Character Growth

After my boyfriend dumped me, he planned to go to Tsinghua University with the beautiful top student and live happily ever after.

But when the National College Entrance Examination ended, I was the only student from our school admitted to Tsinghua, and I took the stage as the student representative.

The two of them could only watch from below.

After Lin Min, a prodigy from Tsinghua University, dies in an accident, her soul takes over the body of Sun Shuyi, a bullied high school senior.

Faced with terrible grades, indifferent classmates, and a family in pieces, she relies on the elite abilities she once possessed to fight her way back to first place.

In this new body, she also begins, little by little, to repair Sun Shuyi’s life. As academic competitions, the college entrance exam, and the truth behind an old case draw ever closer, she must find her own rules for coming in first amid revenge, growth, and the chance to live all over again.

In the Fifth Year of Taiyuan, at the Start of Summer, a princess died in the Beiliang Royal Palace.

And a toad.

Anping was that unfortunate princess.

And I was that unfortunate toad.

Fortunately, since her death, I have become her.

Ever since I was little, I’ve loved putting on airs.

Every day, I posted online about my life as a Young Miss.

Then one day, a video I posted of my mansion blew up-and attracted a whole crowd of real heiresses.

They dug up the truth: my card was expired, the house was a stolen photo, and the car was rented.

One real heiress posted a screenshot of her WeChat balance and commented, “Want me to transfer you some?”

I immediately slid into her DMs.

“Really, sis?”

“I never imagined you’d be not only rich and beautiful, but kindhearted too.”

When my younger sister went to Songshan Temple to pray for blessings, she saved Prince Rui, who had been gravely wounded and fallen unconscious.

After Prince Rui woke, he left her a jade pendant as a token and promised that if she ever found herself in trouble, she could come to Prince Rui’s Mansion for help.

Two months later, I went to the mansion.

I said to Prince Rui: “Do you still remember what happened outside Songshan Temple?”

I claimed her deed as my own and successfully became his princess consort.

But in the second year after our marriage, my younger sister came to visit.

Right in front of Prince Rui, she took out that jade pendant.

On her seventieth birthday, Song Xiaotao found an unconscious young man in her vegetable patch. Judging by her years of experience cracking melon seeds and shooting the breeze at the village entrance, this fellow was clearly trouble. Yet, she brought him home anyway. Song Xiaotao had seen off her last living relative ten years ago. Even if he brought a calamity that wiped out her entire household, she was the only one left to go. When the young man came to and saw Song Xiaotao’s wizened face, his vision swam, and he nearly blacked out again. Heavenly Bodhisattva, why was his Love Tribulation partner an old woman?!

I transmigrated and became an ancient beast of burden, with signs that I might be headed toward the life of a chicken or duck next.

My major didn’t teach me how to make soap or explosives, and the market’s invisible hand wasn’t about to scoop me up either.

Maybe if I’d transmigrated into the ruling class, I might have wanted to stay in this dynasty.

But I know one thing very clearly: I just want to go home.

“I’m going to be the Empress someday!”

Ten-year-old Song Weiwei stood on a dirt slope facing the imperial city in the distance, shouting those words with all the swagger she could muster.

As for me, I sat on a dirt mound with my chin propped in my hand, speechless.

“Song Weiwei, you still haven’t paid back the two copper coins you owe me.”

Song Weiwei turned around and rapped me on the forehead.

“What’s the rush? Have you ever seen an Empress who welshes on her debts?”

She hopped down from the slope and turned to coax me.

“Just think about it, Du Zeyi. If I become the Empress, you’d be my sister. You can have anything you want. Why worry about those two copper coins?”

As if becoming the Empress of a nation could be that easy.

I muttered under my breath, rubbed my forehead, and raised my voice. “My mother’s calling me home for dinner!”

Then I slipped away as fast as I could.

Leaving only Song Weiwei behind, stamping her feet in exasperation.

After disguising myself as a man and joining the army in my husband’s place, I failed to endure the loneliness and kept a lover on the side.

When the war ended and I returned home, I discovered that my husband had taken a concubine too.

Well, now I didn’t feel guilty anymore. We were even!

But then I saw that beautiful concubine.

I was utterly stunned.

Can someone please tell me why my lover had become my husband’s concubine?

During the year our love was at its peak, the young general whose name shook the borderlands used all his military merit to petition my Imperial Father for my hand in marriage.

But three years later, a woman arrived at our door clutching a child, weeping and begging me to take them in.

My husband claimed he had simply had too much to drink and made a terrible mistake.

My mother-in-law said that since I had already ruined my husband’s career prospects, I could not go so far as to sever his bloodline as well.

My closest kin advised me to be magnanimous, telling me that this was simply how every mistress of a household in the capital lived.

Only my sister, with whom I had never seen eye to eye, patted my back and told me: “In the past, you let your Imperial Brother make your decisions for you.” “Later, you let your husband make your decisions for you.” “Now, it is time you learned to grow up on your own.” “After all, you have a little girl of your own now.”

I looked down at the tiny daughter in my arms, who was still sucking on her fingers.

I understood that if I were weak, my daughter would never know how to be strong.

If I were easily bullied, my daughter would never know how to be independent. This time, it was my turn to act.