2026

On his deathbed, the late emperor entrusted me with his heir—and had me bound and dragged back overnight to assist the new emperor.

Isolated and alone, the new emperor glared through bloodshot eyes, snapping at anyone who came near like a wolf cub.

“Better that I betray the world than let the world betray me!”

My eyes lit up.

The new emperor, later: “On second thought, the world hasn’t wronged me quite that badly.”

Le Yao wakes inside an ancient romance as the personal maid of Prince Li, a brilliant war hero whose violent obsession with Wei Qingzhi turns every workday into a fight for survival.

As she becomes the unwilling go-between in their toxic courtship, Le Yao schemes to buy freedom with fellow maid Qingping-until the story’s ordained romance demands a price she refuses to accept.

When the Sword Venerable stood at the entrance of my Milk Tea Shop, sword in hand, the entire Sect thought he had come to demand an accounting for some grievance.

Only I knew that he just wanted to cut the line again for a cup of full-sugar milk tea with no ice.

But today, even the Demon Realm Young Master, the man destined to trample the Cultivation World underfoot a century from now, was standing behind him, clutching a queue number and waiting for me to call his turn.

I was the quietest, shyest girl in the village.

And yet, every night, I went to the ruined temple to seduce the village’s only scholar.

The scholar never took the bait. Disheartened, I decided to steal all the money from home and run away.

He stopped me. “We agreed. When I make something of myself one day, you have to leave on your own.”

I nodded as fast as I could.

Later, he really did pass the imperial examinations with honors, and I finally gained the ability to support myself. So I asked him to sign the divorce papers.

His eyes were bloodshot. “You want to leave me?”

Five years into my career, people called me pale, skinny, young-looking, and a fake-innocent schemer.

Meanwhile, my stunt double used me as a stepping stone to climb her way up, becoming wildly popular with an occult persona.

On shows, she told fortunes for celebrities, saying she had learned it from her boyfriend.

That boyfriend she kept talking about was the eldest son of a famous Occult Family.

But when she and I ended up on the same paranormal variety show, her talismans suddenly stopped working.

As for me, right in front of an audience of tens of millions, I took down a whole pack of ghosts with my bare hands.

“You want to be my nephew’s wife? Did you get my permission first?”

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.

From childhood, Lin Qingcai copied case files and transcribed testimonies in her father Lin Huaizhang’s study, yet she was always kept hidden behind the Lin Family’s spotless reputation. By chance, she discovered a confession in a secret compartment that had been forged to match her handwriting, and learned that her father, elder brother, and mother were preparing to make her take the blame for the Luo Family’s old case.

She was afraid of dying, and long since afraid of being cast out by her family. So before they could speak first, she beat the drum and brought her accusation before the court, charging her father and brother with falsifying testimony and shifting the blame onto her. Using the copied case records she had secretly preserved over the years, along with witness leads and fragments from the old case, she gradually exposed the truth in the prefectural yamen: the Lin Family and Duke An’s Mansion had colluded to alter statements, take silver, and frame innocent people.

Her father was exiled, her brother was stripped of his status, and her mother finally came to see the rift her favoritism had created. Lin Qingcai left the clan and opened Qingcai Writing Service in West Lane, turning the pen she had once used to help others conceal evidence of their crimes into one that wrote the truth for the weak.

I was a virtuous woman, particularly skilled at repaying malice with kindness.

After years of marriage, I had little to complain of.

Except for one thing.

Whenever my husband and I retired a little early, my mother-in-law would bring her maids and serving women to pound on our courtyard gate.

Sometimes it was, “My boy, it’s cold tonight.

Be careful you don’t catch a chill in bed.”

Other times, “Son, you ate rather well at supper.

Your food hasn’t settled yet.

Don’t let it sit in your stomach and make you ill.”

After a while, I understood.

We were both women.

It wouldn’t do for me to be the only one getting her fill.

The thought was keeping Mother awake, tossing and turning all night.

So while my husband was away on business, I took three husbands for her in one go.

In the seventh year of having a crush on my childhood friend, encouraged by my best friend,

I carried flowers and a cake onto an overnight train to confess my feelings to him.

But on a basketball court roaring with noise and people,

I ran straight into the sight of the two of them kissing.

With his arm around my best friend, my childhood friend asked coldly, “What are you doing here? Can’t you see I’m busy?”

Disheveled and humiliated, I was just about to explain

when his roommate beside him let out a soft laugh. “My girlfriend came to bring me a cake. What’s it got to do with you?”

I married well.

My husband’s family was one of the most prominent in the area.

My hopelessly devoted husband did whatever I asked, and although my mother-in-law wasn’t entirely happy with me, she was an upright woman who never picked on me.

Then one day, my father-in-law’s two-faced stepsister came back from abroad and made my mother-in-law’s life a living hell.

That was when I stepped in.