Arranged Marriage

Would living my life over again make it any better?

After I was reborn, I still chose the young general who had treated me with icy courtesy in my previous life, and rejected the devoted Tanhua scholar.

A road whose every pitfall I had already crossed ought to be easier the second time.

Across two lifetimes, I was already an eighty-year-old woman at heart.

I asked for no great romance, only a safe and steady life.

Luo Yufu sacrifices her chastity to save Crown Prince Xiao Jinhe, only to dream of the future he will force upon her: a loveless marriage, betrayal, and death beneath a rain of arrows.

When she wakes before their engagement is sealed, she refuses to repeat that doomed fate.

But escaping the Crown Prince means untangling the Empress’s schemes, her sister’s hatred, a hidden conspiracy inside her own family, and Wanyan Shu—the ruthless hostage prince who once killed her in that dream, yet now seems determined to stand at her side.

This time, Luo Yufu will not wait for destiny to choose her ending.

At our wedding, Duan Yingze’s first love showed up in a bridal gown to steal the groom.

“Duan Yingze, if you still love me, come with me.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, he took her hand.

He left me alone to face the pity and ridicule of every guest in the room.

Everyone thought I would be devastated, that the pain would destroy me.

What they did not know was this: The one I had never stopped loving had come back too.

Duan Yingze was nothing but a poor substitute.

I no longer cared about him at all.

The world says I have been blessed with a charmed life.

My father is a first-rank official, and my mother hails from a prestigious, noble clan.

Both of my elder brothers serve in the imperial court, and all three of my elder sisters have married into high-ranking families.

Since childhood, I have been draped in the finest silks and fed the rarest delicacies from jade platters.

Even the trifles I play with on a whim are worth enough to sustain an ordinary family for half a lifetime.

Yet, outsiders see only the surface of my tapestry-like life.

They do not understand that greatness brings its own burdens. Within these embroidered curtains and silken screens, schemes lie hidden at every turn.

Between the golden chalices and jade chopsticks, murderous intent flashes when least expected.

A single misstep is all it takes to fall into the bottomless abyss.

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.

My celebrated fiancé casts me aside for the brilliant female thief who became his partner in solving the capital’s most sensational cases.

Branded a discarded woman, I am forced by imperial decree to marry Li Fu, an unlettered general whose rough manners could not be further from the refined husband I once imagined.

Yet beneath his beard and battle scars lies a loyalty steadier than any storybook romance, while I discover that managing a difficult household may demand more courage than grieving a broken engagement.

When the applause fades and ordinary life begins, both Gu Huaichuan and I learn which kind of love can truly survive beyond the stage.

Meng Yuanxi and I were rescued from the fire at the same time.

But after we woke, her talent shocked the world, and her policy essays stirred the hearts of all who read them.

Even my fiancé, the Crown Prince, wanted to break off our engagement for her sake.

She said that in this world, she was destined to be the winner.

But I only said lazily, “After getting the chance to do it all over again, you still haven’t improved at all…”

“Fine, I’ll be the one to marry him.”

The moment the words left my mouth, a sudden sense of relief washed over me.

It was no big deal. In fact, I suppose you could even call this a blessing, couldn’t you?

My lady was injured and lost her memory. She forgot everyone, yet she remembered my husband.

My husband was once a beggar.

During a heavy winter snowfall, he lay by the roadside, covered in blood and filth.

Passersby all steered clear of him, but my lady alone ordered her carriage to stop and took him in.

From then on, he stayed in the manor to tend the horses for her.

My lady often visited him under the pretext of checking on the horses.

I saw the deep, lingering affection in their eyes with my own.

But how could a young lady of her status ever marry a horse slave?

Heartbroken, she told him:

“I cannot marry you.

“But I will find someone to take care of you in my stead.”

My lady personally betrothed me to him.

Later, the lowly horse slave found his way back to the imperial capital and reclaimed his identity as a prince.

I, in turn, became his legitimate consort.

On the day of the investiture, I was waiting.

I knew.

Sooner or later, my lady would come back to reclaim what was originally hers.

After Wei Xuan and I had tormented each other for most of our lives, he finally grew tired.

On his deathbed, he refused even to see me.

He had our children deliver his last words instead.

“In my next life, I would rather be your brother for a lifetime than spend half a life as your resentful husband, with both of us losing the ones we truly love.”

Sure enough, the moment he returned to the past, he rushed to free his childhood sweetheart from prison and showered her with tenderness.

Then he forced his mother to take me as a goddaughter.

Smiling, I accepted the jade pendant and bowed with perfect obedience.

“May all be well with you, Elder Brother.”

His hand faltered, then dropped stiffly to his side.

Before long, we were each betrothed to someone else.

He remained in the capital.

I was bound for Lin’an.

Yet on the day my boat departed, he tore off his wedding robes, leaped into the river with no thought for his life, and clung desperately to the gunwale, begging me to stay.