2026

Only after seventeen years of being raised as the marquis’s precious daughter did I discover I was an impostor.

The day his real daughter came home, I flung myself into my parents’ arms, sniffling.

“I’ll always be your daughter, won’t I?”

Their eyes reddened as they nodded.

“Silly child.

Do you think we can’t afford to raise two girls?”

I lifted my tearful eyes and slipped the jade bracelet off my wrist.

“Sister, I know I’ve taken your place.”

“I’ve worn this bracelet for three whole days and I’m already tired of it.

Please accept it as my apology.”

“And you can have the South Sea pearl powder I’ve been saving in my dressing case.

It’s gone damp and clumpy, but you’re strong!

Just give it a good pounding.”

“My monthly allowance is ten taels of silver.

Nine should do for you.

I’d hate for too much money to go to your head.”

“Oh, and we’ll cut your charcoal allowance by a fifth.

You’re so sturdy and healthy, too much heat might be bad for you.”

My mother loved my father all her life.

Only on her deathbed did she let go.

“Ah Yao,” she told me, “whether a husband and wife love each other doesn’t really matter.

Treating each other with respect is the best ending you can hope for.”

Looking at her withered face, I wept and told her I would remember.

If I married, a quiet life of mutual affection and respect would be enough.

But when I had made all my preparations and traveled to Jiangnan to be married, I found things rather different from what I had imagined.

My fiancé complained, “Ah Yao!

Don’t you like what I’m wearing today?

Why won’t you look at me a little longer?”

“Ah Yao, Ah Yao!

Tell her I’m your husband!

She mustn’t throw any more handkerchiefs at me.”

This fiancé of mine seemed nothing like the man my father had described.

Just as I was wondering whether to break off our engagement… My father arrived.

The moment he came through the door, he cried anxiously, “Ah Yao, you’ve got the wrong man!”

It turned out he had misremembered the address.

The fiancé I had been exchanging letters with for three months was the wrong one.

He hurried me off to meet my actual fiancé at his home.

I had barely taken my seat when the man who had been my mistaken fiancé walked in.

“Ah Yao!”

he asked in delighted surprise.

“What are you doing here?”

And my actual fiancé asked hesitantly, “Uncle, do you know my fiancée?”

I was undergoing my lightning tribulation, on the verge of ascending.

A young herbal apprentice came up the mountain to gather herbs and was struck by the tribulation lightning.

Our fates became entangled, and I granted him three wishes.

Anything was possible, provided it defied neither Heaven’s law nor human morality.

His eyes shone.

“Lady Fox Immortal, my first wish is to take you as my wife.”

I agreed.

As we bowed to Heaven and Earth, we both vowed to have only each other for the rest of our lives—to be kind to one another, to weather hardship together, and never to part.

Only later did I learn that mortals could make empty promises.

Once we spirits swore a vow, however, we had to keep it to the end.

When Lu Zheng was poisoned with an aphrodisiac, I spent a night as his wife to repay his kindness.

The Lu family was wealthy and powerful.

I was afraid people would think I meant to attach myself to them.

Before daybreak, I slipped out of the army camp and went south to start a small business.

I next heard news of Lu Zheng six years later.

While buying wine at the market, I heard that disaster had struck the Lu family.

Lu Zheng had been thrown into the imperial prison, and no one knew whether he was alive.

I wanted to take five-year-old Ke to see him, just once.

The Lu estate had already been confiscated.

After searching far and wide, I finally found the old marquis and his wife, both white-haired now, in a ruined temple outside the capital.

On the table before the Buddha lay a farewell letter and two bowls of thin rice gruel laced with arsenic.

The old marquis sighed and told me not to dissuade them.

“Even if we cling to life, they will still humiliate us.

We will only be a burden to our son.”

Looking at the elderly couple, so determined to die, I gave Ke a gentle nudge.

“Ke, say hello to your grandfather and grandmother.”

Qi Sinian had one rule for his affairs: his mistresses had to know their place.

Any woman who dared show herself in front of his wife would be dealt with by the next day.

And still they kept coming.

Because I, Mrs.

Qi, was so easy to push around.

To marry Qi Sinian, I had signed a prenup.

If we divorced, I would leave with nothing.

Later, to be allowed to have our child, I agreed to send him to the family estate.

I could see him only once a month.

I had no power, no connections, no family or friends.

All I knew was beauty treatments and flower arranging.

Then another of Qi Sinian’s mistresses came to gloat.

“He’s so bad.

He kept me on my knees all night.

They’re still swollen.”

Smiling, I set down my scissors and led her to fetch something.

When she wasn’t looking, I pushed her inside.

“Since you’ve worked so hard, take a couple of days off.

Don’t see anyone for the next two days.”

By the time Mother found me and brought me back to the palace, I was a farm girl.

My every gesture betrayed my lack of breeding.

People laughed at me.

She already had a brood of children, each precious as gold and jade.

She could scarcely be bothered to glance at me, while the girl who had taken my place was the darling of her heart.

Later, Mother went from empress to sovereign.

She simply sent me to a bitterly cold fief and left me to fend for myself.

After several years of frontier winds, just as my heart was giving up hope, an imperial edict arrived.

Mother commanded me to return to the palace and fulfill my duties as a loyal subject and a dutiful daughter.

But I already knew she was merely short of a princess to marry off for peace.

My subordinate was so excited that he sprayed spittle as he spoke.

“My lady, this summons gives us every right to return.

We will never have a better chance.”

For the first time, I did not tell him to be quiet.

In the tenth year of our marriage, my husband, Shao Jing’an, brought home a woman he called his unforgettable love.

I smiled.

“Then take her as your concubine, husband.”

His treasured cinnabar mark?

Very well.

I would crush her into a smear of mosquito blood.

My dad was only a scrap collector, but he raised me and sent me to university.

Only later did I learn that he wasn’t my biological father.

My birth parents were far crueler than I could ever have imagined…

When I was young, I once kept a lover behind my husband’s back.

When the affair came to light, my husband forced me to choose.

I gritted my teeth and chose my husband.

The lover I abandoned vowed, “Cast me aside today, my lady wife, and one day you will regret it.”

“No, I won’t,” I said guiltily.

Years later, my husband took revenge by sending me to the Eastern Palace.

“I hear the crown prince has a taste for married women.

With your wanton nature, my dear, you should serve him very well.”

That night, I knelt in the Eastern Palace.

My beautiful “kept lover” and I stared at each other.

Seated high above me, he ground out, “Never imagined I was the crown prince, did you?”

“You’d drop a poor man for a rich one!”

The shock brought on my heart condition, and I died on the spot.

Given another life, I returned to the day the affair was exposed.

My husband asked, “Will you remain a lady of the distinguished Cui clan, or become a runaway wife despised by all?

I suggest you think carefully.”

This time, my voice rang out loud and clear.

“I’ve thought it through.

I’m eloping with him!”

On our wedding day, my husband suddenly remembered his past.

“I am the Qingyun Sect’s senior disciple.

You would never have found me if I hadn’t been injured fighting demons.”

“We are worlds apart.

This wedding is canceled.”

His eyes fell on my pretty face, looking all the fairer above my scarlet wedding gown.

Then he changed his tune.

“If you truly cannot bear to part with me, you may stay by my side as a concubine.

Consider it repayment for saving my life.”

I stood stunned for a long moment.

Just as the Qingyun disciples decided I must be speechless with delight, I ripped off my bridal veil and flung it to the ground.

“Hey!

You’re eighty years old!

How dare an old geezer like you go after a fresh young thing like me!”