Slice of Life

Today was the Qixi Festival, and the campus forum thread “How Are You Spending Today?” shot straight to the top of the discussion rankings.

The comments underneath were pure chaos.

On a sudden whim, I left one too.

“In Xie Yi’s arms.”

Then Xie Yi-the famously abstinent, untouchable teacher-replied to me.

“You said you’d be in my arms. Where are you?”

Me: ! ? ?

When I was four, a fortune-teller said I was fated to bring misfortune upon my parents. So they sent me away to a rural estate. For ten years, they never came to see me, nor did they care whether I lived or died.

At fourteen, they brought me home-so they could marry me off.

My legitimate elder sister laughed. “A fool marrying a sickly wretch. A match made in heaven.”

My parents said, “If this engagement weren’t impossible to break, and if your sister weren’t about to marry into a noble family, you wouldn’t even be worthy of carrying his shoes.”

“A married daughter is water poured out. Once you’re gone, don’t come back for anything.”

Only he held my hand and taught me to write my own name.

And then he taught me to write: “A woman, too, must respect and cherish herself, strive without ceasing, and press ever forward.”

I had no idea my boss was a famous fanfic author, one with excellent prose, thrilling plots, and a perfectly balanced diet of content.

And I was one of his top-paying readers.

His new story was a complete departure from his usual style: an utterly squeaky-clean original novel.

I happily topped up my account to buy the chapters, but the more I read, the more I realized the dense, romance-impaired heroine was a lot like me.

The only difference was that the male lead was a shy, innocent, introverted herbivore-type boss whose little inner commentary was ridiculously cute.

He was nothing like my real-life boss, who barely spoke, had a severe case of germophobia, and was an absolute menace.

Later…

The author posted in the comments: “≧◇≦ Thank you all for your support. I-I-I’ve decided to be brave and confess!!! >_<”

Magnanimously, I sent the author a huge gift. “Go for it! Be brave, author! Fear no hardship!”

The very next second, my cold-faced, frowning boss walked out of his office and stopped in front of me, his face bright red.

Me: “?”

Liang Yu had always thought the first time they met was at an amusement park. But in fact, it was not.

Those days were marked by endless rain, and even her memories carried a damp, overcast gloom.

That morning, her older sister developed a fever again. She lay in bed, sleeping through the entire day until night fell.

My fiancé was keeping a little canary.

I told him to bring her over so I could take a look.

Perfect timing-I could take my little puppy out for a walk too.

On the day we met, I showed up with a handsome guy. He showed up carrying a birdcage.

I was completely dumbfounded. “Wait, Your Highness, the canary you’re keeping is an actual bird?!”

He looked even more confused than I was. “Wait, princess, you take your dog for a walk without bringing the dog?”

My husband is very rich, but I don’t love him.

In university, he once used every trick in the book to pursue my roommate Jiang Sizhu. He sent luxury gifts one after another, and even made a grand gesture by sending nine thousand roses downstairs from the girls’ dormitory. All the girls in our dorm benefited; we carried armloads of roses back to our rooms, as if we were moving a flower bed. Only Jiang Sizhu remained indifferent. She even warned Pei Lu not to come looking for her again.

“He’s very rich and not bad-looking. You really don’t want him?”

I had a face mask on and finally asked the question I could never understand.

With such a beautiful face, she spent every day hanging around that senior who worked odd jobs everywhere.

“No way, a stuffy old bore like him? If you’re so interested, go after him yourself,” Jiang Sizhu said with disdain.

I rested my chin on my hand, thought for a moment, then nodded.

“Fine.”

“I’ll go after him.”

Lin Wanrou was twenty-four this year, an old maiden who still had not married.

Madam Lin’s standards for a son-in-law had fallen from imperial kin to any promising young talent with ambition.

She refused to believe that, with the Grand General’s influence, she could not raise up one dragon among men as her son-in-law.

Lin Wanrou did not want to marry. She would rather stay at home for the rest of her life.

In the year I was desperately poor, I deliberately fed two of my fingers into the factory machinery and had them crushed, all for the thirty thousand yuan my grandmother needed for surgery.

The factory manager frowned with such pain that he wanted to compensate me eighty thousand yuan. I was too guilty to take it, so I only asked for thirty thousand.

Years passed. My grandmother had been gone for many years.

Then I saw a trending news report: the factory from back then had been swallowed by a fire.

The factory manager had died of a heart attack. His wife had vanished.

Their twelve-year-old son had been sent to an orphanage.

Looking at those helpless, terrified eyes on the screen, I poured the medicine I had been about to swallow down the drain.

Then… let me live once more.

For that thirty thousand yuan from back then.

The night I married Pei Guanli, I cried so hard I soaked half my bridal veil.

Not because I didn’t want to marry him, but because everyone in the capital knew that Pei Guanli was more upright and proper than the ancestral tablets in a shrine.

He oversaw ceremonial protocols at the Ministry of Rites and revised the dynasty’s statutes and rites.

If a family used the wrong ritual vessels at a wedding, he could remember it for three years.

If someone wailed one time too many at a funeral, he could submit a memorial impeaching them straight to the emperor.

As the daughter of a merchant family from Jiangnan, this was exactly the sort of man I feared most.

Before my mother sent me into the bridal sedan, she clutched my hands and cried even harder than I did.

“Ah Ning, once you reach the Pei Family, speak less, smile less, and eat less.”

I asked, “Why eat less?”

Choking back sobs, my mother said, “Noble young ladies in the capital eat as delicately as if they’re painting flowers. You eat three bowls in one sitting. You’ll give yourself away too easily.”

I paused, suddenly feeling that before this marriage had even reached the bridal chamber, I had already lost on appetite alone.

At a family gathering, my younger sister, holding my boyfriend’s arm, beamed as she announced they were getting married.

With a room full of guests, I, dressed in monastic robes, faced their gazes with a calm expression.

Amitabha, I am a monastic.

The story of Lin Wei, the eldest daughter of the Lin Family, being forced into monastic life by her family, had long been known to all.