Business Management
The Antique Gambit
My scumbag husband beat me and threw me out of the house.
Then, out of nowhere, I gained the ability to see what things were worth.
With the last ten yuan in my pocket, I bought a piece of junk.
I turned around and sold it for more than ten million.
The Small Costs
The day I decided not to get married, Chen Shuo was at the market buying a bass.
He sent me a photo and asked, “This one’s nine hundred grams.
Too big?
Mum said you liked it steamed.”
I stared at the fish lying in its plastic basket for ten or fifteen seconds, then replied, “Chen Shuo, let’s not register our marriage next week.”
He probably thought I was stressed about the wedding again.
After a while, he replied, “Sure.
We can push it back.
You’ve been busy with your project lately anyway, haven’t you?”
I said, “I don’t mean push it back.”
There was nothing from him for two minutes.
“What do you mean?”
I put my phone facedown on my desk and didn’t answer.
At 4:27 that afternoon, I was sitting in a windowless meeting room with a final account for a construction project worth forty-seven million yuan spread out before me.
The printer kept spitting out paper next door.
The air vent hummed overhead.
My supervisor, Wei, was arguing with the contractor’s people over a hundred and seventy thousand yuan in additional works claims.
Everything was ordinary.
So ordinary it hardly seemed like the afternoon a woman had decided to cancel her wedding.
No one had been caught cheating.
There had been no slap, no other woman, no sudden revelation of anyone’s true colours.
Chen Shuo hadn’t betrayed me.
He was, by most standards, a decent man.
He didn’t smoke, didn’t throw money around, wasn’t violent, and had no interest in going out for what men called “a night with the boys.”
If you drew up a job specification for a suitable husband, he’d score eighty-five out of a hundred.
So everyone asked me, “Then why on earth won’t you marry him?”
That turned out to be the hardest question to answer.
Because when an adult truly wants to leave a relationship, there often isn’t one devastating piece of evidence against the other person.
Just one small bill after another.
And suddenly you realise that, for seven years, every one of those bills has had your name on it.
Shao Wei
On April 27th, Shen Yichuan wished me a happy birthday.
I was silent for two seconds and nodded.
“I agree to the divorce.”
An awkward look crossed Shen Yichuan’s face.
“That’s not what I meant…”
He paused. “At least not today.”
I just said, “Mm.”
“Then take it as my return gift for your birthday.”
The Jewelry Shop
I run a jewelry shop in the capital, and I have always been generous with my customers.
Whenever someone buys a piece at full price, I often throw in a cheaper little ornament as a gift.
The heir to Duke Zhenguo was a regular.
Once, while we were chatting, he told me with a smile, “Shopping here makes everything so easy.
One for my cousin, and one for my fiancée.”
Naturally, I assumed his fiancée received the expensive purchase, and his cousin the little extra.
Until the day he brought a young lady into my shop.
There, in her hair, was the plain jade pin I had given him for free.
I approached with a smile.
“You must be his lordship’s cousin?”
The young lady’s face fell.
She gave a slight shake of her head.
“You are mistaken.
I am his future wife.”
I was stunned, but in an instant I made up my mind.
I had to find a way to tell her.
I couldn’t let her remain in the dark.
The Painted Celestial
In my second year at the army brothel, I became pregnant.
Every soldier who had ever entered my tent fought to claim the child as his own.
Chen Shitou had come to me only once, yet he dropped to his knees and begged, “Miss Yang, I’m about to go into battle with the vanguard. My parents have no child but me. I need to leave them something to remember me by.”
Later, I went to his hometown and met two of the kindest parents in the world.
Jiaojiao, Like the Moon
Xu Jiao built a merchant empire while funding her childhood sweetheart Song Yin’s path into officialdom.
When she catches him courting a powerful princess and learns he expects her to accept life as his concubine, she ends their engagement and turns her full ambition toward business.
Her talent carries her from imperial supplier to a third-rank official, drawing the respect—and carefully restrained affection—of Crown Prince Xiao Jingyi.
But as court factions close in, Xu Jiao must decide whether love behind palace walls can offer partnership instead of confinement.
A Fortune Falls Upon the Zhao Family
Sold at sixteen to the Zhao family of Taoshui Village, Pan Xi’er expects a life of hardship among three unmarried brothers with terrible reputations.
Instead, she finds warmth, loyalty, and a family ready to work for a better tomorrow.
With tofu, new recipes, and stubborn kindness, Xi’er helps the Zhaos turn hardship into prosperity—until old wounds and new ambitions put their hard-won happiness to the test.
Taotao
My mother taught me that a concubine could only live well by pleasing her husband until he cast aside his wife for her.
But I discovered that the lawful wife was beautiful, kind, and—most importantly—rich.
So I switched sides without hesitation and asked, “Madam, may I work for you instead?”
Blame Me for Being Too Beautiful and Kind
I am a woman of boundless kindness.
So when Song Lin’an told me that the only woman he had ever loved was my elder half sister, I sent him straight to the grave without hesitation.
“My sister is dead, and since your devotion runs so deep, you should join her. No need to thank me. Nothing delights me more than helping true lovers fulfill their wishes.”
When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of our betrothal.
Song Lin’an glared at me and humiliated me before everyone. “The Song family will only welcome a truly virtuous woman. We will never let a vicious shrew through our doors!”
He broke off the match and made me the laughingstock of the capital.
He also branded me a vicious woman.
Song Lin’an schemed his way into marrying my elder half sister instead.
No one wanted me after that.
On the day they returned to visit her family, Song Lin’an sneered at me. “Everyone knows what you really are now. Let us see who else you can ruin!”
I only smiled.
The fool had no idea that in our previous life, I had lived to eighty while he had dropped dead at twenty.
I knew far too many things he did not.
My Husband Is Dead, Mother
Twenty years into Wen Lishu’s widowhood, her bedridden mother-in-law reveals a secret: her husband faked his death and eloped with her sister.
Even the children Lishu raised supposedly belong to that treacherous pair.
The old woman expects despair, but Lishu calmly offers another spoonful of medicine.
Her husband really is dead—and his ashes have been in his mother’s medicine all along.