2026

My eldest sect brother, who was to become my cultivation partner, brought home a woman.

For her, he succumbed to worldly desire.

Once he had tasted it, he could not stop.

But I could see that she was a demon cultivator wearing human skin.

When I exposed her before everyone, she stripped off her skin and destroyed herself.

My sect brother hated me for it.

He said I had ruined her chance to become human.

Later, after he attained immortality, he destroyed our sect, tore out my immortal bones, crippled my cultivation, and shut me in a dark dungeon to torment me day after day.

When I woke again, I was back on the day before I exposed them.

This time, I would not stand in the way of his love.

As he wished, my sect brother abandoned cultivation and went into the mortal world to live as a man.

I was an emperor.

Now I have become another emperor.

But this one has made a miserable job of it.

The crown princess is sleeping with the imperial tutor in the Eastern Palace.

My daughter is imprisoned and humiliated in her own residence by her husband.

Even my favorite niece has been judged by the country-bred heir to the Marquis of Xuanyang: “Fit only for a concubine, never a wife.”

Well.

You are all remarkably brave.

How about we find out how sharp my executioner’s blade is?

“I want a world where bride price is a crime.

Let’s see how those precious little princesses get something for nothing then!

Hahaha!”

The first lucky winner thrust his arms into the air to a round of applause.

But when the preview of his new world ended, he cried and screamed that he didn’t want to go.

I sat in the audience, cracking sunflower seeds as I watched the show.

“Serves him right.”

I didn’t notice the frown on my husband’s face beside me.

And I could never have imagined that, an hour later, he would stand on that stage and calmly announce: “I want a world where a man can have more than one wife.”

The prince’s heir acquired a famous sword.

A fine sword deserved a beautiful woman.

My looks earned me the position of his sword-bearing maid.

Later, he took me to Taicang for the Sword Trials.

Someone saw me and remarked, “Baseborn to the bone.”

Everyone roared with laughter.

Only years later did they understand.

What the man had actually said was, “Blade-born to the bone.”

Father said I had an affinity with the immortals and sent me up the mountain to become a nun when I was little.

Only as I grew older did I learn that the place where I lived was Mount Tai.

And the nuns of Mount Tai were no proper nuns.

Just as the “slender horses” of Yangzhou were not horses, and the boatwomen of West Lake did more than row boats.

Men came for the thrill of doing the most profane things in a sacred place.

Then the emperor himself climbed the mountain to pray for an heir.

And I became pregnant with his only child.

On my last night in the palace, Xiao Zhao got drunk and took me to bed.

The next morning, I slipped a palace maid into his bed to take my place.

Four years later, a little girl held my husband’s hand and called him Uncle in her sweet little voice.

His eyes reddened.

“Ah Jie, how can she call me Uncle?”

he asked, aggrieved.

I smiled.

“But she really is my husband’s daughter.

What else should she call you?”

When my father died, he left me a pawnshop called Pawnshop Number Whatever.

By day, it had no customers.

By night, it was packed with souls, trading kindness, malice, and years of life for what they desired.

Tonight, my last customer was my husband, away on campaign.

He looked at the masked shopkeeper without recognizing me.

“I’d like to pawn my wife outright.”

I was the legitimate daughter of an old noble house, carefully raised to become the crown prince’s wife.

Then a woman arrived on a mission to win his love, and he demanded that our betrothal be broken.

Everyone expected me to fight for him.

Instead, I removed my hairpins, left my face bare, and calmly asked His Majesty to grant the couple their wish.

That night, I left the capital.

Three years later, their passionate devotion had turned to resentment.

When the weary crown prince met me on my return and called me Zhang’er, I knew my opportunity had come.

On the night of the empress’s funeral, His Majesty and I spent the entire night together in a side hall.

Everyone in the capital called me shameless.

After all, the empress was my own aunt, and His Majesty was her husband—my uncle by marriage.

Before that, I had been meant to marry the crown prince.

But Yuan Xiujin did not like me.

He despised my coarse origins, sneered at the Meng family’s rustic ways, and thought us unworthy of the Eastern Palace.

As if I thought any better of him.

Father and son, yet so different.

Yuan Xiujin let a woman lead him by the nose.

Yuan Zhaoyu already held the empire in his hand.

Since he would not let me become his crown princess, I would simply have to become his father’s consort instead.

I was born without knowing how to cry, and I did not learn to walk until I was two.

My cousin, who was my age, could already recite poems while I was still stumbling over my first words.

Before the college entrance examination, everyone in the village called me the half-wit.

Afterward, the village received its first university acceptance letter.

My aunt was beside herself with joy.

She held a three-day feast, and everyone for miles around knew my cousin had got into university.

Then the villagers clamored to see the letter.

Only then did they discover that the name on the gold-stamped page was mine.