Aristocracy

During the year we fled the war, my mother saved a Princess Consort during labor, ensuring that both mother and daughter survived.

However, the barbarians arrived.

My mother told the Princess Consort to take us and flee first, while she stayed behind, sword in hand, to hold back the enemy.

With a single blade, she cut down countless foes, but in the end, she was simply outnumbered.

After her capture, she sought only the release of death.

Instead, they dislocated her arms and tore at her clothes, exposing her snow-white skin…

The Princess Consort and I were saved. However, the Princess Consort broke her word. She did not treat me like her own daughter.

Instead, she loathed my mother, claiming she had been rendered filthy and defiled by the barbarians.

Because of this, she made me her daughter’s personal maid.

When I was sixteen, the Zhou Family bought me to be a breeder for their lame son, Zhou Yuqing, to bear him children.

Though the agreement was for me to arrive in June, I reported to the Zhou Family in March.

I did this for two reasons: first, to save my own family some grain, and second, to leave a good impression on my future master.

But Zhou Yuqing despised me for being a country bumpkin and called me stupid.

He said I wasn’t nearly as delicate or pretty as Miss Su next door.

Even as he shared my bed, he looked down on me for being dirty.

“You must bathe four times with green jasmine and white champaca, then comb your hair with osmanthus oil. Miss Su uses osmanthus oil-have you got that through your head? ”

“If you serve me well next time, this young master might just grant you a formal title.”

I nodded, scrubbing myself with a loofah until I nearly rubbed my skin raw.

Suddenly, someone grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and hauled me, dripping wet, out of the tub.

It was Madam Liu, the broker who had sold me. She was in a frantic rush as she dragged my naked, fragrant body toward the door.

“Good heavens! It’s all wrong, all wrong! It wasn’t the Zhou Family who bought you-it was the Zou Family!”

I was born cold-blooded.

When my mother died, I stood by her bedside without shedding a single tear.

In the front courtyard, lanterns and streamers were being hung to celebrate my father’s concubine’s birthday.

“Yuntan,” my mother said, “you are just like your father.”

A dying person always carries a certain air of decay.

She stared up at the canopy of her bed and sighed again.

“It is better to be like him… the heartless… always live longer…”

“Do not be like me, trapped in the word ‘love’ for a lifetime. It was a mistake…”

My mother was a loser her entire life.

I never expected that years later, the most reputable and upright gentleman in the capital, Xie Yijue, the Heir to Duke Zhenguo, would come to my door to ask for my hand in marriage.

He had one condition: He wanted to take my younger half-sister, Ji Zhi, into his household alongside me.

The Crown Prince had always been generous.

When we were four years old, I noticed his body had one more piece of equipment than mine.

I told him I wanted one too.

He pulled down his trousers and was just about to snip off half to share with me when the palace servants discovered us. That year, I nearly passed away at the age of four.

And he nearly became Nine Thousand Years Old.

A Little Spirit Mushroom has been reborn as a human-weak, pitiful, and recently orphaned with no home to call her own.

To get a bite to eat, a place to stay, and to settle her karmic debts, the Little Spirit Mushroom diligently (not really) became the personal maid of a powerful patron.

When her master worked, she slept. When her master had pastries, she stole them. When her master drank tea, she tasted it first. When her master was targeted by assassins, she was the first to run.

The Little Spirit Mushroom successfully annoyed her master and was punished with reflection against a wall.

But later, her master couldn’t bear to punish her anymore.

Finally, through her efforts, her patron helped her complete her revenge.

Her mission accomplished, the Little Mushroom prepared to retire, secretly asking her master to grant her a small territory where she could live out her days in peace.

However, once the Little Mushroom grew up, her master dragged her off to become the Empress.

The Little Mushroom sighed; being an Empress was even harder than being a mushroom.

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?”

Changhui came here on a mission to save me.

When my grandmother passed away and the Crown Prince came to take me into the palace, I heard Xie Changhui’s inner thoughts.

[Don’t go. If you go, you will eventually fall in love with the Crown Prince and become a villain. You’ll commit heinous crimes and meet a miserable end.]

So, I refused the Crown Prince.

Later, when I encountered a sick youth on the road, I heard Xie Changhui’s voice in my head again.

[He is the blade you will use to kill. You love the Crown Prince, but he loves you. For your sake, he will slaughter countless people, only to die at the hands of the female lead.]

I picked up the boy and took him in as my younger brother.

Even later, when I finally met the female lead, I felt an unavoidable, murderous intent the moment I saw her.

Xie Changhui took my hand. “Shaohua, wake up. Think about who you are.”

Who am I? I am a daughter of the Song Family, the child of a founding official, and a future female general. I am certainly not some tool meant to spend my life plotting and fighting against others.

My father was a treacherous official.

The man who raided my home was my fiancé.

When he slipped the iron chain around my neck, his touch was even more tender than the year he placed a flower wreath upon my head.

On the day my father was beheaded in public, I was calmly picking lice off my mother. I remarked, “If I had a fire, I could stir-fry these lice and pair them with a pot of wine.”

Unexpectedly, my words drew a laugh from the young general in the neighboring cell, despite the hooks driven through his collarbones. Was it that funny?

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.