2026

The day Ying Que descended to the mortal world, he accidentally crashed through my roof.

He also knocked out the simple-minded bridegroom I had taken in.

I came home from walking my dog, found my world had fallen apart, and burst into tears.

Ying Que promised to repair my house and heal my bridegroom.

But it would take at least seven days for him to wake.

The village was offering girls to a river demon.

If I failed to marry within three days, I would be sent as its sacrifice.

When Ying Que heard, he took up his sword and slew the demon, unexpectedly completing his trial under Heaven’s Way.

Before returning to the Celestial Court, he gave me two gifts in apology.

A grand house, and a clever husband.

Three years later, he returned to the mortal world to undergo a tribulation.

Passing through Yanhe Town, he found me begging beside the road.

I held out a chipped wooden bowl and “looked” at him with empty eyes.

“Sir, could you spare something to eat?

My dog is starving.”

I transmigrated into an erotic novel as a supporting character—a female general built like a double-door refrigerator.

For now, though, I was merely the heroine’s maid of all work, ordered about and worked like a beast of burden.

But I knew a prince would soon buy her freedom, then hand her over to the brutal emperor.

Even a heroine as experienced as she was might not survive him.

I had lived through countless loops in this world because its main characters kept dying halfway through the story.

I assumed this time would be no different.

Then, right in front of the male lead, the woman who had always looked down on me suddenly caught my arm.

“Your Highness, please buy Hua Nu’s freedom too!”

While my husband was buying the freedom of a brothel’s star courtesan, I was at home feeding the pigs.

Floating comments warned me that my replacement was on her way.

I trusted my husband—and when he brought her home, he announced that her musical talents would make our pigs worth a fortune.

What followed was less a battle over a man than a very unexpected business venture.

The mistress of our household was choosing husbands for the daughters born to concubines.

We could marry a scholar from a modest family as his lawful wife, or enter a household of equal standing as a concubine.

By the time my turn came, the only choice left was to become an old man’s concubine.

Everyone expected tears, tantrums, perhaps even threats to hang myself.

Instead, I held my dowry list with delight.

On the day I climbed into the bridal sedan, Mother asked, “Ah Tao, didn’t you always want a husband who would love only you, for your whole lives?”

I smiled serenely.

“When I was little, I wanted to rule the whole world, too.”

Childhood wishes didn’t count.

Ever since my husband brought his mistress home as an honored concubine, I had been living like a goddess.

Getting up at the fourth watch every morning to prepare him for court?

The concubine’s job.

His clothes, his meals, his daily needs.

Taking care of him when he was drunk or ill.

The weighty business of attending to his parents—all hers.

So were the marital bed and bearing children.

When I asked her, yet again, to make shoes and socks and do the other needlework, I told her, “You’re an honored concubine, practically half a mistress of the house.

These are a mistress’s duties.

If you won’t do them, who will?”

She looked at me, dressed to the nines and ready to go out.

Seething with resentment.

Then her child was registered as mine.

And she became more respectful and obedient by the day.

I was perfectly happy with the arrangement.

My husband, however, began to grow restless.

Father hauled a strange fish out of the sea, with a woman’s body and a fish’s tail.

Thinking he had caught a mermaid, he brought her home in wild delight.

He wanted her to weep pearls—and bear an heir for our family.

But Father had made a mistake.

What he had brought home was no mermaid.

It was a man-eating fish.

I was born untamable.

After my parents died, I was passed from one relative to another.

At every house, I beat up the entire family—even the dog got a couple of slaps.

Then a delicate noblewoman adopted me and offered the perfect deal: food, a home, and permission to beat anyone except her and her cat.

Her household full of unruly adopted children never stood a chance.

Neither did the capital’s arrogant young nobles.

But her beautiful, sickly son might just be the one person who wants to shelter my sharp edges instead of putting them to use.

I had been born with little feeling for others.

When Mother struck me with a ruler for my sister’s sake, I did not shed a tear.

When my brother threw out the cat I had raised, I did not plead with him.

When the childhood friend I had grown up with asked for my sister’s hand, I calmly wished them well.

Without attachment, there could be no hurt.

I was content that way.

But I married a man who clung to me and loved me alone.

Xie Fuyu liked making me laugh, watching ripples disturb my expressionless face.

He taught me to hold on to the things I cared about.

So I began to fight for his love.

I would not let him go to wine houses or spare another woman so much as a glance.

Until my sister fell into the water and miscarried, and I would not let him go to help.

With a trace of disappointment, he snapped, “Meng Shiying, you never used to be this petty.”

Before long, he tired of me and took several aloof, quiet women as concubines.

Every one of them looked so much like the girl I had been.

I fought for half my life, and none of it brought me a good ending.

Then I was reborn on the day Mother arranged my marriage.

I bowed my head.

“Mother… the third young master of the Xie family and I are not suited.”

The whole capital knows Zhao Qingzhi as a jealous woman.

Only young General Pei dares to marry her, declaring that a man who can catch tigers and kill bandits has no reason to fear a fiery wife.

After the wedding, he proudly tells his friends he has tamed her.

But one friend knows the truth: the maid Zhao Qingzhi had beaten was her father’s illegitimate daughter, and the story behind her jealousy is far more painful than the rumors suggest.

Humiliated by the correction, the young general decides to prove who rules his household.

The next day, he brings that very maid home.

When the rebels free a tongueless madman, he leaves three children three prophecies: a dragon destined for the throne, a phoenix praised by the people, and someone condemned to pass from camp to camp on the bedding of ten thousand.

Everyone knows which fate belongs to the general’s son, which to his noble adopted daughter, and which to Ah Man, a starving little maid picked up by the roadside.

But as war tears the realm apart, Ah Man learns to read maps, feed armies, and question who has the right to decide another person’s fate.