2026

Qiu Ning had once thought Crown Prince Jin Ye was the man she was destined to marry, until Chu Mumu, a girl who had crossed over from elsewhere, forced him to kneel outside the Study Hall for a day and a night over her demand for a single, lifelong love.

When the imperial marriage finally soured, Qiu Ning still married into the Crown Prince’s residence. From that day on, every tear, every favor, and every tender glance became part of a game she meant to win.

The princess went out in search of amusement and was captured by the enemy.

On the battlefield, they demanded a hostage in exchange.

Lu Wei, our commanding general, turned to me—the woman standing beside him disguised as a man.

I had spent more than ten years at his side, risking my life with him and helping him win battle after battle.

Only he knew I was a woman.

He had even promised to spend his life with me.

But when he saw the enemy’s blade against the princess’s throat, his anguish was plain.

“Once we’ve brought her back, I’ll come for you.”

He handed me over himself.

By the time that blade reached my neck, he already had the rescued princess in his arms.

Dragged into the enemy camp, I waited day and night for him.

Instead, the news arrived that he was about to marry her.

That evening, I revealed to Xie Lin, the enemy emperor, that I was a woman—and chose to be with him.

Later, Lu Wei finally declared war, announcing that he was coming to rescue me.

Watching Xie Lin make our baby laugh, I sent back a languid reply: “Today is my son’s one-month celebration.

Don’t spoil it.”

Lu Wei lost his mind.

For three years after I entered the Eastern Palace as a concubine, I had never even seen the Crown Prince.

I took it in stride. After all, I was face-blind.

If I mistook someone else for the Crown Prince and committed a capital offense, I would rather have no favor at all.

But after so long without his favor, even my food, clothing, and daily expenses became a problem.

To live a little better, I simply found three lovers to support me.

Zhang San worked in the Imperial Kitchen and could always bring me plenty of delicious food.

Li Si guarded the Garment Bureau and often sent me beautiful clothes.

As for Wang Wu, he was a skilled craftsman in the workshops. Every time we met, he gave me some clever new toy.

Lately, though, all three of them seemed short on money.

So I began thinking that I should try to please the Crown Prince and ask for some rewards to help support them.

At a palace banquet, my elder sister accidentally inhaled an aphrodisiac and ended up alone in a room with the heir of the Xie family.

But she was already the Crown Princess, and if the secret got out, the consequences would be catastrophic.

To protect her reputation, the young lord publicly took responsibility and claimed that I had been the woman who spent that night with him.

After I married into the marquis’s household, he remained unfailingly polite but distant, as cold as frost behind a screen.

So determined was he to sleep in separate rooms that he even ruined his own reputation, pretending to be drunk and lamenting before others that he suffered from an unspeakable condition and could not perform as a man.

To preserve the family’s dignity, my mother-in-law simply announced that I was the infertile one.

My sister tormented herself day and night, convinced that she had ruined my life.

I alone breathed a secret sigh of relief, stroked my steadily rounding belly, and made an announcement at the family banquet.

“A miracle from heaven! My husband is going to have an heir!”

On the day my father placed third in the palace examination, my mother was found unconscious in a busy street, her clothes in disarray.

Mindful of the many years she had supported his studies, my father did not fault her for having been violated.

Everyone praised him for his honor.

Even the emperor marveled at his devotion.

Yet, concerned for my father’s reputation, His Majesty decreed that he marry the Marquis of Yongyang’s legitimate daughter and expected my mother to step aside and become a concubine.

Proud and unyielding, my mother hanged herself that very night.

I was a coward by nature, timid as a quail.

Mother taught me the secret to making a living when you were poor— Do whatever people ask.

I never forgot.

At fourteen, my sister-in-law sold me to a brothel.

As she was leaving, she wiped away her tears.

“Xiaoqiao, I truly can’t bear to part with you.”

So I begged the madam to take her in too.

At seventeen, one of the girls stole my money to run away with a man.

When I caught her, she sobbed, “Xiaoqiao, cut off my hand!”

That night, blood covered the floor.

At twenty, I had saved enough to buy my freedom.

I gave every last coin to Lü Buyu.

We had been lovers for six months, and he had promised to take me away.

Instead, he used the money to redeem Qingyue, who had only just arrived.

He knelt before me.

“Xiaoqiao, she’s so pitiful.

I can’t watch her sink into this mire.”

“Or you could just kill me.”

On the first day after my wealthy birth family found me, my biological parents gave me a warning.

“Now that you’re back, don’t go thinking you can compete with Nian for anything.”

I surveyed the family’s opening show of hostility, smiled, and pulled out an employment contract.

“I think you two have misunderstood something: a parent-child relationship is a legal fact.”

“But asking me to play the sweet, obedient daughter while serving as your adopted daughter’s stepping stone would qualify as premium emotional labor.”

“It’ll cost extra.”

I was venting during a livestream.

“What kind of problem makes my roommate shower seven times in one night?”

The chat immediately filled with viewers complaining about their own nightmare roommates.

Only one person gave me a serious answer.

[Your roommate showers so much because she’s a monkey.]

Late at night, a crow outside my window spat out a human eyeball right in front of me.

I jumped up to call the police, terrified, but all I got was a busy signal.

I went to get the phone belonging to the obsessive, boyish-looking performer I managed.

He suddenly stood up and stared straight at me.

One hand pointed toward the window.

I looked.

The crows filling the sky were all crashing into our glass.

Their dead bodies covered the window, blood and feathers smeared across it.

I grabbed his phone.

This time the call connected, but what came from the other end was a crow’s piercing screech!

By the time the palace found me, I was already three months pregnant.

Even so, the man who called himself my imperial father issued a decree arranging my marriage.

And just like that, I went from an orphan with neither father nor mother to a princess, sent away to buy peace with a marriage.