Short Story

I was a female scripture teacher who recited sutras for the madam of the household.

Yet in the middle of the night, someone cornered me behind the incense-draped curtains and asked me who was better-looking: him or the Bodhisattva.

That night, I did not choose the Bodhisattva.

Unfortunately, after barely three months, he came to bid me farewell.

I thought he had simply grown tired of me, so I agreed without fuss.

From then on, he lived beneath the glow of red lanterns, lost in endless pleasure, while I returned alone to the ancient Buddha and my solitary lamp.

Who would have thought that later, when he learned I had been drowned in a pond… He went mad.

At midnight, I woke up in a strange place.

Someone knocked on my truck window and said they were holding a celebration tonight, and asked me to join them.

Still groggy, I got out of the truck.

The village before me was decked out in lanterns and colored streamers.

“Is it a wedding?” I asked the villager. The villager didn’t answer.

Instead, a hazy thought came to me: I seemed to have come here to escort the bride.

I turned back to look at the heavy truck I’d driven here.

It was empty. But why did I remember it being packed full of things when I arrived?

What had I been carrying? For a moment, I couldn’t recall.

When I turned back again, the villager who had come to call me was gone.

After I transmigrated into a household-intrigue novel…

My mother-in-law demanded that I follow the rules and get up early to serve her tea.

I couldn’t get up. So that very night, I slipped her a sleeping pill.

Then I made sure she slept in with me until the sun was high in the sky.

I thought I was going to be severely punished.

But then floating comments appeared before my eyes: [Haha, this is the first time in decades that Madam Qin has slept this long. She’s feeling refreshed and in a great mood right now.]

[She never got enough sleep before. No wonder she had such a bad temper.]

[Modern technology really is amazing. It directly eased the insomnia and anxiety that Madam Qin spent a fortune trying and failing to cure for years.]

[The female lead really stumbled right into Madam Qin’s heart by accident.]

Me: ? Is this how it’s supposed to go?

At 3:00 AM, an official emergency alert jolted you awake. The message read: “Do not look up at the moon.”

At the same time, you discovered that your phone had received hundreds of messages from unknown numbers: “The night is so beautiful. Look out the window.”

The night I went to collect Prince Jing’s corpse, I saw my own jade bracelet and sleeping robe inside the coffin. My husband, returned from the dead, choked me and said, “Lanyin, die once in my place.”

When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to three months ago. This time, I will be the one collecting their corpses first.

During the years I spent as a concubine in Changning Marquis Manor, I humbled myself in every possible way to win Marquis Shen’s favor, stooping low and fawning over him without shame. In the end, he still gave me away as easily as one might hand off an object.

And yet, one day, his eyes would redden as he murmured by my ear, “Shiyi Niang, I miss you so much I’m going mad.”

Hah. Men.

On the second day of the tenth lunar month, the great warlord Lu Zhi took a second concubine: Song Anran, the youngest daughter of the chairman of the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce.

Lu Zhi had made a name for himself in recent years.

He had won battle after battle, commanded a formidable army, and wielded immense power—but surely not so much that the chairman of the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce would deliver his own daughter to him as a concubine.

Oh, but it was.

My father did exactly that.

I am the unlucky princess who got thrown into the Cold Palace.

The people above gave me two choices: either become a eunuch’s palace wife, or marry a fool.

Without the slightest hesitation, I chose to marry the fool.

After all, he comes with an extra part. I’d be getting the better deal~

After my sister fell into the water, she seemed to become a different person.

She stopped chasing after the heir to Prince Qin. Instead, time and again, she pushed me in front of him.

With grief in her eyes and stubborn resolve in her voice, she said, “You have always been the one in his heart. I won’t stand between you anymore.”

At the same moment, lines of text appeared in the air before me.

“I know it hurts to give the man you love to someone else with your own hands, but this is the only way to make the male lead recognize his feelings sooner and spare you all that suffering.”

“People only treasure what they can’t have. Now that you’ve pushed your sister at Qin Yi, he’ll get bored with her and lose interest.”

“Once Qin Yi realizes you’ve truly given up on him, he’ll grovel and beg you to take him back.”

“Our Eldest Miss deserves the best. Change the male lead! Qin Yi has liked someone else, so he’s already tainted. Let him marry the supporting female character. Once he discovers how vicious the sister really is, he’ll regret everything—but by then, you’ll already have found someone better. Turn this angst story into a revenge fantasy!”

Tears shimmered in my sister’s eyes as she faced Qin Yi with absolute determination. “Don’t worry. I won’t pester you again. You and my sister are the perfect match.”

I hid my shock and looked at Qin Yi.

Only to find him staring at the words in the air too, momentarily lost in thought.

At the class reunion, my ex-boyfriend held his fiancée close as he announced their wedding date.

I snapped a photo and prepared to send it to his mother with the caption: “They look like a perfect match. Congratulations on finally getting what you wanted.”

Just as I was about to hit send, someone grabbed my wrist in a crushing grip.

“Oh? Still in touch with my mother?” He stared down at me, his expression dark and predatory. “What’s the matter? Didn’t you squeeze enough money out of her the first time?”

The surrounding room fell deathly silent. My face turned pale as I looked up.

I hadn’t even noticed when the music had stopped.

I had become the center of attention.