Arranged Marriage

In the third year of my relationship with Tan Zongmin, I caught him meeting the woman his family had arranged for him to marry.

The moment he saw me, he froze.

Noticing his distraction, she followed his gaze and asked curiously, “What are you looking at?”

Tan Zongmin looked away and replied flatly, “Nothing.”

I breathed a sigh of relief and played along with our unspoken understanding, pretending not to know him.

That morning, I’d received an email confirming that my resignation had been approved.

I’d been wondering how to break up with Tan Zongmin gracefully.

You are a village girl from the mountains.

By a twist of fate, you save the Crown Prince from an assassination, and you leverage that debt to demand he marry you.

But he disdains your plain looks and gently refuses many times.

You settle for the next best thing and ask him to appoint you as an official.

Since you were five, you’ve decided you will rise above your station in this life.

If you become a consort, you’ll be like Wu Zetian.

If you become an official, you’ll be like Sima Yi.

In the third year after I married Zhao Yan, he made me Empress.

On one condition: I was not to lay a finger on the Imperial Noble Consort he held so dearly in his heart.

He seemed to have forgotten that I was his lawful wife first.

Everyone envied me for being born into the splendor of the Prime Minister’s Mansion.

But in the Prime Minister’s Mansion, there were four daughters like me.

The beauty I took such pride in was hardly worth mentioning before my eldest sister’s effortless grace.

The schemes I had painstakingly built were no match for Fourth Sister, who could overturn the clouds and summon the rain with the slightest lift of her hand.

I watched in satisfaction as my eldest sister entered the palace as an imperial consort, only to be promised by my father, in the blink of an eye, to a boorish man who had nothing but an empty noble title.

Only then did I understand.

From the day my eldest sister entered the palace, my marriage had become nothing more than a stepping stone to support her.

The poisoned, honeyed words of the women in the inner residence, and the impatience and contempt in my husband’s eyes.

Every single day reminded me of my failure.

But I refused to admit defeat.

If blood ties could not be severed, then I would bow even lower.

As long as the bloodline of the Kong Clan remained, I could still stir this dead game back to life.

In the fifth year of our marriage, I got pregnant, and Fu Chi wept with joy.

Everyone said I was lucky, that I had married an up-and-coming tycoon like Fu Chi.

But no one ever mentioned the actress he was keeping on the side.

It was as if everyone had forgotten that I, too, was the girl he had confessed to at seventeen, his eyes red-rimmed with emotion.

Behind his back, one of his friends warned him, “You’re being such a bastard. Aren’t you afraid Xu Man will divorce you?”

Fu Chi had nothing to fear. He only gave a lazy smile and said, “She won’t.”

Later, without making a scene or saying a word, I aborted the child.

When the news got out, Fu Chi flew back from London overnight.

Everyone in the capital knew I was in love with Fifth Young Master Xie.

But to refuse the marriage, he would rather shave his head and enter Buddhist cultivation.

Only then did I learn that all his tender warmth toward me had merely been a way to use me to curry favor with the Wang family.

I became the laughingstock of the entire capital.

Later, when the loyal ministers of the Xie family were falsely accused, I set aside the past and helped clear their name.

On the night the Xie family regained its innocence, Buddhist Heir Xie rushed over through the rain and said he would return to secular life to marry me.

I stared in astonishment at his face, so certain of victory.

From behind the curtain, the young courtesan reached out and hooked an arm around my shoulders. “Sister, you were just saying you were devoted to someone like me. How are you suddenly marrying someone else?”

I hurried to coax him. “Of course I’m not marrying him. He’s just talking nonsense.”

Fifth Young Master Xie, always so cool and composed, stood there blankly, so devastated that he snapped the prayer beads around his wrist.

After rescuing my young nephew from the water, I went to the east wing to change my clothes.

But my brother-in-law, Zhao Hong, chose that exact moment to shove the door open and barge in, forcing me into a marriage with him as his second wife.

On the night before the wedding, my legitimate mother personally brought me a bowl of Sterilization Decoction.

I pushed the bowl away and looked up at her. “If you dare force me to drink it, the first thing I’ll do is make sure the Zhao Family has no descendants. Do you believe me?”

My legitimate mother flew into a rage and immediately went to complain to Zhao Hong.

Zhao Hong sneered. “Scheming women like her aren’t fit to bear my children.”

My eight-year-old nephew shouted too,

“Bad woman! You’re not fit to be my mother!”

I looked at Zhao Hong. “Since I’m not fit to bear your children, then don’t come to my bed.”

“From now on, the child’s food, clothing, lodging, schooling, future prospects, and dignity in front of the nobles… none of it has anything to do with me.”

“If my lord thinks I’m so scheming, perhaps he should raise the child himself.”

Before I transmigrated here, I worked in HR at a major tech company.

Aside from competence, the job also required knowing how to spot workplace PUA when you saw it.

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?!”

Three days after I married the Foolish Prince, he started making a fuss about moving out of the bedchamber.

I grabbed him and demanded to know why. Blushing, he stammered, “When Ah Heng sleeps with my wife, Ah Heng always wets the bed.”

My gaze slid downward, and realization struck me at once.

As I helped him, my own face burning, I couldn’t resist teasing him. “Only children wet the bed. Why is Your Highness just like a child?”

Later, the clingy fool recovered and became the cool, aloof prince he truly was.

Day and night, he pressed close to me, his breath warm against my ear. “Only children wet the bed, Princess Consort… Why are you just like a child?”

Six years ago, forced to choose between Huo Yanxu and my future, I chose my future and went abroad to study.

Six years later, I returned after completing my studies, and Huo Yanxu confessed to me with six years of devoted waiting behind him.

I helped him secure his position as heir to the Huo Family, only to hear him tell his friends, “Pretending to be a lovesick lapdog has been exhausting. Once I marry her, she’ll make money for both of us, and I’ll take Yinyin traveling around the world.”

The young woman in his arms was smiling brightly.

Someone warned him, “Aren’t you afraid she’ll turn on you?”

“We’re getting married tomorrow. Her family cares so much about reputation. You think she’d let herself become damaged goods?”

I laughed coldly. Six years ago, I could give you up for my career. Nothing has changed.