Short Story

The world is one giant slapdash production, and I somehow drift through it anyway.

My father is a financial tycoon, but I can barely handle addition and subtraction under ten. My mother is a gorgeous award-winning actress, while I look perfectly ordinary. My brother held his first solo art exhibition at four, while at five I was still toddling after him babbling nonsense.

Even our maid, Wang Ma, and our butler, Uncle Chen, turned out to be retired legends hiding in plain sight.

Thankfully, all of them adored me. I slowly made peace with being ordinary.

Then one day, a genius girl who had gone viral online showed up at our door and demanded that I give her back her place as the real daughter of the Su family.

Wonderful. The worry that had been hanging over me for years finally dropped dead.

My boyfriend’s manipulative junior had tried to steal him away from me one too many times. Finally, I reached my breaking point and gave him a piece of advice.

My boyfriend replied, “Got it.” The next day. The junior said, “Good morning, Senior! What a coincidence, seeing you here again.”

My boyfriend replied, “Good morning. I’m gay.” The junior: “?”

For six years after marrying into Xiping Marquis Manor, I spent six years a living widow.

My husband was stationed at the Northern Frontier, yet somehow found time in the midst of his duties to fall madly in love with another woman.

She was beautiful and strong, able to ride tall warhorses, wield a long spear, and read the art of war.

She fought shoulder to shoulder with my husband on the battlefield, killing the enemy.

The people and soldiers of the border city all called her the General’s Lady.

As for me, the true General’s Lady, no one even knew I existed. She was the eagle of the Northern Frontier.

I was a sparrow trapped in the inner courtyard.

But disaster was already creeping closer.

I am a sickly, frail, spoiled drama queen.

One night, as I was once again willfully demanding my Butler come and coax me to sleep, a stream of Bullet Comments suddenly appeared before my eyes: “The horror boss is outside hunting Players and having the time of his life. He doesn’t have time to tuck you in and coax you to sleep.”

“She’s just a human being kept as a pet in a castle by a horror boss. She actually thinks she’s some kind of Young Lady.”

“Once the big boss meets the clever and witty Female Lead, he’ll grow disgusted with this delicate, spoiled drama queen. He’ll use all sorts of perverted methods to torture her before eating her piece by piece.”

Terrified, I hid under my covers, trembling uncontrollably.

The next second, a cool hand gently pulled back the duvet. A voice, gentle yet tinged with a faint, chilling coldness, drifted down from above me: “Master, what’s wrong?”

It was the eighth year of my unrequited love for Shen Sui, and he still refused to acknowledge me as his fiancée.

He had me pulled from the red carpet just to please his Little Canary.

In front of the media, the same mouth that had kissed me a thousand times claimed that we were nothing more than ordinary friends.

Later, I looked him in the eye and said seriously:

“Don’t pull away. Otherwise, we won’t look like ordinary friends.”

His eyes rimmed with red, and his voice trembled as he spoke:

“I’m just an ‘ordinary friend’ to you?”

When I was sixteen, the Zhou Family bought me to be a breeder for their lame son, Zhou Yuqing, to bear him children.

Though the agreement was for me to arrive in June, I reported to the Zhou Family in March.

I did this for two reasons: first, to save my own family some grain, and second, to leave a good impression on my future master.

But Zhou Yuqing despised me for being a country bumpkin and called me stupid.

He said I wasn’t nearly as delicate or pretty as Miss Su next door.

Even as he shared my bed, he looked down on me for being dirty.

“You must bathe four times with green jasmine and white champaca, then comb your hair with osmanthus oil. Miss Su uses osmanthus oil-have you got that through your head? ”

“If you serve me well next time, this young master might just grant you a formal title.”

I nodded, scrubbing myself with a loofah until I nearly rubbed my skin raw.

Suddenly, someone grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and hauled me, dripping wet, out of the tub.

It was Madam Liu, the broker who had sold me. She was in a frantic rush as she dragged my naked, fragrant body toward the door.

“Good heavens! It’s all wrong, all wrong! It wasn’t the Zhou Family who bought you-it was the Zou Family!”

After getting married, I found out my husband had once loved an ex-girlfriend deeply.

On the eve of her wedding, that woman drove through the night and gave herself to him, just to say goodbye to her youth.

When I found out, my husband begged me not to expose it. “Otherwise, her whole life will be ruined.”

I transmigrated into a cultivation novel as its vicious supporting woman.

The system told me that if I kept courting death, I could die and go home once my true colors were exposed.

So I devoted myself to making trouble for the heroine.

I seduced the senior brother she loved, poisoned her medicine, and deliberately injured myself in a secret realm so I could accuse her of attacking me…

At last, the day of judgment arrived.

Senior Brother produced the evidence and tore away my hypocritical mask.

The elders sentenced me to endure forty-nine bolts of heavenly lightning, have my immortal bones stripped away, and be cast down as a mortal.

I was overjoyed. My exit scene had finally come.

Then I heard the heroine say, “Senior Sister didn’t mean it.”

I whipped around in shock.

Her cheeks were faintly pink, almost as if she were shy.

“Senior Sister only did all that because she loves me too much.”

“It was her way of testing me.”

On the third day after being diagnosed with Stomach Cancer, I chose a grave for myself.

They say the feng shui is especially good.

It’s supposed to bless me so that in my next life, I won’t be the real daughter everyone despises.

No one will steal my parents, my brother, or everything else from me.

No longer… unloved.

I burned my photos and clothes, erased every trace of my existence.

Then I slit my wrists, lay down in the bathtub, and waited peacefully for death.

But then the Cemetery Center suddenly called me:

“Miss Lu, we’re terribly sorry.”

“Two Agents accidentally sold the same plot.”

“This grave was also sold to another gentleman.”

“Would you… mind moving your grave?”

Before my fiancé, Cui Ning, left for his long journey, he gave me a harsh scolding.

It was because I wanted to borrow thirty-three taels of silver from him to buy back my mother’s keepsake, a paulownia qin.

He accepted my promissory note and recorded the debt in his ledger, yet he refused to give me the money.

“Xiaoyu, you don’t even know how to play the instrument. What’s the point of buying it?” He added, “Besides, thirty-three taels is enough to buy two of you.”

This winter, I had spent my days on the pleasure boats, combing the hair of the older sisters and doing their laundry, only to painstakingly save up a single tael.

But the instrument shop couldn’t wait any longer.

They said someone else had their eye on the instrument and it would be sold the day after tomorrow.

When I returned to the Cui Family home wiping away my tears, Matchmaker Liu saw my red eyes and tried to persuade me again with a kindly expression.

“The Shen family is sincere about their proposal. Don’t even mention mountains of gold or silver-you only need to ask.” She continued, “They said that even if you wanted the stars or the moon from the sky, they would pluck them down for you.”

I thought about what Cui Ning had said-that thirty-three taels was a massive sum of money, enough to buy two of me.

Afraid that the Shen family would be unwilling, I dried my tears and asked cautiously: “I don’t want the stars, and I don’t want the moon.”

“I want a paulownia qin. It costs thirty-three taels of silver.”