2026

I was meant to marry the Emperor of Great Liang, but a decree for a political marriage sent me to Northern Yan instead.

On our wedding night, I mixed blood from the tip of my tongue into the wedding wine, intending to poison the tyrannical prince.

Yet, he drained the poisoned cup for me and said with a smile, “Don’t be in such a hurry. The heads of every official in this court-I will cut them off for you, one by one.”

After my sister was widowed, she applied for a new Beastman partner.

As fate would have it, she was matched with my husband’s twin brother.

Upon learning this, Jiang Xu held me in a daze, his eyes wide open the entire night. I, too, suffered a rare bout of insomnia.

It wasn’t until the early hours of the morning that I heard him finally lose his resolve.

He slipped outside to make a quiet phone call to his brother.

“Ah Chi, I really don’t want to spend my whole life missing out on her.”

“Just help me this once.” “Don’t worry, Wen Ning is dim-witted; she’ll never realize you’re pretending to be me.”

“Remember? She already mistook us for each other once before.”

“Wen Lin hasn’t met you yet either, so even if I take your place for a few days, she won’t notice.”

“I’m begging you, just for a week. One week is all I need. I just don’t want to live with any regrets…”

He kept pleading until the sun began to rise.

Only then did Jiang Chi finally agree to pose as his brother to stay with me. At that moment, Jiang Xu and I both breathed a sigh of relief.

He never knew. In truth, I was just like him. I, too, harbored the regret of an unrequited love.

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.”

From the moment I was born, my Father Emperor could hear my inner thoughts.

[Whoa, so my Father Emperor is actually a brilliant and divine Emperor for the Ages!]

[It’s a pity he has a few stains on his record.]

[First, he’ll act on impulse and execute a great hero who served him well, only to cry afterward and curse others for not stopping him.]

[Then, he’ll execute the Chief Minister of the Court of Judicial Review, brewing a wrongful case that will shock the world for centuries, all while shifting the blame onto his ministers.]

[He’ll praise the Grand Preceptor as a ‘clear mirror’ in public, but after the man dies, he’ll raid his tomb and whip the corpse.]

[And the biggest death wish of all: he clearly loves my Mother Empress so much, yet he insists on making her give birth over and over again. When she eventually dies in childbed, he’ll be holding some other beauty while reminiscing about my mother. What a total scumbag.]

My Father Emperor’s brow twitched again and again. Finally, he couldn’t hold it together anymore.

“Quickly! Go and invite the masters from Huguo Temple!”

I had been nursing a secret crush on Zhuang Jinyu for five years.

My home was filled with life-sized dolls made in his likeness.

While on a business trip, Zhuang Jinyu was caught in a mudslide and ended up comatose in the hospital.

I was wailing his name, sobbing uncontrollably after seeing the news, when a voice drifted down from above me.

It was a lazy, haughty voice, delivered with a biting tone I knew all too well.

“What are you screaming for? Trying to wake the dead?”

My crying jagged to a halt. I spun around in terror. The tall, exquisitely crafted doll standing behind me had actually come to life.

When I was sixteen, the Zhou Family bought me to be a breeder for their lame son, Zhou Yuqing, to bear him children.

Though the agreement was for me to arrive in June, I reported to the Zhou Family in March.

I did this for two reasons: first, to save my own family some grain, and second, to leave a good impression on my future master.

But Zhou Yuqing despised me for being a country bumpkin and called me stupid.

He said I wasn’t nearly as delicate or pretty as Miss Su next door.

Even as he shared my bed, he looked down on me for being dirty.

“You must bathe four times with green jasmine and white champaca, then comb your hair with osmanthus oil. Miss Su uses osmanthus oil-have you got that through your head? ”

“If you serve me well next time, this young master might just grant you a formal title.”

I nodded, scrubbing myself with a loofah until I nearly rubbed my skin raw.

Suddenly, someone grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and hauled me, dripping wet, out of the tub.

It was Madam Liu, the broker who had sold me. She was in a frantic rush as she dragged my naked, fragrant body toward the door.

“Good heavens! It’s all wrong, all wrong! It wasn’t the Zhou Family who bought you-it was the Zou Family!”

At exactly midnight, there was a sudden knock on the dormitory door.

I thought it was just the dorm warden doing rounds, but then a cold, mechanical voice rang out in my ear- [Ding-The Zombie invasion has begun. Your first WeChat meme sticker is now your life-saving artifact.]

My three roommates were: an Avatar, Briar, and an Armor Hero.

Trembling, I tapped on my phone… My first meme sticker was my ex-boyfriend’s grinning face.

After fifteen years of marriage, Meng Ye had taken a mistress-a flamboyant young woman he kept on the side.

Cradling her pregnant belly, she stormed into my presence to demand a formal title.

“You’re a fading beauty with one foot in the grave, and you haven’t even produced a son to see you off. What right do you have to cling to the position of Madam?”

Amused, I looked past her at Meng Ye and asked, “Well? You tell her. What right do I have?”

He didn’t dare answer. He knew that if I, a Tiger Woman of a General’s Family, ever lost my temper, his little girl wouldn’t even dare to cry out loud.

When I was pulled into the Death Game, the System gave only one rule: No Romance. As luck would have it, the boy I was paired with for survival in the first Dungeon was gentle, brilliant, and always took the hits for me.

It wasn’t until the Life Gate opened that he admitted with a smile that he was an Administrator.

But what he didn’t know was that I was one, too.

While staying at a hotel, I discovered a headless corpse under my bed.

Time of death was less than an hour ago, making me the prime suspect.

The police arrested me, but I told them the corpse would come back to life by nightfall.

Everyone thought I was insane. What they didn’t know was that I am the sole successor of the Earth Master lineage.

And this corpse belonged to a Jiangtou Practitioner who could use the Flying Head Jiangtou.