Betrayal

When I married Pei Miao, everyone praised our union as a match made in heaven. Our honeymoon bliss lasted less than three months before I discovered he had a soulmate. Pei Miao cherished and adored her, even setting up a private residence for her outside our home. When I confronted him, he coldly rebuked me: jealousy was unbecoming of a virtuous wife. So I learned to be magnanimous, until I too stepped beyond the boundaries of marriage and forced him to taste the same pain he had given me.

The Seventh Prince became an outcast.

For four years, I followed him as his servant, never leaving his side through thick and thin.

Later, he ascended to the highest position in the land.

Everyone thought my days of suffering were finally over and my rewards were at hand.

But then, the New Emperor took the Chancellor’s Only Daughter as his Empress.

Some sighed with pity; others watched for the drama to unfold.

Yet, not a single ripple of emotion stirred in my heart.

Because the one I love was never him to begin with.

This was the seventeenth time I’d run into my roommate Cheng Yuming’s girlfriend on my way downstairs.

As was her habit, she pulled a plump orange from her bag and offered it to me, her eyes curving into a gentle, sweet smile.

I didn’t take it. I simply called her name. “Jiang Tingyu.”

“Yes?”

“Try a different fruit,” I said, my voice flat. “Oranges cause too much internal heat.”

Everyone knows I am merely a stand-in for the Northern Liang Crown Prince’s true love.

To coax a smile from him, I would don his beloved’s favorite dancing silks and dance until my feet were raw with bloody blisters.

To shield him from harm, I would take an assassin’s blade without a second thought.

The Crown Prince once remarked, “In the bedchamber, she at least has some use.”

The people sneered at me: “How shameless, doing anything just to claw her way to the title of Crown Princess.”

I remained silent, as I always have.

Because-

The Crown Prince? He is a substitute, too.

After I died, my bones became the sword in his hand.

Little did he know that I rarely exercised while I was alive, and I’d developed osteoporosis at a young age.

The sword forged from my bones was sharp enough, but it lacked resilience.

The very first time he used me, someone lopped off his head.

It has been three years since I transmigrated into this brothel.

I have mastered the arts of seduction, and no one knows better than I how to make a man lose his very soul in ecstasy.

But then, I overheard a group of new girls gossiping.

“It’s hilarious. Our Flower Queen really thinks she’s living in ancient times.”

“A refined Female Doctor, tricked into working as a whore for three years. These rich people really know how to have a good time.”

“Do you think she’d go insane if she found out this was all orchestrated by her ‘Young Marquis’?”

“Shh! Every actor who comes in here has signed a life-and-death waiver. Who would dare let her know?”

I froze in place, as if plunged into a pit of ice.

Could it be that these three years of transmigration were nothing more than a scam?

Before I could regain my composure, the Young Marquis’s cold voice suddenly rang out from behind me.

“Fudong, what are you doing here?”

I spent eighteen years in a Buddhist temple.

Eighteen years later, I returned as Princess Chang’an. To compensate me for those lost years, the Empress Mother made a public promise: she would grant me any one thing I desired.

I looked around the room, my gaze landing on Wei Zhao, who shone brilliantly amidst the unremarkable crowd. Pointing at him, I declared, “I want him to be my Imperial Son-in-Law.”

Only later did I discover that Wei Zhao and my younger sister, Princess Kangle, were childhood sweethearts. They were a mere imperial decree away from being wed.

But what of it?

Even if I had known from the start, I still would have claimed Wei Zhao as mine!

The night I went to collect Prince Jing’s corpse, I saw my own jade bracelet and sleeping robe inside the coffin. My husband, returned from the dead, choked me and said, “Lanyin, die once in my place.”

When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to three months ago. This time, I will be the one collecting their corpses first.

I’ve been stalking my husband’s mistress.

She lives a glamorous life-she resides in a villa in an upscale neighborhood, drives a car worth millions, and is a pampered heiress.

Even when she’s out on a date with my husband, she has to be home by a certain time.

“I’m sorry, my father is very strict,” she would say.

To defend my marriage, I secretly took some photos and sent a message to that strict father of hers.

“Did you know your daughter is someone’s mistress?” It took a long time before he finally replied. “I know.” “I’m the one she’s cheating on.”

In my third year as Empress Dowager, my greatest fear is not the court officials, nor the brushes held by the court historians.

It is the moments when I wake from a dream in the dead of night and instinctively call out the name of Xie Wuyang.

As the palace lanterns flicker to life, I am reminded that three years ago, I was the one who personally wrote the secret order sending him to his death at Yanhui Ridge.