Arranged Marriage

I am the most pathetic Marchioness in all of the capital.

Marquis Jing’an married me for one reason only: I was honest, kind, and easy to manipulate.

Before our wedding, he told me quite bluntly, without a shred of hesitation:

“As long as you treat my beloved Concubine Bai well once you enter my home, and as long as you don’t get jealous or pick fights with her, I will grant you the dignity and status you deserve.”

For the sake of my family, I had no choice but to marry him.

From then on, whenever Concubine Bai sat, I stood.

When Concubine Bai ate meat, I drank the broth.

Whenever rewards arrived from the palace, Concubine Bai got first pick; I only received whatever she didn’t want.

I thought Marquis Jing’an was satisfied with my performance over the years, yet when I prepared to leave, he blocked the doorway, his hands trembling.

“You are my wife! You aren’t going anywhere!”

Me: “?”

I’m literally making room for your sweetheart!

After Grandfather passed away, I traveled to the Capital to seek refuge with my Fiancé.

I had heard that he was proud and aloof, already enamored with someone else, and looked down upon me, his country-bred fiancée.

Anxious all the way, I only realized upon meeting him that the rumors were false.

He was clearly upright and self-disciplined, gentle in temperament, and not only handsome but also cherished me deeply.

I married him with peace of mind.

Three months after our wedding, his nephew, who had just returned to the Capital from his studies, came to pay his respects and stared at me in a daze.

Later, I happened to witness him confronting my Husband at our door, his face full of disbelief.

“Second Uncle! How could you impersonate me and marry my Fiancée?”

Pei Ling’an said he wanted to break off our engagement again.

This time, it was because I refused to give the golden hairpin I had won for my poetry to my younger cousin.

“The Shen Family has fallen. No matter which daughter I choose to marry, Shen Tongzhi wouldn’t dare say a single word against it.”

He rested his chin on his hand, looking at me with a faint, mocking smile. “Break the engagement, or give the hairpin to Yuchi. Shen Yusu, the choice is yours.”

Everyone was waiting for me to bow my head.

Just as I had done countless times before.

But this time, I only tightened my grip on the golden hairpin and said softly,

“Then let’s break the engagement.”

The day before my engagement to Zhou Yanchen, the Crown Prince of the Jing Circle, my sister was reborn.

She cried and begged our Parents to call off the engagement.

Just as I was about to ask what was going on, a Danmaku suddenly flashed before my eyes:

[Wait, why did the Female Lead get reborn? Author, come out and explain, is this right?]

[This is supposed to be a Yandere forced love story where she runs and he chases! If the Female Lead doesn’t marry him, what am I supposed to read?]

[Calm down, everyone upstairs. Actually, having a second chance isn’t so bad. The Female Lead loves her freedom. Imagine a life where you can only eat ingredients flown in by air, only wear custom-made clothes, and even the brands of daily necessities are controlled by the Male Lead. From then on, there would never be another peaceful, carefree day. She doesn’t want that!]

My eyes lit up, and I volunteered on the spot.

I’m willing! I’m willing!

When I returned from recuperating at the country estate, there was already a new young lady in the household.

My elder brother protected her like she was a precious pearl.

My little sister had been bullied by her until she fell gravely ill.

With a bleak, bitter smile, she said, “Sister, let’s just accept our fate. Either way, we can’t fight her.”

No sooner had she finished speaking than a pretty, charming girl came out on my brother’s arm, the pearl-studded uppers of her shoes gleaming brightly.

“So you’re Second Sister?”

How beautiful. If only the fabric weren’t from the love-token handkerchief I had embroidered for my fiancé.

Seeing this, my brother immediately took her side. He said to me, “Yaoyao is spoiled, but she means no harm. Rongshu, let her have her way.”

Then he turned back and chided her in feigned anger, “Don’t make trouble.”

The girl didn’t take it seriously at all. Instead, she stuck out her tongue.

“It’s just a handkerchief. Brother Jingwen said it only looks beautiful when worn on my feet. Sister wouldn’t be angry over this, would she? How petty.”

I was indeed petty. So I raised the knife and brought it down.

The tip of her tongue landed on her shoe.

I am the Empress.

The Emperor wished to take my maid as a concubine, claiming that any child she bore would be recorded under my name.

Later, the imperial physician informed me that I had been pregnant for a month.

I said to the Emperor, “In consideration of your many years without an heir, I shall have this child recorded under your name.”

The Crown Prince’s White Moonlight, the woman he’d pined after for ten years, had finally returned.

She lifted her chin and looked down her nose at me. “You. Go back to where you came from.”

I lifted my skirts and stepped into the carriage, then turned back to smile at her. “Sorry,” I said lightly, “but this seat? You’re never getting it back.”

The day I died of illness, the entire palace was shrouded in grief.

Only Emperor Yan Lang was not sad; he was merely a bit annoyed.

