Tragedy

On the day the Xiao Family ran into disaster, the servants all scrambled to grab whatever valuables they could find. Unable to outfight them, I could only take away the nine-year-old Second Young Master, who still couldn’t speak.

Later, after the storm had passed, he asked me if I would be his concubine.

I was so fond of writhing around in the shadows that the System made me a snake spirit.

A snake spirit in Journey to the West.

I stared at Tang Sanzang being lowered into a cooking pot.

Words failed me.

To stay alive, I had no choice but to become his disciple.

Sun Wukong: “Huh?

We’ve already survived fifty-four of the eighty-one trials, and you’re joining us now?”

Me: “Fate works in mysterious ways.”

I loved slithering around like a twisted little creep so much that the System turned me into a snake spirit.

In Journey to the West.

Watching Tang Sanzang being lowered into a cooking pot, I fell silent.

To stay alive, I had no choice but to become his disciple.

Sun Wukong: “Huh?

We’ve already survived fifty-four of the eighty-one ordeals, and now you want to join?”

Me: “Fate works in mysterious ways.”

During my years dominating Gangcheng, I’ve kept quite a few men on the side.

They all knew the rules of Miss Qi.

I only have one husband, and no matter how much they acted out, they were never to cause trouble in front of my legal spouse, Gu Yi’an.

But one of them just had to have a death wish.

He tracked down my home and staged a confrontation with Gu Yi’an, demanding he step down.

“You’re already past your prime. Why are you still clinging to this position?”

“She told me herself-the one she loves most is me.”

I broke things off immediately: “You crossed the line.”

The young man, looking like a wounded puppy, felt his eyes well up with tears.

“I didn’t do anything wrong! Love means a desire for exclusivity. Those other guys could tolerate this because none of them loved you enough!”

I gazed at his heartbroken yet stubborn eyes, my mind drifting for a moment.

…He was so similar.

Out of everyone, he was the one who resembled my brother the most.

At sixteen, Fu Zhiya wakes on the day she finished her high school entrance exam, decades before her husband, sister, and mother shattered her life.

This time, she refuses to carry anyone else’s debts.

As she cuts ties with a family that never truly chose her, faces old betrayals in their earliest forms, and fights for her education, she begins to discover what it means to live for herself.

But freedom is never given freely—and every boundary she draws forces the people around her to reveal who they really are.

On the night before the college entrance exam, I was raped.

Two murderers broke into our home and brutalized me right in front of my grandmother.

Then, they strangled her to death right before my eyes.

I barely escaped with my life, but I went from being a star student destined for Tsinghua and Peking Universities to a useless cripple, paralyzed from the neck down and unable even to use the bathroom on my own.

Fortunately, I have been reborn.

I have returned to the very moment the killers knocked on the door.

My younger sister and I were both princesses of a fallen kingdom.

The day our capital fell, enemy soldiers came to violate us, and my sister shoved me forward.

She thought I was certain to die.

Instead, the enemy’s young lord rescued me, and I later became his Noble Consort.

My sister was reduced to slavery and suffered every day.

Consumed by hatred, she killed me—and was reborn alongside me.

This time, she rushed to leave with the enemy soldiers first.

“Sister, this time, I will be the Noble Consort.”

What she did not know was that I had never wanted to be a consort.

With royal blood in my veins, if I was to become anything, I would become the empress who restored our kingdom.

Before the Divine Lord descended to the mortal realm to undergo his trials, he gave me his Little Carp as a love token.

To my surprise, the carp leaped out of the fish tank and followed him into the mortal world.

In my panic, I followed suit. Eighteen years later, amidst a vast expanse of heavy snow.

Standing atop the city walls, Crown Prince Wei fired an arrow that pierced straight through my bridal sedan.

“Yue Nu, it is you who are shameless, insisting on marrying me. I already have someone in my heart.”

The woman in red he held in his arms was that very Carp Spirit. I knew mortals could not see through her disguise.

To help him complete his trials, I stepped out of the sedan and entered the Wei Palace on foot.

Three years later, the Carp Spirit became pregnant, triggering a Heavenly Punishment.

Believing slanderous lies, Crown Prince Wei had me bound to the city walls to endure eighteen strikes of Heavenly Thunder in her stead.

At that moment, my heart turned to ash. I summoned Siming Jun. “Siming, it is time to return to the Nine Heavens.”

On the day my husband ascended to immortality, a shaft of divine light struck me in the eyes.

From that moment on, I was blind.

The light coursed through my body day after day.

The pain left me unable to hold my chopsticks or even walk.

Every breath felt like needles piercing me.

Only later did I learn the truth.

My husband’s junior martial sister resented me for being his mortal love trial, so she had decided to teach me a lesson.

My husband knew exactly what she had done, yet he gathered her into his arms and sighed indulgently.

“How could you be so willful?”

“You must never do this again.”

“And in three years, you will lift the spell from her.”

His junior sister threw herself happily into his embrace and declared that he was the best senior brother in the world.

My heart felt carved apart, but my eyes were so dry I could not shed a single tear.

Once, I had still held out hope for my husband.

I had thought he did not know.

It turned out he knew everything.

He had simply chosen her and abandoned me.

Later, I ascended too.

On my first day in the immortal realm, I borrowed the power of the welcoming light and destroyed his junior sister’s eyes.

I was airing out my belongings at home when a messenger suddenly arrived from the Capital, bearing news that the General’s Wife was gravely ill.

On her deathbed, she wished to see her best friend one last time.

By the time I rushed there, I found my dear friend lying on her sickbed, her life hanging by a thread.

Her husband hadn’t visited her even once.

Instead, only his favored concubine came every day to gloat:

“Sister is truly pitiable. You’ve feigned illness so many times that now retribution has finally caught up with you.”

My friend gripped my hand, her voice dry and raspy.

“Ah Fu, I’m dying.”

“I’ve left some things for you. You must…”

“I don’t want them.”

I interrupted her, casually picking up a gold hairpin and plunging it into the concubine’s throat.

“I’m here to settle your scores.”