Character Growth

Ever since Huo Yu married me,

his son has been making a fuss nonstop.

“Bad Woman won’t let me eat!”

“She won’t let the butler tell me bedtime stories!”

“Daddy, she bullies me every day, wuwuwu…”

Huo Yu was used to his son’s unreasonable tantrums and didn’t pay much attention.

Until one day, he suddenly realized it had been half a month since he last received a complaint call.

Huo Yu found it rather odd.

After finishing work that evening, he took the initiative to call his son to coax him to sleep.

Unexpectedly, his usually clingy son seemed uninterested.

“Daddy, go to bed early. There’s a ton of stuff to do at kindergarten tomorrow.”

Huo Yu:?

I’m the most notorious actress in the entire entertainment industry.

My agency booked me on a wilderness survival reality show.

They told me I had to kick up as much drama as possible to set off the “perfect” new girl they’d just signed-the so-called National Daughter.

But as soon as we got deep into the mountains, we lost contact with the production crew.

The variety show turned into actual wilderness survival.

Out there, I built a log cabin, hunted pheasants, caught fish, and lived a carefree life.

Meanwhile, those flawless idols were swearing like sailors just to stay alive.

They fought over supplies, and their carefully crafted images shattered completely.

Only later did we find out there were hidden cameras everywhere-and the whole thing had been streaming live every single day…

I have an older sister and a younger brother. With my plain looks and mediocre grades, I was always the most unremarkable person in my family.

Yet, I found myself harboring a secret crush on the sun-like Shen Dongye.

I spent three years chasing his light, and after checking my college entrance exam scores, I finally plucked up the courage to confess my love…

I was the Young Master’s maidservant, and I stayed by his side through every hardship.

When other servants tried to steal the credit that was mine, I put on a bitter little act to make him pity me.

When someone poisoned him, I risked my life to save his.

Step by step, I became the person he trusted most, hoping that, for the sake of all we had been through, he would help erase my name from the slave registry.

But once his wings had fully grown, he destroyed my freedom with his own hands.

I was the founding Imperial Tutor of a dynasty.

I came here burdened with a mission from the System: to save a collapsing, chaotic realm.

In the end, all I earned was the hatred of countless people.

The young chief minister I had known since our youth became a stranger to me, standing against me at every turn.

The Guardian General I had personally promoted despised me for monopolizing power and ruling the court as a dictator.

And the Young Emperor, the boy I had raised with my own hands… He hated me most of all for tearing him away from the one he loved.

So they laid a trap for me and forced me to drink poisoned wine, driving me to take my own life.

Then, after my death… They summoned a shaman to call forth my memories.

They wanted to expose every evil deed I had ever committed to the world.

But later, after each of them had seen my memories… Every last one of them went mad.

In the third month after our wedding, Shao Zhi took me back to Luoyang to pay respects to his clansmen. Along the way, he carefully explained the web of interests within his clan.

When he mentioned his eldest brother, his face filled with pride.

“My eldest brother is a very good man. He taught me riding and archery himself! ”

Now he serves in Luoyang as the Central Army Commander.

He is the one we are going to meet today.

” I hated Luoyang. There, someone had once forced me to drink a ladle of water from the Luo River and swear an oath: from then on, we would each marry another and never disturb each other again. Clutching the konghou in my arms, I only lowered my head and tried to refuse. ”

Ah Zhi, I was once a music courtesan.

I fear I might sully your honored brother’s eyes and ears.

It would be better if I did not meet him…

” Shao Zhi gathered me into his arms with pity and held my hand, telling me not to worry. ”

He won’t mind. I’ll secretly tell you a bit of gossip about my brother.

Before he married my sister-in-law, he once turned the whole world upside down over a music courtesan who played the konghou.

Later, afraid my sister-in-law would grow jealous, he forced that courtesan to drink from the Luo River and swear that they would each marry another and never disturb each other again.

“Besides, you are my wife now, and you play a fine twenty-three-string konghou. For my sake, my brother is sure to like you.”

The day my fiancé came to break off our engagement, my mother was so excited that tears streamed down her face.

As it turned out, I was not her biological daughter.

She had adopted me only so I could take the calamity meant for her real daughter.

She said, “Now that the ordeal has been fulfilled, you ought to return to your own family.”

I packed my bundle. There was little I could take with me, which made for easy travel.

My birth mother was waiting by the back gate.

She had a booming voice and had come driving an ox cart-every inch an uncouth peasant woman who knew nothing of proper manners.

Because of her, everyone in the Marquis Manor looked down on me even more.

And yet, the one who would bring me back to the capital in splendor was precisely her.

After being reborn, I met Song Shixing again.

He was slumped at the end of an alley, covered in wounds and barely clinging to life.

I knew that in three years, he would become the ruler who stood at the pinnacle of the world.

And I would be his empress. Power and riches would all be within my grasp.

But this time, I didn’t want to save him.

Song Shixing, in this life, I don’t want anything to do with you ever again.

If you read a lot of historical romance novels, then I’m sure you’re familiar with this scene: An assassin draws his blade and lunges at the male lead.

At the critical moment, the female lead rushes forward and takes the stab for him.

She collapses into his arms, and he cries her name in panic…

When I transmigrated, this exact scene was unfolding.

You think I was the female lead? Nope.

And of course, I wasn’t the male lead either. I was the assassin.

When I was born, the stars showed an omen so strange that the Imperial Observatory calculated until dawn broke at the edge of the sky, yet still could not reach a conclusion.

The National Preceptor, who had lived for more than two hundred years, descended from Tianxuan Pavilion and left behind a single prophecy for me.

“This child will kill the current emperor.”

My father dropped to his knees in terror, kowtowing to his imperial father and begging him to spare my life.

The emperor held me in his arms-his newborn granddaughter, bound to him by blood-and was silent for a very long time.

In the sixteenth year of Shunhe, my imperial grandfather was forty-nine years old, and learned his fate ahead of time.