Short Story

Changhui came here on a mission to save me.

When my grandmother passed away and the Crown Prince came to take me into the palace, I heard Xie Changhui’s inner thoughts.

[Don’t go. If you go, you will eventually fall in love with the Crown Prince and become a villain. You’ll commit heinous crimes and meet a miserable end.]

So, I refused the Crown Prince.

Later, when I encountered a sick youth on the road, I heard Xie Changhui’s voice in my head again.

[He is the blade you will use to kill. You love the Crown Prince, but he loves you. For your sake, he will slaughter countless people, only to die at the hands of the female lead.]

I picked up the boy and took him in as my younger brother.

Even later, when I finally met the female lead, I felt an unavoidable, murderous intent the moment I saw her.

Xie Changhui took my hand. “Shaohua, wake up. Think about who you are.”

Who am I? I am a daughter of the Song Family, the child of a founding official, and a future female general. I am certainly not some tool meant to spend my life plotting and fighting against others.

The moment I received my fiancé’s letter breaking off our engagement, I headed straight for Cangzhou.

I was planning to demand a few dozen taels of silver as compensation for my wasted youth.

What I hadn’t expected was that he had fallen from being a prince’s estate adviser to a criminal slave.

He knelt on the ground, covered in blood and filth, looking so pitiful that anyone could do whatever they wanted with him.

“Are you buying or not? If you’re not, move to the back!”

The people there to buy slaves shoved me behind them.

I thought to myself in secret,

This isn’t me refusing to save him, okay? Other people pushed me out!

At once, I felt perfectly justified in turning to leave.

The seller was still urging the crowd, “Hurry it up! This is the last day! Anyone who doesn’t sell today gets dragged to the market and beheaded tomorrow!”

My steps paused slightly, and I tightened my grip on the purse hidden in my sleeve.

Just then, I heard a hoarse voice shout,

“My fiancée is here to buy me! The one with the shabby bamboo hat!”

In the year of famine, disaster fell upon our entire village.

My little brother was so hungry he no longer had the strength to cry, yet his small belly was swollen tight and shiny.

Mother held him in her arms and sat on the threshold, motionless, like a clay idol that had lost its soul.

In the pot was Guanyin clay boiled in clear water. Eating it made your stomach swell, and then you couldn’t pass it.

“Girl…” Father finally spoke. “Don’t blame your mother and me for being cruel… In the palace, in the palace there’ll at least be a mouthful of food.”

When the human trafficker came in, he brought with him a gust of dry, cold wind.

“She’s decent-looking enough, just a bit too thin and weak.

“Three pecks of millet. Not a grain more.”

I saw Father’s hand trembling violently as he pressed his handprint onto that sheet of paper.

Three pecks of golden-yellow millet were poured into the only broken grain jar in our home, making a soft rustling sound.

It was such a beautiful sound-the most beautiful sound I had ever heard.

My little brother would probably live through this winter.

On the day of our wedding, my wife stood on the roof of the building, clad in a pure white gown.

She wept as she asked me, “If I die, will the people who hurt me feel any remorse?”

“They won’t feel a thing,” I replied. “But I will kill them. I’ll make every single one of them follow you to the grave. If you still love me, if you can’t bear to see me become a murderer, then don’t jump. I’ll take care of you for the rest of my life.”

She wiped away her tears and forced a faint smile. “I’m sorry, but I can’t hold on anymore. Every single day I’m alive, I just want to die.”

I looked at her, a wave of desolate sorrow washing over me.

I loved her.

But if she jumped, I would understand.

I was livestreaming fortune-telling when I connected with a male streamer.

When I asked if he had ever killed anyone, his expression shifted instantly. “Yeah,” he replied. “And you’re next.”

Ten minutes later, there was a knock at my door.

The bullet chat was exploding with people screaming for me to run. “He’s that famous serial killer streamer!”

I let out a soft chuckle. What they didn’t know was that I am the sole Earth Master successor.

In the tenth year after I was abducted and forced to take part in ability experiments, I finally escaped.

Only to discover that the apocalypse had descended outside, and zombies had broken out everywhere.

My former best friend was being forced by her newly awakened husband to hand over her food.

“Everyone else turned theirs in. Why are you so selfish? You’re even hiding a few pieces of chocolate?”

My best friend defended herself in a small voice. “I wanted to save them for Tongtong.”

But the young woman beside her cut her off with a scornful laugh. “Sis, every time you get greedy, you use the kid as an excuse. Honestly…”

Under the contemptuous stares of everyone around them, I threw a backpack full of chocolate over.

It hit her squarely on the head.

“Is that enough?”

Expressionless, I said, “Say one more word, and I’ll kill every last one of you.”

The day I died was the day my betrothed celebrated his wedding.

In a ruined temple on the outskirts of the city, blood poured from my eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. I lay collapsed over a prayer mat, weeping before the long-dust-covered statue of Guanyin.

In this life, this humble believer had never wronged Heaven or Earth. So why had I ended up betrayed and abandoned by everyone?

Guanyin did not answer. She only gazed down at me with compassion.

Outside the door came the hurried thunder of hooves. Someone, carrying the chill of the night on his shoulders, was walking toward me.

My eyes could no longer see. I could only turn uselessly in his direction and beg in a hoarse voice,

“Whoever you are, please… give me a proper burial. In my next life, I will repay you.”

Trembling, he gathered me into his arms. A single scalding tear fell onto the center of my brow.

On the night of the first snow, the cold was bitter.

The young granddaughter, cherished like a pearl in the palm of the Marquis of Loyalty and Valor, died in the wilderness at the age of sixteen.

I was born a beggar.

Maybe some wealthy young lady had made a mistake, or maybe some brothel woman had simply had rotten luck.

Either way, I came into this world. I grew up begging for bowls of slop.

At my most wretched, I even fought mangy dogs for food.

Later, to stay alive, I sweet-talked a human trafficker into selling me into the palace.

On the day I entered the palace, I saw the red sun rising at the edge of the sky.

It looked just like the duck egg yolk that had once gone rolling and wobbling to my feet in the Drunken Fragrance Pavilion.

I smacked my lips and savored the memory for a moment, then turned and stepped onto that long, long palace road.

From a beggar hated by all, I became a palace maid within the towering imperial palace.

That year, I was nine.

After I died, my bones became the sword in his hand.

Little did he know that I rarely exercised while I was alive, and I’d developed osteoporosis at a young age.

The sword forged from my bones was sharp enough, but it lacked resilience.

The very first time he used me, someone lopped off his head.

I was scammed by a real estate agent into moving into a Columbarium. To my surprise, the place was already occupied by a handsome, young, and tsundere ghost. When I took a closer look, I was even more shocked-it turned out we were old acquaintances.