2026

Ji Yan’s first love hit me with her car.

When she called him, he rushed to the hospital.

His expression faltered slightly when he saw me.

After he and his first love accompanied me through the examinations, he asked how much the medical bills were.

For three years, we had kept our marriage a secret.

Even when I miscarried, he had never come to see me in the hospital.

This was the first time he had ever accompanied me to a medical appointment.

When the nurse told me to have my husband look after me, I switched off my phone.

That would not really work.

We were in the process of getting divorced.

I was the queen, confined to the ancestral temple for a grave crime.

The king despised me, and for fifteen years he never came to see me.

The world said I had lost my mind.

Then the diviners foretold that my child would bring the four corners of the realm to submission and become sovereign of all under Heaven.

Taken from me on the day he was born and raised by the king’s favorite consort, he had never even seen his mother’s face.

Day and night I prayed, waiting for him.

At last, he came.

The boy was grown now, his brow bearing all the cold majesty of an heir to the throne.

Calmly, he laid a dagger before me.

“Your son asks only one thing.

Grant it to me.”

I came to the city looking for work, and somehow ended up as the male secretary to a young, domineering CEO.

Like an idiot, I asked him, “Bro, I don’t have much schooling. What can I do?”

The CEO frowned around the cigarette between his lips and motioned for me to bend lower. “You can.”

Three months later, I was standing beside the CEO’s bed while he shifted over with his laptop in his arms to make room for me, then reached out to blow-dry my hair.

All at once, it hit me.

Wait.

Something about this doesn’t seem right.

My boyfriend was ruthless and vicious, with no end of evil deeds to his name.

And he had a childhood friend who was every bit as wicked.

Two of a kind, they joined forces and left the whole of Haicheng in turmoil.

I was his kindhearted girlfriend, destined to die young.

His wicked childhood friend had a first love too—a reserved, upright man with little time left to live.

After he and I died, the two villains would finally see the error of their ways, mourn us, comfort each other, and spend the rest of their lives fabulously wealthy.

When I became aware of the plot, I was gently trying to reason with my boyfriend.

“They helped you before.

Why do you have to destroy them completely?”

He lazily lifted his eyelids.

“Kindness is the most useless thing in the world.

And so are you, Ruoruo.”

I froze for a moment.

Then I lowered my eyes to the message I had just received.

[Want to set a time to look at burial plots together?]

My husband claimed to despise one of his concubines, while treating me, his lawful wife, with perfect devotion.

I pitied her and protected her at every turn.

After I died in childbirth, he made her his wife and handed her my entire dowry.

Reborn on the second day of our marriage, I decided to stop shielding his so-called true love—and see what their devotion was really worth.

On my first day in the Duke of Liang’s household, my stepdaughter threw her ceremonial tea onto the floor, and my stepson threatened to have me cast out.

I drenched her with a teapot and took a ruler to his hand.

When their father asked what had happened, I told him I was merely teaching the children our household’s rules.

Everyone says a stepmother’s lot is hard.

But this household would recognize only one mistress: me.

I had studied immortal arts under my master since childhood.

A sharp pair of scissors and a sheet of white paper could bring anything in the world to life.

With that gift, I cut out ten thousand swallows and sparrows when locusts ravaged the fields.

In moments, they devoured the swarm and saved an entire town.

The townsfolk bowed to me as an immortal maiden.

The county magistrate offered to submit a memorial on my behalf.

I waved him off.

“I hear someone in this town once slew a snake demon.

I would marry that man and bring a thousand pieces of gold.”

Fang Liang emerged from the crowd in filthy rags, reeking of wine.

He grabbed my hand and grinned, baring a mouthful of yellow teeth.

“Little immortal, don’t you go back on your word.”

I looked at him and smiled, with a coldness beyond words.

My master had been a snake immortal.

Mortals had tortured him to death as a demon and used him to make a secret elixir of everlasting life.

Blind and arrogant creatures.

How could they know whether the woman they took home was an immortal—or a monster?

During the palace coup, I saved more than forty members of the Jiang household.

Afterward, the emperor asked what reward I wished for.

I knelt before him.

“This commoner wishes to enter the palace.”

The moment I spoke, the bright fire in the eyes of the Jiang family’s second son, standing beside His Majesty, died to ash.

“Oh, very well.

I will marry him.”

My sisters’ eyes went round.

Everyone knew how hopelessly I adored Ninth Young Master Cui: his literary gifts, his youthful grace.

I had led his horse, ground his ink, and made an utter fool of myself over him.

Why would I now agree to help our aunt the empress build her faction by marrying Pei Yao, that Turkic bastard neither of his parents cared for?

“Quick, tell Father!

Sanniang has agreed!”

My eldest sister reacted at once.

Afraid I might change my mind, she loudly applauded my decision and sent a servant off with the news.

The others recovered, hastily put on smiles, and clasped my hands from either side.

Such a sensible girl, they told me.

I was bound to go far.

I knew none of them would accept this splendid opportunity if it were offered to her.

But for me, it was already the best future I could hope for.

After all, in that dream, I had fought against it.

Before the Second Young Master of Duke’s Manor was executed, the Old Madam wanted to leave him an heir.

She summoned all the maids to the rear courtyard and asked which of us was willing to make a trip to death row.

The girls exchanged uneasy glances.

If they wanted to climb into a young master’s bed, there were plenty of young lords in the manor to choose from. Why throw away their future on a man who was about to die?

I was the only one who stepped out of the crowd.

The others called me a fool for ruining my prospects when I had already been chosen for the First Young Master.

But what they didn’t know was that I had been lusting after the Second Young Master for ages.

He was going to die anyway. Once the deed was done, I would run.

After he was gone, I would burn plenty of spirit money for him to make amends.

But just as I was gleefully packing my bundle, news arrived that Second Young Master Jiang had escaped from prison.

I fled in a panic with the simple-minded young lady and the elderly Old Madam in tow.

Until one day, Second Young Master Jiang tracked us down with a sword in hand and bared his gleaming white teeth at me.

“Jinque, you and I have a score to settle.”