Arranged Marriage

Pei Qi traded cities for a beauty, a grand gesture that became a legendary romance. Unfortunately, I was not that beauty, nor was I Pei Qi; I didn’t even know him.

My husband was merely a soldier defending the city. Because he refused to surrender, he died in that war, though the city was ultimately held.

The following year, when Pei Qi traded cities for his beauty, I became that beauty’s Foot-washing Maid.

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.”

I was Princess Jiuhua’s study companion, destined to one day enter the palace as a female official.

But at the welcome banquet, the General of Agile Cavalry asked His Majesty to bestow me upon him.

His mistress left a letter behind and ran away with the child.

After he sobered up, he traveled a thousand li to make amends and only then brought that woman back.

On our wedding night, he said coldly, “That day was merely drunken nonsense; I only blame you for blocking my sister’s path. But an imperial decree is hard to defy. Once this act is over, we each return to our own places.”

I asked him, “General, you see me as a mere object, and with a few words you cut off my path to becoming a female official. How can you speak of returning to our places?”

He replied indifferently, “That is your fate, not something you can blame on me.”

But I refuse to accept my fate.

I was the concubine Madam forced on the General.

She was testing whether his heart had strayed.

He remained perfectly unmoved and ordered me to copy scriptures all night to prove his devotion.

And me? My hand ached. So did my heart.

Chapter 0 I went to the capital in search of my fiancé.

Before formally presenting myself at his door, I first made some inquiries about his character.

That was when I learned he had a childhood sweetheart who had grown up with him, as well as another young lady he had admired for many years.

The romantic entanglements among the three of them had become the talk of the city.

I knew then that this marriage could not go through.

So I exchanged the marriage contract for a promise from the Madam of the Marquis Manor: I would withdraw from the engagement of my own accord, but as a lone orphan, life in the capital would not be easy for me.

I hoped the Marquis Manor would raise me for a few years as they would one of their own daughters.

Once I turned sixteen, I would leave on my own.

The Madam of the Marquis Manor agreed.

From then on, I lived and ate at the Marquis Manor.

Like the young ladies of the household, I studied, practiced calligraphy, and learned the ways of the world.

But the Heir of the Marquis Manor, Xie Rujue, did not believe me.

When I studied, he said that no matter how many books I read, he would never like a wooden-headed girl like me.

When I learned riding and archery, he laughed and said that if I had that much time, I would be better off learning to dance, so I could please my future husband.

When I learned accounting, he joked to others that he would never let the Marquis Manor’s fortune fall into my hands.

Later, when someone came to propose marriage, he drove the man out, saying that in life or death, I belonged to the Xie Family.

But in the end, I still walked out through the gates of the Marquis Manor, while he could only watch with an ashen face, unable to stop me.

Because this time, what I had received was an imperial decree.

In the dead of night, I received a phone call. The caller ID showed it was my husband. With a voice of utmost gravity, he told me that I would die at two o’clock in the morning.

But right now, he was clearly lying right beside me, fast asleep.

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?”

My husband and I have been sleeping in separate rooms for two years now. We’ve grown distant, with no passion left between us.

But last night, after he’d been drinking, he climbed into my bed and went absolutely wild…

I said, “Honey, you were nothing like yourself last night!”

Later, I saw a message from an unknown number on his phone:

“You slept with my wife, so I’m going to sleep with your wife. Only then are we even!”

My husband’s latest reply was:

“Now we’re square, right!”

When the Crown Prince ascended the throne, he installed his Crown Prince’s Secondary Consort as the Empress.

The reason was simple.

It was written in the Destiny Book that his first Empress would die from a hail of arrows piercing her heart.

On the day the imperial decree for the installation was issued, my elder sister-the Crown Princess Shen Chengyun-entered my palace with a beaming smile and gave a rather sloppy bow.

“This consort offers her congratulations to the Empress.”

She leaned in close, her bright red lips curling into a venomous sneer.

“Shen Ruoruo, you’d better cherish these few days of luxury. Don’t get too ahead of yourself, though. If you do anything to upset me… well, whether you receive an honorable posthumous title after you die will be entirely up to me.”

“Is that so?”

I took a step back and spoke in a low, steady voice.

“Then Sister had better make sure she doesn’t die before I do.”

I waited bitterly for Qu Huang for three years, only to receive a letter of divorce.

When the message arrived, I was still wiping down his bedridden mother.

It was March, and the late spring cold had returned, yet I was drenched in sweat from exhaustion.

My hands shook so badly I could barely take the thin silk letter the attendant handed me.

“Where is my husband?”

“The young master has already arrived in the front hall.”

I sighed, set down the damp towel in my hand, and smoothed back the stray hair at my temples.

“Very well. I’ll go with you.”