Aristocracy

In my last life, I saved He Yan, the young master of a marquis manor.

He took me as his wife, and for a time, our marriage was the talk of Shangjing.

But I had been born and raised in the countryside.

My manners were crude, and my reputation gradually soured.

He Yan, too, slowly grew distant from me.

I wept day after day, and before I even reached thirty, I died in misery.

Given a second chance, I swore I would never live that way again.

Only, after eating wild greens for three days straight, I realized I simply could not let go of the marquis manor’s soy-braised pork knuckle, sticky rice chicken, crab roe lion’s head meatballs, scallion-fried lamb…

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 married a pig butcher in my young mistress’s place. On our wedding night, I said, “From now on, you slaughter the pigs and I’ll sell the meat. As husband and wife, we’ll work together and make a good life for ourselves. When we have children, we’ll send them to school and do our best to free them from the fate of becoming butchers.”

Then my rather handsome husband pressed a hand to his forehead and laughed.

My husband brought home a young woman.

I waited for her to bow and pay her respects, but she started shouting that “all people are born equal.”

I suggested she become his concubine, and she clung to my husband, demanding “one man, one woman, for one lifetime.”

My husband told me to be more accommodating toward her.

I was silent for a long while.

Then I kicked him straight into the sewage ditch.

“You’re the one who’s born equal to dogs. The two of you can go be a pair of dogs for life!”

After the Qin Family was confiscated, Qin Shuyu’s place as Crown Princess fell to me.

The Crown Prince could not bear to see his childhood sweetheart reduced to an official courtesan. After much maneuvering on his part, Qin Shuyu transformed overnight into a maid in the Crown Prince’s study, serving him with sleeves of red and the scent of ink.

As his lawful wife, I naturally had the magnanimity to tolerate others. I had no intention of making things difficult for her.

But on the night of our wedding, just as the Crown Prince was about to consummate the marriage with me, a bleak, mournful flute melody suddenly sounded outside the hall.

When the song ended, Qin Shuyu’s shattered voice drifted in after it:

“The past is a heartbroken poem; I pine for you, my lord, yet you never know.”

In the eighteenth year after I transmigrated, I finally became a proper maidservant.

When Old Madam and Second Master quarreled, I was the one who stepped in to smooth things over.

I knelt on the floor, clinging to Second Master’s leg, and begged him not to say things in anger.

Second Master pinched my chin and sneered. “I know Third Brother has his eye on you. But I insist on making you my concubine. Even if he finds out, what of it?”

Of course Third Master would not do anything to Second Master.

He would only kill me without a word.

I belonged to Third Master. He would rather have me dead than defiled.

In their eyes, I was a maidservant, a plaything to be fought over and snatched around.

Ruan Yueying was born into the Ruan Clan of Chenliu. By all rights, she should have become the Crown Princess, but because Crown Prince Gu Ming insisted on marrying Qin Yunnong, she was made a Side Consort instead. In the Eastern Palace, she formed a brief yet precious bond with Qin Yunnong and Hu Mianmian. But after a wedding night spun out of control, and amid the pull of power, desire, and love, she was forced into the schemes of the deep palace. Hu Mianmian withered away for love. Qin Yunnong, desperate to protect her own love, grew more ruthless with every step. And through loss and revenge, Ruan Yueying rose to the position of empress. Years later, she possessed honor, children, and power, yet remained forever trapped in the waxing and waning of that moon-until, on her deathbed, she finally spoke to the emperor of the clearest hatred and deepest regret of her life.

My mother was a farm girl who couldn’t read a single character, yet she still supported my father all the way until he passed the provincial examination.

On the day my father married the Prime Minister’s legitimate daughter, my mother obediently became his equal wife.

My father thought my mother loved him, which made her easy to control.

My father’s principal wife thought my mother, born and raised in the countryside, could never be a match for her.

And so, beneath their contempt, my mother played the fool while hiding her claws, raising me into someone whose worth was beyond measure.

I was fighting someone in the street when Young Madam took a liking to me on the spot.

She gave me fifty taels of silver and asked if I was willing to become her husband’s concubine.

They say a debt of recognition should be repaid with one’s body. Fair enough.

But was this really the way to repay it?

Still, I was desperately short on silver, so I gritted my teeth and agreed.

Only after entering the manor did I learn that my husband was introverted, my mother-in-law was tyrannical, and my sister-in-law was insufferably arrogant.

Young Madam hadn’t bought me back to serve anyone at all.

She had brought me into this family to be King Yan.