Aristocracy

I was the Young Master’s maidservant, and I stayed by his side through every hardship.

When other servants tried to steal the credit that was mine, I put on a bitter little act to make him pity me.

When someone poisoned him, I risked my life to save his.

Step by step, I became the person he trusted most, hoping that, for the sake of all we had been through, he would help erase my name from the slave registry.

But once his wings had fully grown, he destroyed my freedom with his own hands.

On the day I was deposed and consigned to the Cold Palace, Yan Yuheng came personally to see me off.

Before the palace gates were locked, he asked whether I hated him.

I touched the old gold hairpin hidden in my sleeve and smiled. For three years as Empress, I learned to speak like her, to carry myself like her, and to love him the way she once had.

But even as I was dying, he never understood: I was never like Shen Zhaotang. I had only acted too well.

I spent eighteen years in a Buddhist temple.

Eighteen years later, I returned as Princess Chang’an. To compensate me for those lost years, the Empress Mother made a public promise: she would grant me any one thing I desired.

I looked around the room, my gaze landing on Wei Zhao, who shone brilliantly amidst the unremarkable crowd. Pointing at him, I declared, “I want him to be my Imperial Son-in-Law.”

Only later did I discover that Wei Zhao and my younger sister, Princess Kangle, were childhood sweethearts. They were a mere imperial decree away from being wed.

But what of it?

Even if I had known from the start, I still would have claimed Wei Zhao as mine!

Chapter 0

Pei Qian forgot me. All because, on the eve of our wedding, he got drunk, took a fall, and forgot he was supposed to take a bride. Was I to believe that, or not?

Naturally, I believed it with the utmost gratitude. Since he had forgotten me, my marriage to him could be written off in one stroke.

I packed up my money and dowry. Boling was no longer an option, so for the time being, I settled down in Hedong.

If my father had not died so early, I feared I never would have come anywhere near the gates of the Pei Family.

My father died after taking elixirs and running naked through the streets. Everyone praised him for being romantic and unrestrained-a true eminent gentleman!

He had only been a concubine-born son of a collateral branch of the Cui Clan, yet within a few days of his death, he had somehow become the pride of the Cui Clan.

For a time, the worth of my sisters and me rose with the tide. The great aristocratic families all came asking for our hands. Mother even forgot to fake her tears. Every day, she beamed with joy as she received one guest and sent off another.

This world had gone mad, and so had the people in it.

After much careful selection, Mother chose Pei Qian, the Second Young Master of the Pei Clan of Hedong, for me.

Everyone said he was elegant, graceful, wild, and unrestrained-the foremost romantic figure of Great Wei.

At that, I thought of my father, sprinting along with all that pale flesh jiggling in the wind.

I despised these so-called eminent gentlemen from the bottom of my heart.

As it turned out, he would rather change his name and identity than marry me. Excellent. That suited me perfectly.

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?

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.

At the Dong Manor’s night banquet, the beautiful Singing Girl transformed into a Pink Skeleton.

The next day, I entered the manor to interrogate, but everyone gave the same answer: they saw nothing.

What was even more outrageous-

The coroner’s examination revealed that the skeleton was a man!

The Han army captured Luoyang. My husband, His Majesty himself, knelt at the rebels’ feet, trembling like a lamb waiting for slaughter.

“The Empress is in Jiaofang Hall. Please, don’t kill me…”

I had been married to him for five years and had given birth to our daughter, Princess Heqing.

Yet at the moment of crisis, he offered me up without the slightest hesitation.

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.

When Wei Zhao married me as his lawful wife, all of Shangjing City laughed.

The once-proud Eldest Young Master of the Wei Family had fallen so low that even a phoenix in decline was no better than a chicken.

In the end, he had only managed to marry a maid who tended the fires and cooked the meals.

Later, when Wei Zhao achieved fame and success, noble ladies from aristocratic families who wished to marry him were too many to count.

So I made an appointment with a well-known matchmaker in the capital, intending to take in two honored concubines for him.

But just as I was about to leave, Wei Zhao, who should have been handling affairs in Yangzhou, blocked me at the front gate.

Travel-worn and furious, he was trembling all over. “Try stepping out of this gate today. I dare you.”