He was annoyed that half a month ago, because he wanted to invest my sister, Cui Mingshu, as Noble Consort, I had a massive argument with him and had yet to bow my head and admit my fault.

He was annoyed that the tactless officials from the Ministry of Rites were kneeling outside the hall, claiming they did not know how to determine the Empress’s posthumous title, write her biography, or arrange her burial in the imperial mausoleum.

Memorials piled up on his desk like snow on the eaves, as the hundred officials exhausted every flowery word to speculate on the Son of Heaven’s whims.

They suggested posthumous titles like ‘Virtuous,’ ‘Moral,’ ‘Gentle,’ and ‘Respectful,’ yet I was once the woman who, because someone had skimped on Yan Lang’s rations, chased that eunuch through three streets with a knife like a common shrew, cursing him the whole way.

They described my life as ‘noble and carefree,’ yet after his enthronement, he and I did nothing but argue or give each other the cold shoulder.

It seemed I was always crying-always weeping.

When it came to the matter of the imperial mausoleum, Yan Lang finally recalled a sliver of my merit.

Having been husband and wife, he was not stingy in granting me glory after death, graciously permitting me to sleep in the same tomb as him.

Before the vermilion ink of his approval for our joint burial could dry, Aunt Sun, the head maid of Jianjia Palace, was already kneeling respectfully outside the hall. She said the Empress had a final request she wished to be granted.

Yan Lang likely guessed what it was.

In all probability, she wanted to bow her head and admit her mistake, then ask for a grander posthumous title, an honorary rank, and for him to forbid Cui Mingshu from entering the palace.

“The Empress does not wish to be buried with you. “She said this life was too wretched; she never wants to see you again, neither in the blue vault of heaven nor the yellow springs of the underworld.”

On the day of my wedding to my husband, a female warrior barged in.

She lifted my bridal veil, pinched my cheek with a grin, and praised, “What a tender little bride!” Then she drifted away as lightly as she had come.

From that day on, a black ink stain appeared on my face. No matter what I tried, I could not wash it off.

My husband despised me and never once set foot in my room again.

My mother-in-law resented me for occupying the position of mistress of the household while failing to bear any children.

Even my sister-in-law sighed over her brother’s miserable fate, saying he had married an ugly woman.

I became the invisible mistress of the Marquis’s Mansion.

I worked without complaint and managed the household affairs.

I raised the son adopted into our branch and devoted myself wholeheartedly to planning for the Marquis’s Mansion.

Only when I accidentally saw my husband and the female warrior admiring flowers together on a spring outing did I finally learn the truth.

My husband and the female warrior had fallen in love at first sight long ago.

Unwilling to be bound by the rules of the Marquis’s Mansion, the female warrior had abandoned my husband and left. Yet she could not bear to hand the man she loved over to another woman, so she used a secret drug to ruin my face.

And my husband had found the female warrior long ago. He had obtained the antidote, but under the spell of her tears and tenderness, he threw it away and promised her that his heart would never waver.

For her, he kept himself pure in the Marquis’s Mansion. Outside the estate, he lived in perfect harmony with her, and they had a son and a daughter.

Their son was given to me to raise so he could inherit the Marquis’s Mansion’s estate.

Their daughter stayed by their side to bring them joy, and in the future, they would recruit a husband to marry into the family for her.

All these years, they had lived in bliss. I was the only one who suffered.

I secretly drugged the female warrior with Soft Tendon Powder, then set the villa on fire. After notifying my husband and son to come put out the flames, I had them bound up like thieves and thrown into the burning villa as well.

Knowing I had committed a capital crime, I wrote a petition in blood and struck the Dengwen Drum, accusing the Marquis’s Mansion of favoring an outside mistress and abusing the lawful wife.

The Marquis’s Mansion was stripped of its title and demoted. I was sentenced to death.

The Empress pitied me and granted me a divorce before I died.

From then on, I was no longer a wife of the Lu family. I was only a daughter of the Li Family.

After my death, I saw the masses spit curses at the Marquis’s Mansion. I also saw them call me a venomous woman.

Right and wrong, truth and blame-let others say what they pleased. But my life had indeed been wasted.

When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day of my wedding.

The female warrior flew straight toward me with a cheerful grin.

I yanked my husband in front of me as fast as I could.

This time, it was my husband’s face that was stained with a large black mark.

I became a simpleton while saving my childhood friend.

He promised to repay me by finding me a good husband.

“Tonight, a man will collapse at your doorstep,” he told me. “That is the husband I have chosen for you.”

I followed his instructions to the letter.

Half a year later, my childhood friend returned from the borderlands.

I excitedly introduced my husband to him:

“This is the husband you picked for me back then. He’s a wonderful man, and he even said he wants to make me his Crown Princess.”

He froze in his tracks, his face turning deathly pale.

“It was supposed to be a beggar… How could it be the… Crown Prince?!”