Short Story

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.

I was doing fortune-telling on livestream when I connected to Qin Shi Huang.

“I wish to know what became of my Great Qin in the end,” he asked.

I opened a history book.

“After your death, Zhao Gao and Li Si joined forces to put Hu Hai on the throne, then forced Prince Fu Su to take his own life.

“One year after your death, chaos swept the realm, and Liu Bang and Xiang Yu rose in rebellion against Qin.

“Three years after your death, the Qin dynasty fell.”

The more Qin Shi Huang listened, the angrier he became. He raised his hand and smacked Hu Hai, who was playing with mud off to the side, twice upside the head.

“Look at the mess you made!”

Pei Ling’an said he wanted to break off our engagement again.

This time, it was because I refused to give the golden hairpin I had won for my poetry to my younger cousin.

“The Shen Family has fallen. No matter which daughter I choose to marry, Shen Tongzhi wouldn’t dare say a single word against it.”

He rested his chin on his hand, looking at me with a faint, mocking smile. “Break the engagement, or give the hairpin to Yuchi. Shen Yusu, the choice is yours.”

Everyone was waiting for me to bow my head.

Just as I had done countless times before.

But this time, I only tightened my grip on the golden hairpin and said softly,

“Then let’s break the engagement.”

I transmigrated into the mistress of the Marquis’s Mansion, and my stepson was the devoted second male lead.

When he grew up, he would try to take the female lead by force and spend fortunes on her without blinking.

As for the male lead, he would sow discord, frame him, and set him up at every turn.

In the end, the male and female leads would join forces to defeat him.

He would flee into monastic life and never marry.

And the Marquis’s Mansion, implicated because of him, would be raided, stripped of its title, and tragically exiled.

After transmigrating, I looked at the tiny little thing in front of me, pretending to be obedient.

He wanted to grow gloomy and brooding? Absolutely not.

He was going to become sunny if it killed me. He wanted to squander money?

Absolutely not. I had to raise him into a stingy, family-minded model of virtue.

I was definitely going to protect the vast fortune of the Marquis’s Mansion.

Later, everyone said I threw money around like dirt and lived in arrogant, extravagant luxury.

My stepson refuted them.

“Nonsense. My mother is the most frugal, capable, virtuous, and dignified woman there is. She sponsored so many scholars with money she saved up herself. Could you do that?”

Someone said my methods were ruthless and that I acted like a man.

My stepson’s face turned cold.

“My mother is gentle, virtuous, and the very soul of benevolence. She clearly could have just robbed you outright, yet she still gave you a chance to compete fairly. You’re the one who was useless. Utter trash.”

Even his father couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Son, open your eyes and take a good look. Your mother is not the kind of person who lets herself be wronged.”

My stepson flew into a rage.

“Father, don’t force me to turn against you. You can say whatever you want about me, but you absolutely cannot say that about my mother.”

On the first day after I died, my boyfriend brought his first love back home.

They kissed passionately on the sofa I bought, acting as if no one else were there. They ate the celery dumplings I had made by hand and played with the gaming console I had given him.

One day, his first love asked curiously, “Where’s An’an?”

My boyfriend’s voice was calm. “We had a fight a few days ago. She applied for a business trip with her company.”

Oh, he still doesn’t know that I’m dead.

Vice Minister Ye and I had become bitter enemies. We were constantly at each other’s throats, neither of us willing to yield an inch.

One night, completely wasted, I even started shouting in the tavern: “Hey! Brothers! Tie up Beauty Ye and carry him to this Young Master’s room! I’m going to show him a real good time!”

In my drunken stupor, I thought I heard his hoarse voice roaring: “…You were the one who provoked me first. Why do you keep messing with me… We’re both men, what am I supposed to do…”

Men?

But I’m a girl!

Everyone knows I am merely a stand-in for the Northern Liang Crown Prince’s true love.

To coax a smile from him, I would don his beloved’s favorite dancing silks and dance until my feet were raw with bloody blisters.

To shield him from harm, I would take an assassin’s blade without a second thought.

The Crown Prince once remarked, “In the bedchamber, she at least has some use.”

The people sneered at me: “How shameless, doing anything just to claw her way to the title of Crown Princess.”

I remained silent, as I always have.

Because-

The Crown Prince? He is a substitute, too.

I chased after He Chenyi for six years, coming whenever he called, leaving whenever he waved me away.

While he was holding another woman and drinking a wedding toast, I was diagnosed with Leukemia at the hospital, with only three months left to live.

Later, he knelt by my hospital bed, crying and begging me to accept a bone marrow transplant.

How ridiculous. I never even wanted to live.

The day before my engagement to Zhou Yanchen, the Crown Prince of the Jing Circle, my sister was reborn.

She cried and begged our Parents to call off the engagement.

Just as I was about to ask what was going on, a Danmaku suddenly flashed before my eyes:

[Wait, why did the Female Lead get reborn? Author, come out and explain, is this right?]

[This is supposed to be a Yandere forced love story where she runs and he chases! If the Female Lead doesn’t marry him, what am I supposed to read?]

[Calm down, everyone upstairs. Actually, having a second chance isn’t so bad. The Female Lead loves her freedom. Imagine a life where you can only eat ingredients flown in by air, only wear custom-made clothes, and even the brands of daily necessities are controlled by the Male Lead. From then on, there would never be another peaceful, carefree day. She doesn’t want that!]

My eyes lit up, and I volunteered on the spot.

I’m willing! I’m willing!

I transmigrated into a novel about the Apocalypse and became the daughter of the Zombie Emperor.

However, I awakened a Spatial Ability. When I was five years old, I accidentally teleported myself into the middle of the wilderness. To avoid starving to death, I shamelessly clung to the protagonists’ team, mooching off their food and supplies.

I spent my days spectating their drama and leisurely following them as they fought monsters and leveled up.

Until one day.

They came face-to-face with the ultimate villain, the big boss-

The Zombie Emperor. My dad.

While everyone else was on high alert, bracing for the fight of their lives…

…the Zombie Emperor gave me a sinister smile.

“Nianying, have you had enough fun? If you’re done playing, get your butt over here right now!!”

The Male Lead and Female Lead: “?!”

Everyone else: “?!”

Me: “…”