Aristocracy

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.

On our wedding night, my husband told me something plainly.

His heart belonged to Concubine Song, and there could never be anything between him and me.

I was not to use my position as the lady of the household to make Concubine Song’s life difficult.

Furious, I tore off my bridal veil and gave him two choices.

Either we went to his parents together and asked what exactly they meant by arranging this marriage.

Or he brought Concubine Song to me so the three of us could settle matters face-to-face.

He feared I would bully his beloved concubine, while I feared she would use his favor to humiliate his lawful wife.

After a brief hesitation, my husband chose to summon her.

The three of us sat down and agreed on three rules.

First, Concubine Song was never to set foot in my main courtyard, and anything that happened if she did would be her own responsibility; the same rule applied to me.

Second, since my husband refused to consummate our marriage that night, we would never share a bed for the rest of our lives.

Third, if his parents pressed us for an heir, he would deal with them, and if I suffered punishment or loss because of it, he would compensate me.

My husband’s face turned glacial as he signed the agreement in a fury.

From that day on, he never entered my room again.

Concubine Song basked in her victory and laughed at me for giving up the finest man in the world.

The two of them settled into their sweet little romance.

I was too busy building a life of my own to spare them a thought.

But three years later, my husband stepped into my courtyard with an uneasy look on his face.

I knew at once that he regretted everything-and that he wanted to sleep with me.

I said calmly, “Let’s divorce.”

For three years, I washed the backside of the bedridden, paralyzed heir to the Marquis of Zhenbei.

He mocked me for it all the time.

“Chunxi, if you’re willing to wash even my most private parts, is there anything you wouldn’t do?”

“Do you think that just because the Chancellor’s daughter broke off our engagement, you’ll get to become my proper wife?”

“A lowborn woman like you, willing to stoop to anything to get ahead, isn’t even fit to be my concubine.

The best you could hope for is to warm my bed!”

Later, he learned to walk again, and I left with my silver.

Three years after that, he distinguished himself on the battlefield and asked for my hand as his reward.

But by then, I was already washing backsides at the Prince Regent’s estate.

“Heir Xie, aren’t you misunderstanding something?

I only agreed to serve you back then because the job paid three taels of silver a month.”

“Now I serve the Prince Regent’s heir for thirty taels a month.

Please don’t ruin this for me!”

Just before the bridal sedan entered our gates, my elder sister suddenly changed her mind.

She ripped the hairpins and ornaments from her head and hurled them at me along with her round silk fan.

Before the assembled guests, she accused me in a shrill voice.

“Shen Zhi, stop putting on those seductive airs!”

“You needn’t waste any more effort trying to seduce His Highness the Crown Prince.

I’m giving this marriage to you!”

With those few sentences, I became a shameless woman who had tried to seduce her own brother-in-law.

The looks in the ladies’ and young misses’ eyes gradually turned knowing.

I staggered back in disbelief, tears spilling down my cheeks.

Choking on a sob, I asked, “Has your heart perhaps been captured by another man, Sister?”

“If so, our entire household ought to enter the palace and plead guilty, begging His Majesty’s forgiveness.”

“How could we play at swapping sisters for their marriages and commit the crime of deceiving the emperor?”

Lin Wanrou was twenty-four this year, an old maiden who still had not married.

Madam Lin’s standards for a son-in-law had fallen from imperial kin to any promising young talent with ambition.

She refused to believe that, with the Grand General’s influence, she could not raise up one dragon among men as her son-in-law.

Lin Wanrou did not want to marry. She would rather stay at home for the rest of her life.

When my elder sister was preparing to marry Marquis Ding’an,

she caught the eye of the Crown Prince.

Our entire family was overjoyed.

To give the marquis’s household an explanation, they pushed me out in her place on the day of the wedding.

After we were married, Marquis Ding’an despised me.

Again and again, he mocked me to my face:

“Crude and vulgar. You don’t compare to your sister in the slightest.”

“You can’t even read an account book. Astonishingly stupid.”

I felt wronged too. I smashed my rouge and powder at him and cursed,

“My sister is the Crown Princess now. If you’re so capable, go steal her back, you coward!”

And so we spent our entire lives at each other’s throats.

When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to when I was sixteen and not yet married.

My elder sister looked at me with smiling eyes and coaxed,

“Little sister, would you like to marry into the marquis’s household and become the Marchioness?”

I am the unlucky princess who got thrown into the Cold Palace.

The people above gave me two choices: either become a eunuch’s palace wife, or marry a fool.

Without the slightest hesitation, I chose to marry the fool.

After all, he comes with an extra part. I’d be getting the better deal~

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.

Sold into a marquis’s estate during a famine, Zhaozhao—renamed Yunzhu—spends her youth believing loyalty and patience will one day buy her freedom.

Every mistress promises to release her after one more sacrifice, yet each great household uses her body, devotion, and silence to preserve its women and heirs.

When survival hardens the obedient maid into a ruthless mother, she must decide how far she will go to seize the fortunate life everyone insists she already has.

Mother often taught me, “A principal wife must have the grace to accept others.”

I was born into a prestigious family as its eldest legitimate daughter. From the day I entered this world, it was destined that even if my future husband was not a prince, nobleman, general, or minister, he would at least be the eldest legitimate son of a family equal to mine in status.

A man destined to inherit his family’s legacy and become the head of his clan was, in all likelihood, never going to be monogamous.

And so, from my earliest childhood until the day I married, I heard the same lesson over and over again: “A principal wife must have the grace to accept others.”