Abusive Characters

I risked my life to save the Commandery Prince and my half sister from drowning.

But because my clothes were soaked through,

they slapped me with the filthy accusation of “deliberate seduction and forcing a marriage to climb the social ladder.”

From the woman who had saved their lives, I became a scheming tramp reviled by all of the capital.

On the day of our wedding, Murong Ling did not even lift my veil. His eyes were filled with disgust.

“You used such despicable means to force me to marry you. I, the Commandery Prince, will never let you have an easy life.”

Yun’e, whom I had dragged ashore with my own hands, twisted her handkerchief, her face full of grievance.

“What a deep schemer you are, Sister. When you saved me, you were swift and decisive, yet under the water, you lingered so intimately with the Commandery Prince for so long…”

I had poured my heart out to save two lives, only to end up condemned from both sides.

I endured every torment the Commandery Prince’s Manor could throw at me.

When I opened my eyes again and saw the two of them bobbing in the river,

I neatly changed direction.

Then I strolled into town and bought a skewer of candied hawthorns.

I took a bite-

So sweet.

I was born rotten. I wanted a better life, so I would do whatever it took.

When I was eight, I waited until my father was drunk, then pushed him into the river and drowned him. After that, I took his corpse to the gates of the marquis estate and sold myself to bury my father, earning my way into the household.

When I was thirteen, I staged a beating so severe that the stewarding matron nearly killed me. The young lady happened to pass by and saved me, and I became her personal maid.

I thought that if I followed the young lady when she married, I might become the Young Lord’s bedchamber maid and finally live comfortably.

Who could have known that the young lady had fallen into a secret affair with a penniless scholar? With a silver tongue and pretty lies, the scholar coaxed her into eloping with him, dragging me along as well.

As I watched the lecherous way the scholar’s eyes swept over me, I let out a deep sigh. I truly did not want to kill anyone. So why did they never let me live a good life?

I had a boyfriend who checked every box.

From his face to his body to his personality, he fit my tastes perfectly.

So perfectly it felt like a romance scam tailor-made for me.

Until that day, when I saw the bullet comments.

[The Female Supporting Character doesn’t actually think the Male Lead likes her, does she?]

[If his Simp Bro hadn’t threatened to jump off a building, why would he have spent so much time with a woman he doesn’t love?]

[The Simp Bro likes the Female Supporting Character himself, but he’s too insecure to confess, so he can only quietly play the role of her best friend.]

[And just because the Female Supporting Character said she was interested in the Male Lead, he actually trained his own bro into shape and sent him over to be her boyfriend. That’s insane.]

[It’s fine. Once the Female Lead shows up, the Female Supporting Character will learn the truth, and then the Male Lead will dump her.]

Stunned, I turned to look at the boyfriend beside me.

His brow was furrowed, and he looked a little impatient.

Then he said,

“No matter how long you stare at me, I’m not wearing it.”

“This outfit is seriously too much.”

You are a village girl from the mountains.

By a twist of fate, you save the Crown Prince from an assassination, and you leverage that debt to demand he marry you.

But he disdains your plain looks and gently refuses many times.

You settle for the next best thing and ask him to appoint you as an official.

Since you were five, you’ve decided you will rise above your station in this life.

If you become a consort, you’ll be like Wu Zetian.

If you become an official, you’ll be like Sima Yi.

In the second year after my husband took a mistress, I heard a voice:

“A man who won’t behave? Break his legs, and won’t he behave then?”

I had spent two years in the Buddhist shrine, chanting sutras day after day, trying to cleanse myself of my sins.

But I could never understand what my sins were.

Everyone in the Ling Family blamed me for being unable to keep my husband.

Being childless was a sin. Being jealous was a sin.

That voice had to be guidance from heaven.

At last, I understood. If his legs were broken, he would no longer be able to leave.

So when Ling Xu came to the Buddhist shrine once again to ask whether I agreed to let his mistress enter the household,

I snapped the candle off the candlestick and drove the copper spike into his leg.

I was born only five minutes before my little sister.

Yet she was prettier than me, fairer than me, smarter than me.

The only thing I had ever beaten her at was being healthy.

I could roll around in the mud throwing a tantrum and still not get sick.

My sister, though, was allergic to pollen in spring, mosquito bites in summer, and cold air in autumn and winter.

When I was nine, all I did was pet a stray cat.

My sister said she felt so awful she could not breathe.

That day, Mom beat me half to death.

With red-rimmed eyes, she asked me, “Were you trying to kill your sister?”

“If she dies, you’ll be the only child in this family!”

So later, Mom sent me to live in a nursing home.

She said it very seriously: “This way, your sister will be the only child in the family.”

Four years ago, Gu Jinzhi, the Crown Prince of the Beijing Circle, fell in love with me at first sight.

After three years of relentless pursuit, I finally gave in.

In the first year of our relationship, he started pestering me to get married.

I was hesitant, but I couldn’t withstand his endless coaxing.

In the end, I brought him home to meet my parents.

But that day, outside the private room, I heard one of his buddies ask him, “You’ve met her parents now. When’s the wedding?”

Gu Jinzhi clicked his tongue and said unhurriedly, “All of a sudden, I don’t want to get married that much anymore.”

Someone beside him jeered, “Oh, stop pretending. You spent three years chasing that untouchable ice queen. You’d really give her up?”

“Ice queen?”

I heard him let out a scoff.

“If you saw how her parents treat her, you’d feel the same way I do.”

“The same how?”

“That she’s nothing special after all.”

I am a bastard born of a concubine, yet I carry a face that could topple a kingdom.

When I was nine, a local thug tried to snatch me to make me his bride.

Mother risked her life to save me.

The next day, she took me through the streets and alleys of the capital for three hours, until every passerby had memorized my face.

Then she carried me to the gates of the Marquis of Pingyang Manor, knelt, and cried out:

“I, Lady Liu, a humble concubine, bore this girl for the Marquis on the ninth day of the twelfth month nine years ago in Apricot Blossom Alley, west of the suburbs. The neighbors can all attest to it.

“I know my lowly station and dare not ask for a title. I can only trade my death for the Marquis to acknowledge this child and raise her within the household!”

With that, she slammed her head against the stone lion at the gate and breathed her last.

My mother exchanged her life for my place in the Marquis’s household.

And she let the entire capital know that I am a bastard born of a kept woman.

I was the lowly maidservant Xiao Yu found too filthy to even spare a glance.

But on the day he realized I had feelings for Xie Lin’an, Xiao Yu abandoned his heavily pregnant favored consort.

He seized me by the throat, his voice cold enough to chill the bone.

“Mutual affection, is it? You think you and Xie Lin’an can run off and live happily together? Keep dreaming!”

On the day the Su Clan was raided and seized, Father dressed me in a magnificent gown and threw me in front of the soldiers.

“She is Su Yueying, the Eldest Young Miss of the Su Clan.”

Everyone said Father was a loyal servant.

When I saw him again, Father had become the New Emperor’s most trusted Divine Martial Great General.

Su Yueying had become Empress, the New Emperor’s one and only for the rest of his life.

And I was a courtesan in a brothel, a woman anyone could have.

To buy back my freedom, Mother dragged her gravely ill body to beg Father for help.

The gatekeepers beat her to death with two strikes of their staves.

I begged Su Yueying to let Mother be buried.

But she said, “There are plenty of untouched entertainers in the pleasure houses. If you had held fast to your principles, I might still have helped you. But you chose to debase yourself. I will not help someone like that.”

That very night, someone hacked off my limbs and sank me into the river.

When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day the Su Clan was raided.

This time, let Su Yueying go to the brothel herself and hold fast to her precious principles.