my hands and gave up. From then on, I refused to involve myself in anything happening in the manor.

I let them flounder through one petty mess after another, gradually falling apart until none of the old warmth remained. Even that innocent and adorable legitimate younger sister, once she lost my support, was no longer the treasure of their hearts.

My buddy’s older sister was an aloof, goddess-level doctor, and every time I saw her, my heart started pounding.

Then one day, while I was eating skewers at a barbecue stand, I passed out from blood loss and got rushed to the hospital in an ambulance.

After she performed hemorrhoid surgery on me, I finally found out she’d been secretly in love with me for ten whole years!

Chapter 0

“Jiejie, I’m bored of this.” Qi Sen rolled over and got up from the sofa, chin raised as he spoke to me with an arrogant attitude.

I froze, instinctively covering the buttons of my shirt. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“It’s too late now, a taxi is too expensive,” I said, reaching for the bag tossed by the table and pulling out my phone to check the time. “You can leave tomorrow morning.”

Ten years into our marriage, my husband began lavishing attention on a Transmigrator outside our home.

While the two of them were in the throes of their affair, that Transmigrator, in all her ignorance, came to make a scene before me.

“As expected of a feudal relic trapped in the inner residence until death. You think everyone is like you, unable to live without a man. You underestimated me and belittled him. Apologize.”

I sat in my warm, cushioned sedan chair, my head propped lazily on one hand, without even lifting my eyes.

“Slap her mouth. Use the roughest bamboo paddle.”

This feudal relic might not have much else, but my rank was a little higher, and my methods a little harsher.

So when they beat her, they put a little more force into it.