Arranged Marriage

The Empress had devised an elegant diversion: if a prince shot down a kite bearing a noblewoman’s name, he could choose her as his consort.

I made a point of running over to remind the Third Prince.

“That huge red butterfly kite is mine.

Don’t mix it up with the others later.”

He grinned and teased me.

“Are you that eager to marry me?”

“Fine.

I’ll think about it.

If I can’t hit anyone else’s, I’ll shoot yours.”

I flushed and spat at him in mock disgust.

“Plenty of men want to marry me.

I’m only afraid you’ll fail to win me and start bawling.”

Pei Qing and I had grown up together, bickering and playing since childhood.

It was the most ordinary kind of banter between us, but I knew he would take my words to heart.

Yet once the contest began, Pei Qing kept aiming at my elder sister’s kite without so much as glancing at mine.

My kite was so conspicuous.

He could not possibly have missed it.

I watched several arrows skim past it.

I grew anxious that someone else might shoot it down.

I had no choice but to let it climb higher and higher, beyond everyone’s reach.

Then, without warning, the string in my hand snapped.

The kite swayed as it fell—and landed on the Crown Prince, who had set his heart on renouncing the world for a Buddhist monastery.

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.

At twenty-five, the eldest son of the Cui family lived a life of such restraint and purity that he still had no intention of taking a wife.

Madam Cui could wait no longer.

With tears, tantrums, and threats to hang herself, she forced Cui Lanzhang to choose a bride.

At his wits’ end, Cui Lanzhang pointed at me at random.

And just like that, I landed myself one very eligible catch.

Later, I asked Cui Lanzhang why he had chosen me.

After thinking for a moment, he said, “That day, when you saw me, your cheeks were flushed and your eyes were hazy.

I assumed you must have liked me.”

I spent the entire night debating whether to tell him the truth.

My cheeks had been red because I had put on too much rouge, and my eyes had been hazy because I had stayed up reading storybooks the night before and was exhausted the next day.

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.

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?”

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!

I committed suicide.

On New Year’s Eve, when families gather together.

But I never expected that my ex-husband, who had always been indifferent to me, would go mad with revenge against those who treated me badly after my death.

He even wanted to die for me.

Yet when I was alive, he clearly didn’t love me.

My Mother was a courtesan, earning money with her own flesh and blood to support my father’s studies and imperial examinations.

Five years later, my father succeeded and was granted marriage to a princess by the Emperor.

Yet, in the Golden Throne Hall, he refused the marriage at the risk of his own life, and with great fanfare, married my Mother with ten miles of red bridal procession.

The princess was displeased.

Three days later, Mother was found abused and disheveled, dying at the entrance of an alley.

Half a year later, the princess finally married my father as she wished.

She did not know that this was the beginning of her misfortune.

My sister-in-law is the famed Rouge Tiger of Linan.

With a powdered face and thunderous methods, she keeps my brother so obedient he doesn’t dare take a concubine.

All the men of Linan laugh at him for being henpecked.

One day, my brother brought home a shy young woman named Yaoniang.

With a trembling voice, he stood protectively in front of her and said to my sister-in-law:

“Yaoniang and I have already been intimate. Whether you approve or not, I will make her my concubine today.”

My sister-in-law did not pick up the rolling pin again.

She only smiled and said, “Very well – I’ll let you have her.”

I was the unloved young lady of the Marquis Mansion.

My father gave me to my elder sister’s fiancé and forced me to bear his child.

I was compelled to write a breakup letter to the man I loved.

“How could a Mountain Village Bumpkin ever be worthy of a lady of my station?”

Later, the bumpkin from that letter had risen to the highest ranks, and he mocked me with disdain,

“And you, an Abandoned Wife – how could you ever be worthy of me?”