Ancient China

The man I secretly loved was the legitimate princess’s fiancé.

I was the unfavored Seventh Princess, and the fiancé bestowed upon me was a drunken libertine who gambled, kept concubines, and maintained a mistress outside his estate.

But that was all right.

My best friend had the ultimate cheat code.

Shen Qi had secretly loved my elder sister for years.

When she and I fell into the river together, he mistook me for her and pulled me out first.

My sister was swept away and drowned.

Knowing none of this, I fell hopelessly in love with him.

I made such a scene about marrying him that he gladly agreed.

After the wedding, however, he alternated between warmth and coldness.

At times he treated me tenderly.

At others, he looked at me as if he hated me to the bone.

Once bright and willful, I withered day by day and lived in misery.

Only as I lay dying did I discover the truth…

He was kind whenever I reminded him of my sister.

He was cruel whenever he remembered that he blamed me for her death.

After I was reborn, I climbed onto the bank by myself and watched him rejoice at having my sister back.

Then I turned and walked toward the most exalted man in the realm.

The day I was cast aside for jealousy, more than half the capital applauded.

My mother-in-law wept and complained that I controlled her son, forbidding him from drinking and from taking concubines, making him the laughingstock of the city as a henpecked husband.

What no one knew was that my husband, Qi Chong, used that “henpecked” reputation as an excuse to turn away people asking to borrow money, dodge social obligations, reject beautiful spy-concubines sent by political rivals with ill intent, and rise smoothly through officialdom.

In the end, I alone bore the infamy of being a shrew and a jealous wife. I angered my father to death, and I myself fell gravely ill and died.

When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the first year of my marriage to Qi Chong.

At a banquet, Qi Chong didn’t dare refuse the beautiful spy sent by his superior, and pushed me forward instead. Lifting his cup, he put on a troubled expression and said,

“I like the beauty very much.

“But if I bring her into the household, my wife will be upset again.”

What he didn’t know was that I took the beauty’s hand, then turned back to him with a gentle, magnanimous smile.

“Since my husband is so fond of her, and I’ve already checked that your birth dates are compatible, why not bring her into the household today?”

Qi Chong’s face filled with shock. He froze where he stood.

My best friend and I transmigrated together.

She became a princess consort, while I became… a lynx.

“Save me, save me, save me…” I begged.

“Hang in there!” my best friend said. “I’ll fight for custody!”

Then I demonstrated that I could use a toilet all by myself, and Her Majesty the Empress chose me instead.

Later, when my best friend’s husband rebelled and nearly got her killed, it was her turn to beg, “Save me, save me, save me…”

So I-I sprang up and sank my teeth into the villain’s thigh.

Ten years after my death, the young crown prince had grown up. Clutching my memorial tablet, he announced that he wanted to marry me.

His father beat him to tears with a court memorial.

The august emperor roared, “Wake up! She’s dead!”

You’re the dead one. Your whole family is dead.

I drifted back and forth, then kicked over his most treasured seal.

It landed with a clack, stamping half an impression onto the memorial—right where my name appeared.

Ruiniang.

The crown prince held up the memorial. The tears on his cheeks had not even dried, yet he was laughing and crying all at once. “Ruiniang! Look, Father, it’s Ruiniang! She’s still alive. She’s still alive!”

The emperor was plainly startled, but did his best to look composed. “Nonsense! I simply lost my grip on the seal!”

I kicked it again. The seal that had just settled flat went rolling across the desk and stamped half a crimson impression onto his dragon robe.

Ruiniang.

The emperor panicked and bolted for the door. Halfway there, he remembered something, ran back, and grabbed the crown prince by the nape.

At least he had some paternal feeling. He knew enough to take his son when he fled.

“Guards! There’s a ghost!” he shouted.

The crown prince, meanwhile, was sobbing as he cried into the empty air, “Ruiniang, is that you? You’ve come back, haven’t you?”

Even in tears, he held my memorial tablet tight against his chest.

I looked at him fondly and reached out to wipe his tears, only for my fingers to pass through empty space.

My fingertips felt hollow. My heart ached a little.

Of course. I was a ghost. I could not touch the living; only the things of the dead would answer me.

Mother ascended to heaven.

She left me two things: an old yellow dog and a manual for cultivating immortality.

Oh, and one promise.

“Whenever someone beats you, shout your mother’s name three times, and I will come save you.”

I never shouted.

Father had seldom used his fists lately; he had heard that girls in our area had suddenly become valuable, and a wounded one would fetch a poor price.

Fu Qiu had always accepted her lot in life.

When she was a child, a blind man read her fortune through bone-weighing and said her bones were light, her fate was lowly, and that in this life she could only sell her body.

As it happened, her family was going through hard times, so her father simply sold her to a brothel.

When she was still young and first put on display, the madam said that although she was beautiful, her face carried a pitiful, sorrowful look, and the customers she attracted would never be decent men.

Sure enough, every few days, she suffered another bout of abuse.

By middle age, her looks had withered, and she married a merchant. The neighbors said her thin lips and fox-like eyes meant she would never be the faithful sort.

Before long, rumors were flying everywhere. The merchant could not bear it, and on a rainy night, he drove her out of the house.

Even so, she never hated anyone. She only hated that her own fate was so poor.

As she lay on the verge of death, the Old Blind Man happened to pass by drunk, bragging to the crowd.

“Twenty years ago, I saw a little girl in another town. She was so young, but she already had the looks to topple a kingdom.

“So I pretended to be blind, did a bone-weighing for her, and told her she had a lowly fate-that in this life, she could only become a whore.

“And guess what? Her whole family believed me!”

To scrape together the money for my younger brother’s treatment, my father sold me to Yihong Tower.

On the eve of the day I was going to be forced to receive clients, Miss Zhao bought me.

Miss Zhao is my benefactor.

If she tells me to stab someone, I immediately sharpen the knife first.

If she tells me to set a fire, I ask her whether ten barrels of lamp oil will be enough.

If she tells me to go on a matchmaking date in her place…

Huh??

My eyes went as wide as bronze bells, and I asked Miss Zhao in horror, “What if Young Master Pei takes a liking to me?”

I transmigrated and became an ancient beast of burden, with signs that I might be headed toward the life of a chicken or duck next.

My major didn’t teach me how to make soap or explosives, and the market’s invisible hand wasn’t about to scoop me up either.

Maybe if I’d transmigrated into the ruling class, I might have wanted to stay in this dynasty.

But I know one thing very clearly: I just want to go home.

On the day my only daughter was born, the Marchioness of Zhenbei gave birth to a son in the Hall of Mental Cultivation.

At dawn, Shen Chizhou brought me her child and exchanged him for mine.

When I caught him, he merely raised his eyes and said, “The child born of Wan and me must be raised in the palace.”

Song Wan was the great love he had lost in his youth.

Now that she had borne him a child, he meant to make amends to mother and son at any cost.

The cost was my daughter becoming the young lady of the Marquis of Zhenbei’s household.

She went from an exalted imperial princess to the daughter of a mere court official.

After a long silence, I neither wept nor protested.

Instead, I lifted my face and smiled in approval.

“As it should be.”

After all, a child ought to be raised beside her real father.