Betrayal

I was pregnant.

But I only wanted the baby, not the baby’s father.

With my belly about to become impossible to hide, I simply blocked him.

The very next day, though, he showed up outside my apartment and stopped me at my door.

When I saw his gaze settle on the swell of my stomach, I played it cool.

“What are you staring at? I just gained weight.”

At that, he looked at me like I was an idiot.

“Don’t worry. I don’t need any child support, and I won’t use this baby as an excuse to bother you. All you need to do is disappear completely-”

Before I could finish, he cut me off. “No.” “I want this child too.”

I found a chat log on Sheng Jing’s phone.

He had sent his female assistant a video of me helping Jiu Jiu with her homework and losing my temper.

“This is why I’d rather work overtime at the office than come home.”

The young assistant replied with a “poor you, sending hugs” sticker. “Manager Sheng, you have it so hard.

Work is exhausting enough, and then you have to deal with all that when you get home.”

My parents had always favored me most.

But on the eve of the imperial capital’s fall, they fled with the entire family-and somehow forgot to wake me from my sleep.

When I woke up, the courtyard was deserted.

Yet the moment I turned my head, I realized I wasn’t the only one who had been left behind.

The illegitimate son my father had with his mistress was still here too.

He stared at me without blinking, the look on his face hovering somewhere between a smile and a sneer.

“Second Sister, how did you end up reduced to the same state as me?”

Father and Mother will definitely come back for me.

The words were about to burst from my mouth, but I paused.

Then I cleared my throat and put on a calm, unbothered expression.

“I was the one who refused to leave.”

The Chang’e in Yu Hebai’s painting came to life.

She descended gracefully into the mortal world, and Yu Hebai worshipped her as a Goddess.

So completely that he forgot all about his engagement to me.

Clutching the marriage contract, I went to the Yu family estate to demand an explanation from Yu Hebai.

But the moment I stepped through the gates of the Yu family courtyard, I couldn’t help shaking my head.

My first thought was: What kind of Chang’e is this supposed to be?

My second thought was: She was nowhere near the woman who had stayed at my house last night.

My husband brought home a child.

I raised him as my own, teaching him poetry, books, and proper etiquette.

I molded him into a noble young gentleman skilled in both letters and arms.

Years later, when he had risen to the highest ranks of court, he locked me away in a dark dungeon.

With both hands, he crushed my jaw. “My birth mother was Shuang’er, the woman you murdered.”

“A venomous woman like you thinks she deserves to be my mother?”

My husband stood by and watched, his palms pressed together in prayer.

“Shuang’er, may your spirit finally rest in peace.”

After being tortured to death, I was reborn.

Faced with the child my husband had brought home, I still smiled and said, “Of course. From now on, he will be my own son.”

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.

The Battle for First Seat.

Just as the match between my junior sister and me was about to be decided, my life-bound sword suddenly turned its edge on me and gravely wounded me.

The sword spirit said, “Your swordplay is too fierce. You would have hurt her. I didn’t want you to bear the infamy of injuring a fellow disciple, so I had to act as the situation demanded. I’m sorry.”

They all say swords have souls, and that they are loyal to the masters they acknowledge.

But I had rescued the Muyuan Sword from the abyss, then carried it to fame throughout the world. For decades, we were inseparable.

Even so, he remained proud and untamed. Everyone advised me.

A bond with a divine sword could not be forced. What was not mine would never belong to me, no matter how tightly I held on.

In that case, I might as well give the Muyuan Sword to my junior sister.

I thought they were right. After all, in all these years of using the Muyuan Sword, I had never been able to draw out even seventy percent of my strength.

It was time to choose a new sword.

The Han army captured Luoyang. My husband, His Majesty himself, knelt at the rebels’ feet, trembling like a lamb waiting for slaughter.

“The Empress is in Jiaofang Hall. Please, don’t kill me…”

I had been married to him for five years and had given birth to our daughter, Princess Heqing.

Yet at the moment of crisis, he offered me up without the slightest hesitation.

After I went blind, lines of broken, disjointed text began to appear before my eyes.

[The princess is so pitiful. She injured her eyes saving her cousin, but right now, that very cousin is next door, rolling around in bed with the princess’s brother.]

[Too bad the princess can’t see. If she could, she should immediately bring people over and catch them in the act.]

My cousin had lost her mother when she was young.

The Empress Mother pitied her and had her enter the palace to serve as my study companion.

But several of my imperial brothers were always bullying her.

They liked seeing her teary-eyed, timid, and pitiful. I stood up for her, only to have my eyes injured by one of my imperial brothers.

I became blind. So it turned out that, behind my back, they had already become so intimate.

I did not go and catch them in the act as those lines wanted.

Instead, I had someone inform my other two imperial brothers.

My cousin was so pitiful. Surely she deserved a few more people to love her.

Later, I ascended the throne as Empress Regnant.

My cousin received the love of three of my imperial brothers.

All of us had bright futures ahead.

In my first few years driving rigs, my master used to tell me that the main road could hold back evil.

So unless you absolutely had to, you should never leave the proper road, and you should never pay any attention to the “things” that stood outside the guardrails.

Lately, though, whenever I’m out on the road, I keep seeing my childhood friend-the one who’s already dead.

At first, he only stood beyond the guardrail, one leg raised stiffly.

But little by little, he managed to get that leg up onto the rail. Now half his body is leaning out over the highway.