Childhood Friends

Born a bondservant in the Marquis of Changyuan’s household, Ah Man expects her loyalty to earn her a secure future.

When the estate is seized, the fifteen-year-old maid rescues its ten-year-old heir, Song Yuanzhao, and helps him survive poverty, betrayal, and exile.

Years later, their hard-won devotion collides with restored rank, an imperial marriage, and a disappearance meant to divide them forever.

To claim a life together, they must cross the gulf between servant and noble, duty and desire.

I spent ten years loving my childhood friend, and he spent the same ten years finding me unbearable.

Then one day, I finally had my way with him—and left two hundred yuan behind.

Humiliated beyond measure, my childhood friend hunted for me everywhere.

But I made sure he never found me.

I hid from him for three years, until my father died and left me with no family.

His parents told me, “From now on, our home is your home, and that boy is your big brother.”

I looked at the face that went mad with shame and fury the moment he saw me, and called out brightly, “Hello, Big Brother!”

Lu Yan pursued me for five years.

The day after I finally said yes, I came across a post written by his childhood sweetheart.

[My ten-year crush is finally over.]

[My childhood friend has a girlfriend now, but it isn’t me.]

[Our story was full of missed chances.

The closest we ever came was the kiss I stole.]

[Letting go of ten years of love feels strange.

Part of me can’t bear to, but part of me is happy for him.]

[If I’d been the one who gave him that piece of candy all those years ago, would I be the one he loved now?]

People in the comments lamented the heartache of her decade-long crush and admired her courage in loving someone for so long, yet still knowing when to let go.

Then Lu Yan replied, sending the post’s popularity soaring.

[Yes.]

I stared at that single word and slowly exhaled.

At last, I had a reason to break up with him.

At seven, Jinxi is sold to the Marquis of Martial Valor’s household and trained to become a dowry concubine for its formidable legitimate daughter.

Knowing that one wrong move could cost her life, the transmigrated girl hides her intelligence and searches for a way out.

Her chance comes in the innocent Ninth Prince, but every kindness in the marquis’s household carries a price.

As Jinxi rises from purchased pawn to legitimate daughter and princess consort, she discovers that the ruthless women around her are neither as simple nor as heartless as they first appeared.

I posted a Moments update visible only to Song Mingqi and waited until three in the morning without a reply.

I messaged him privately: “Asleep?”

He sent back a smiley face: “Dead.”

I stared at the screen.

Could this seasoned fake-innocent schemer really be so rattled that he had dropped the act?

“Did you swallow dynamite or something?”

Three smiley faces in a row: “Yeah.

It kept me up till three.”

My childhood friend Jiang Yan thought I was too clingy, so he hypnotized me and deliberately made me pursue someone else.

He had no idea the hypnosis was fake—or that chasing Song Yaozhou would lead me to the person willing to be my knight and teach me to become my own.

In our village, a child who dies before his parents cannot be given a funeral—unless he dies in an unclean place.

When my drowned best friend is laid in the mourning hall, a seven-day vigil turns my guilt into terror, and the truth behind the hauntings proves more horrifying than any ghost.

After Gu Li gives up on years of one-sided love for Jing Yan, a shared vision tells them that he will one day bleed for her on a snowbound mountain—and that she will confess first.

But when he ignores her coming-of-age birthday and remains silent, Gu Li refuses to wait for a future that demands all the courage from her, while her cheerful deskmate Pei Zhaoyan quietly turns every gift, joke, and promise into a different possible ending.

My best friend pinned me against the windowsill when my heat struck without warning.

My whole body went weak, my breaths burning, like a fish dragged onto shore and left gasping for air.

He held my restless body down, a dangerously enticing smile curling at his lips.

“Beg me, and maybe I’ll consider sneaking in a little bite.”

I gazed at him through misty, tear-bright eyes.

“Please~”

The Empress had devised an elegant diversion: if a prince shot down a kite bearing a noblewoman’s name, he could choose her as his consort.

I made a point of running over to remind the Third Prince.

“That huge red butterfly kite is mine.

Don’t mix it up with the others later.”

He grinned and teased me.

“Are you that eager to marry me?”

“Fine.

I’ll think about it.

If I can’t hit anyone else’s, I’ll shoot yours.”

I flushed and spat at him in mock disgust.

“Plenty of men want to marry me.

I’m only afraid you’ll fail to win me and start bawling.”

Pei Qing and I had grown up together, bickering and playing since childhood.

It was the most ordinary kind of banter between us, but I knew he would take my words to heart.

Yet once the contest began, Pei Qing kept aiming at my elder sister’s kite without so much as glancing at mine.

My kite was so conspicuous.

He could not possibly have missed it.

I watched several arrows skim past it.

I grew anxious that someone else might shoot it down.

I had no choice but to let it climb higher and higher, beyond everyone’s reach.

Then, without warning, the string in my hand snapped.

The kite swayed as it fell—and landed on the Crown Prince, who had set his heart on renouncing the world for a Buddhist monastery.