Aristocracy

The world says I have been blessed with a charmed life.

My father is a first-rank official, and my mother hails from a prestigious, noble clan.

Both of my elder brothers serve in the imperial court, and all three of my elder sisters have married into high-ranking families.

Since childhood, I have been draped in the finest silks and fed the rarest delicacies from jade platters.

Even the trifles I play with on a whim are worth enough to sustain an ordinary family for half a lifetime.

Yet, outsiders see only the surface of my tapestry-like life.

They do not understand that greatness brings its own burdens. Within these embroidered curtains and silken screens, schemes lie hidden at every turn.

Between the golden chalices and jade chopsticks, murderous intent flashes when least expected.

A single misstep is all it takes to fall into the bottomless abyss.

“Fine, I’ll be the one to marry him.”

The moment the words left my mouth, a sudden sense of relief washed over me.

It was no big deal. In fact, I suppose you could even call this a blessing, couldn’t you?

My lady was injured and lost her memory. She forgot everyone, yet she remembered my husband.

My husband was once a beggar.

During a heavy winter snowfall, he lay by the roadside, covered in blood and filth.

Passersby all steered clear of him, but my lady alone ordered her carriage to stop and took him in.

From then on, he stayed in the manor to tend the horses for her.

My lady often visited him under the pretext of checking on the horses.

I saw the deep, lingering affection in their eyes with my own.

But how could a young lady of her status ever marry a horse slave?

Heartbroken, she told him:

“I cannot marry you.

“But I will find someone to take care of you in my stead.”

My lady personally betrothed me to him.

Later, the lowly horse slave found his way back to the imperial capital and reclaimed his identity as a prince.

I, in turn, became his legitimate consort.

On the day of the investiture, I was waiting.

I knew.

Sooner or later, my lady would come back to reclaim what was originally hers.

I was in the middle of feeding the pigs in my village when I suddenly saw a Danmaku.

[Is this bystander the villain’s younger sister?]

[She still thinks she’s an orphan. She has no idea that the villainous Chancellor is actually the brother she got separated from back then.]

[It’s a pity the villain lost to the male lead. He’s about to hang himself.]

[The villain only became an official to find his sister in the first place. If they could just meet once, maybe he wouldn’t have to die.]

What?!

I immediately sold my pigs to scrape together some travel money and rushed to the Capital overnight.

I knocked on the gates of the Prime Minister’s Mansion.

A pale man draped in a heavy cloak stood at the entrance, his gaze deep and haunting.

I lunged forward and threw my arms around his legs, wailing, “Brother! Wang Ergou from the village is trying to force me to marry him!”

I was born a beggar.

Maybe some wealthy young lady had made a mistake, or maybe some brothel woman had simply had rotten luck.

Either way, I came into this world. I grew up begging for bowls of slop.

At my most wretched, I even fought mangy dogs for food.

Later, to stay alive, I sweet-talked a human trafficker into selling me into the palace.

On the day I entered the palace, I saw the red sun rising at the edge of the sky.

It looked just like the duck egg yolk that had once gone rolling and wobbling to my feet in the Drunken Fragrance Pavilion.

I smacked my lips and savored the memory for a moment, then turned and stepped onto that long, long palace road.

From a beggar hated by all, I became a palace maid within the towering imperial palace.

That year, I was nine.

Marquis Dingbei, Lu Chenzhou, had three wishes in life. First, a smooth career in court. Second, a prosperous household. Third, to marry the woman he loved. The first two were within easy reach. Only the third remained beyond him-unattainable, forbidden, inescapable. They said another man’s wife was not to be taken. But what if that woman was the wife he had divorced in his previous life?

I am the most indolent concubine in the Imperial Harem.

The Emperor is currently reading my Annual Slacker Report.

“This year, your name tag was flipped nineteen times. Of those, you were intercepted thirteen times. You actually served in the bedchamber six times, during three of which the Emperor couldn’t perform.”

“This year, you knelt over a thousand times. You called the Noble Consort a ‘bitch’ over ten thousand times, but the number of times you actually said it to her face was zero.”

“Do you remember the Mid-Autumn Banquet?”

“The talent you performed was balancing a pot of wine on your upturned backside, which resulted in half a month’s stipend being docked.”

“This year, your rank and salary have seen no change from last year. In fact, this situation has persisted for three years now.”

“Your keyword for this year is ‘Trash.’ Please keep it up next year.”

Oh no. Am I about to be slacked all the way into the Cold Palace?

Young General Yan was having a spat with the girl who held his heart.

During the night banquet, he had hidden a stem of Evening Magnolia.

He declared that whoever found that flower would become the General’s Wife.

The noble ladies all turned their heads, scanning the room to see where the Evening Magnolia had landed. I remained silent.

I simply used my foot to quietly kick away the flower lying behind my seat.

A moment later, Yan Ci’s nonchalant voice rang out. “I wonder which lady has picked up my flower?”

The Crown Prince’s White Moonlight, the woman he’d pined after for ten years, had finally returned.

She lifted her chin and looked down her nose at me. “You. Go back to where you came from.”

I lifted my skirts and stepped into the carriage, then turned back to smile at her. “Sorry,” I said lightly, “but this seat? You’re never getting it back.”

I was the concubine Madam forced on the General.

She was testing whether his heart had strayed.

He remained perfectly unmoved and ordered me to copy scriptures all night to prove his devotion.

And me? My hand ached. So did my heart.