Slice of Life

After graduating from college, I moved into a shared rental with my rich second-generation boyfriend and started a business from scratch.

I was the one building the company. He was the one suffering through it with me.

Every day, I came home exhausted to our small apartment.

And every time, he would have a fragrant, steaming meal ready for me.

Life was hard, but we both felt happy.

Until one day, I saw the barrage comments:

[Oh my god, the male lead is still here suffering through this startup with his ex-girlfriend. When is the female lead finally going to show up?]

[The male lead is still too young. His parents already paved a golden road for him, but he refuses to take it and insists on staying in a rental eating instant noodles with his ex.]

[It’s fine. Once the ex-girlfriend’s startup fails and she starts drinking and getting violent, and later even cheats on him right in front of him, he’ll obediently go back and inherit the family business.]

[But honestly, summer, a rental apartment, bare skin, heads down and working hard… the sexual tension between these two is insane.]

The new boss was taking over, and I stood in the hallway with a group of young women to welcome him.

He stopped in front of me and said in a low voice,

“I want to go in.”

My face went hot.

Back then, on that narrow little bed, when he held me with burning breaths and begged me in a low voice again and again…

Those were the words he loved saying most.

The first time criminal investigator Lou Xiao met Qiao Xia was at a wedding that had descended into total chaos. Years later, the two reunited on a blind date. From testing each other and misunderstanding each other to slowly drawing closer, one clumsy but sincere, the other clearheaded and independent, they learned, little by little, amid entanglements with people from the past, the pressure of work, and sudden danger, to put their love into words and to make room for each other in their future.

To scrape together the money for my younger brother’s treatment, my father sold me to Yihong Tower.

On the eve of the day I was going to be forced to receive clients, Miss Zhao bought me.

Miss Zhao is my benefactor.

If she tells me to stab someone, I immediately sharpen the knife first.

If she tells me to set a fire, I ask her whether ten barrels of lamp oil will be enough.

If she tells me to go on a matchmaking date in her place…

Huh??

My eyes went as wide as bronze bells, and I asked Miss Zhao in horror, “What if Young Master Pei takes a liking to me?”

If I managed to ascend the throne, it was entirely thanks to my five short-lived older brothers.

Thanks to them, I now live like a beast of burden.

3:00 – Rise and wash up, then pay respects to the Empress Dowager.

4:00 – Morning lessons.

5:00 – Imperial Gate Audience.

7:00 – Breakfast.

8:00 – Handle state affairs and review memorials.

13:00 – Lunch.

14:00 – Riding and archery; inspect the princes’ studies.

15:00 – Handle state affairs.

17:00 – Free time.

19:00 – Evening lessons.

20:00 – Review memorials.

23:00 – Bedtime.

I am so done with this job!

Madam Shen was unable to bear children, so she wanted to buy a respectable concubine to carry on the family line for Eldest Master Shen.

A respectable concubine received two taels of silver every month, and even got to eat white rice with braised pork.

The moment I heard the news, I immediately told my mother to take me into the city to sign up.

My mother smacked me on the head and snapped, “I’ve given birth to three children, and you’re the stupidest of the lot!”

On the day Song Cheng and I got married, his ex-girlfriend showed up in a wedding dress to steal him away.

“Song Cheng, I’m only going to be this brave once in my life. Are you coming with me or not?”

I looked at the panic all over Song Cheng’s face and was just about to marvel that this kind of ridiculous soap-opera scene was actually happening to me.

Then Song Cheng grabbed the emcee’s microphone and shouted, “Who the hell are you? Did you wander onto the wrong set?

“Mess with my wedding again, and I’ll punch your left eye into your right socket.”

Chapter 0

After my father beat me to death in a drunken rage, I was reborn as my grandmother’s best friend-an obstetrician-gynecologist.

Grandma asked anxiously, “Xiao Fang, is the baby healthy?”

I said, “It’s brain-damaged. I recommend aborting it.”

In the seventh year of having a crush on my childhood friend, encouraged by my best friend,

I carried flowers and a cake onto an overnight train to confess my feelings to him.

But on a basketball court roaring with noise and people,

I ran straight into the sight of the two of them kissing.

With his arm around my best friend, my childhood friend asked coldly, “What are you doing here? Can’t you see I’m busy?”

Disheveled and humiliated, I was just about to explain

when his roommate beside him let out a soft laugh. “My girlfriend came to bring me a cake. What’s it got to do with you?”

I was forced to go on a blind date.

To make the guy back off on his own, I made something up. “I’m infertile.”

The handsome man across from me looked surprised. “Well, what do you know? So am I.”

So I simply took off my coat, revealing the skintight Wangzai shirt underneath.

He raised an eyebrow and stuck out one foot, showing off his golden Chelsea boot.

Me: “…”

I’d met my match.