Aristocracy

By the tenth year of failing to find a human skin, I was ready to flay even the old yellow dog at the temple.

Then I met a beautiful concubine who had been thrown out of the marquis’s estate.

She knelt beside my white bones and burned paper money at the altar.

“The Immortal Lady likes the skin of beauties, and I hate this pretty face of mine. Let’s trade.”

Everyone envied me for being born into the splendor of the Prime Minister’s Mansion.

But in the Prime Minister’s Mansion, there were four daughters like me.

The beauty I took such pride in was hardly worth mentioning before my eldest sister’s effortless grace.

The schemes I had painstakingly built were no match for Fourth Sister, who could overturn the clouds and summon the rain with the slightest lift of her hand.

I watched in satisfaction as my eldest sister entered the palace as an imperial consort, only to be promised by my father, in the blink of an eye, to a boorish man who had nothing but an empty noble title.

Only then did I understand.

From the day my eldest sister entered the palace, my marriage had become nothing more than a stepping stone to support her.

The poisoned, honeyed words of the women in the inner residence, and the impatience and contempt in my husband’s eyes.

Every single day reminded me of my failure.

But I refused to admit defeat.

If blood ties could not be severed, then I would bow even lower.

As long as the bloodline of the Kong Clan remained, I could still stir this dead game back to life.

My Mother was a courtesan, earning money with her own flesh and blood to support my father’s studies and imperial examinations.

Five years later, my father succeeded and was granted marriage to a princess by the Emperor.

Yet, in the Golden Throne Hall, he refused the marriage at the risk of his own life, and with great fanfare, married my Mother with ten miles of red bridal procession.

The princess was displeased.

Three days later, Mother was found abused and disheveled, dying at the entrance of an alley.

Half a year later, the princess finally married my father as she wished.

She did not know that this was the beginning of her misfortune.

I am the Crown Princess.

The Crown Prince’s concubine came before me to flaunt her success. “I am already with child, yet you haven’t even been graced with his favor yet, have you, Sister?”

Rather than being angry, I was overjoyed. I fervently instructed the Imperial Physician, “You must ensure the child is protected at all costs.”

I have waited three years for the Eastern Palace to be blessed with a pregnancy.

Now, I can finally dispose of the father, keep the child, and rule from behind the curtain.

Shen Shiji once saved my life, pulling me from a pile of corpses.

In the years before I was recognized by the palace and returned to my royal roots, he taught me to read and practice martial arts, treating me with the utmost tenderness.

That was until I killed the woman he had loved for years.

To avenge her, Shen Shiji became my Prince Consort.

He spent years plotting to turn everyone against me, stripping me of my allies and family. After subjecting me to every imaginable torment, he threw me back into that same pile of corpses.

Shen Shiji told me his greatest regret was saving me all those years ago.

And so, having been reborn, I scrambled out of that pile of corpses on my own, wasting no time.

Later, I heard that it rained heavily that day.

The usually aloof Young Marquis Shen ignored the filth and the mud, kneeling in the pile of corpses and digging until his hands were bloody and raw.

All just to find a Little Beggar.

After my rebirth, my mother held me in her arms, teasing me playfully.

“Jiaojiao, which one of them would you like as your husband?” I looked at my two young elder cousins.

In my past life, one of them killed me, and the other killed my body double. Both were ruthless, predatory men.

If I ever got involved with them again, would I even survive? I couldn’t help but burst into tears.

Clinging to my mother’s neck, I acted spoiled and pleaded, “Mother, I don’t want either of them.” “Then… you shall have both.”

My mother’s expression was one of absolute determination. Me: ??

I stayed by his side from his impoverished youth until he held the world in his palm.

Yet, I was forced to watch as he elevated my half-sister to the status of equal wife and executed my entire family.

I met a miserable end. Given a second chance at life, I watch as his back bows in defeat, his body trembling with regret.

I burn our marriage contract. I wish him a meteoric rise and a boundless future.

A boundless future, without me.

I was once the hardworking, dedicated wife of a low-ranking official.

But when my husband decided to take a concubine, I simply stopped caring.

“I’m going back to inherit the throne.” Xie Canghuai froze. “Stop messing around. There’s a limit to how much you can act out just because you’re jealous.”

I told him I wasn’t joking. I really did have a throne to inherit. “I can’t give you the position of Imperial Husband, but you can start as a Selected Attendant.” He thought I’d lost my mind and locked me away in a rural manor.

Me: “?” Why couldn’t we just do this the easy way? Do I really have to summon my eight thousand secret guards and give him a wicked smirk?

Third Miss Liu did not have a very good reputation.

When she was fourteen, she threw a length of white silk over a roof beam and hanged herself, an act that stripped the primary wife of her power to manage the household.

The entire capital whispered that she was far too calculating for such a young age.

When she was seventeen, she sat atop a wall and tossed her silk pouch into the arms of a complete stranger.

Once again, the capital buzzed with rumors, claiming she was conducting a private affair and lacked any sense of shame.

Her father was so livid he was practically hopping mad, threatening to have her drowned in a pond. As soon as this news broke, General He grew anxious.

He was the capital’s most notorious man fated to kill his wife. And he had just accepted Third Miss Liu’s pouch.

I disguised myself as a man and spent twelve years in the barracks as a no-good soldier-only to suddenly learn that I was the Prefect’s true daughter.

The impostor daughter clutched my sleeve, sobbing as she shook it.

“Sister, I know I stole the place that should have been yours. I only beg you not to take away the love Father, Mother, and our brothers have for me.”

What she didn’t know was that I had no interest in stealing her love.

All I wanted was to get my brothers-in-arms some military pay.