Childhood Friends

On the second day after learning that I was the impostor daughter, I finally lost control of my unhealthy obsession with my big brother.

I locked him in the basement, kissed him, and climbed all over him.

Then, during the day, I pretended nothing was wrong and helped the whole family search for their long-missing eldest son.

Like a rat in a sewer, I let myself sink deeper and deeper into a mire of despair.

An impostor daughter was unlikeable enough already.

Once they found out I was a pervert in love with her own brother, they would surely be disgusted by me too-wouldn’t they?

Then one day, my entire family began plotting right in front of me.

“Zhexue, your big brother has to appear at an international conference, so can I let him out for a little while?”

“Just half an hour. I promise we’ll lock him back up before you get home!”

Me: “?”

On my birthday, the Fourth Princess and I both set our hearts on the same pomegranate-blossom crown.

At a loss, Father told each of us to choose a young man from the imperial clan to ride and shoot on our behalf.

Whoever struck the kite first after it was released would win.

I chose Qin Yan, my dearest childhood friend.

I knew he could hit the mark with his eyes closed, and I was certain he would make my wish come true.

But all three of his arrows missed by a hair.

I hid in the attic and wept after losing, until Qin Yan came to find me and finally snapped in exasperation, “That enormous gold crown would never have suited you. Jade is better. Plain, pure, and far easier on the eyes.”

“Stop competing with the Fourth Princess over everything.”

Then, with the solemn patience of someone offering hard-won wisdom, he said, “Jiajia, you need to understand that sometimes being right for something matters more than winning it.”

I took his lesson to heart.

So years later, when Father held trials to choose my prince consort, Qin Yan placed first in both the civil and martial examinations.

And I still did not choose him.

On my wedding day, a certain "ex-boyfriend" sent me a message.

"Do you know what you did wrong?

"If you do, we can get back together."

I stared blankly at my phone, then at the contact name on the chat: "8/12-Six-Pack, Great Dresser, Terrible Drinker."

I sank into thought.

"?"

When I did not reply for a long time, he sent another question mark.

"I'm getting married today."

After some thought, I decided it was best to be direct.

"How far along are you?" he replied at once.

"I've already changed into my reception dress," I answered honestly.

"It's time to go make the rounds and toast the guests."

A deep, mellow male voice sounded beside my ear.

With it came his scent-a cool, distant trace of bamboo mingled with the sea.

It was Lu Yuzhi, the man I had married.

"Okay."

I gave him a stiff smile and locked my phone the instant I heard his voice.

What I did not know was when he had come up behind me-or how much he had seen.

Lu Yuzhi and I were joined by a business marriage, not love.

Even so, no one would be happy to see their new spouse talking to someone of the opposite sex saved as "8/12-Six-Pack, Great Dresser, Terrible Drinker" on their wedding day.

The boy I’d secretly loved was expelled from school for protecting his childhood sweetheart.

Years later, I became the most famous talent manager in the industry and ran into him waiting tables at a restaurant.

He had long since forgotten me, but I still wanted to give him a chance. I asked him, “Xie Xingyun, do you want to be an actor?”

He came with me.

It took me three years to transform him from a waiter carrying plates into the entertainment industry’s hottest new star.

Then the childhood sweetheart he’d protected all those years ago came looking for him.

I became a simpleton while saving my childhood friend.

He promised to repay me by finding me a good husband.

“Tonight, a man will collapse at your doorstep,” he told me. “That is the husband I have chosen for you.”

I followed his instructions to the letter.

Half a year later, my childhood friend returned from the borderlands.

I excitedly introduced my husband to him:

“This is the husband you picked for me back then. He’s a wonderful man, and he even said he wants to make me his Crown Princess.”

He froze in his tracks, his face turning deathly pale.

“It was supposed to be a beggar… How could it be the… Crown Prince?!”

My father rebelled, and I became the most honored legitimate princess.

No, wait-the Grand Tutor said it’s not rebellion.

How can it be rebellion when it’s the act of a founding emperor?

It was the descent of the Imperial Star, the gods and buddhas blessing the people, rescuing the masses from misery!

As the Grand Tutor taught, one should say:

The previous dynasty was tyrannical and unjust, the common people were in a living hell, suffering unbearably. My father the Emperor led a group of righteous men in uprising, successfully ended the chaotic times, and established the Great An Dynasty.

So I, an ordinary farmer’s wife in the previous dynasty, inexplicably became the one and only legitimate princess of the An Dynasty.

That’s right, I’m married, my husband is alive and well, I have both a son and a daughter, my life is happy and fulfilling, and for years I’ve topped the list of happiest young wives in the village.

Before becoming a princess, my biggest worry was that my son didn’t like meat and only ate vegetables, while my daughter didn’t like vegetables and only ate meat.

Now my biggest worry has become: being a legitimate princess and all that-I have no experience with it…

When I walked in, the young nanny was debating the literary achievements of the Eight Great Masters of the Tang and Song with my fiancé.

She got so worked up that she raised her hand and thumped him on the chest.

“You’re the one who’s wrong!”

The man was silent for two seconds before a low laugh slipped out.

“Mm. I’m wrong. You’re right.”

I stood behind them, looking down at the custom wedding invitation in my hand, suddenly at a loss. Because honestly…

I really did like this design.

On the day of the Flower-Viewing Banquet,

I accidentally spent a night of passion with Second Young Master Yan.

Forced to abandon my previous engagement, I was hastily married into Prince Yan’s Mansion.

I had thought such a noble household would be impossible to survive in.

Who would have guessed that after the wedding, my mother-in-law would be kind, my husband easy to coax, and my children sensible?

Aside from taking medicine, I never suffered any real hardship.

Comfortably and contentedly, I lived to the age of seventy-five.

On my deathbed, as I looked back on the past, I could not help but take Yan Zhao’s hand.

“In this life, you and I came together by a twist of fate, but it turned out rather well.”

“If there is a next life, would you be willing to be with me again…”

To my surprise, Yan Zhao’s face suddenly went cold.

“Shen Yao, if we could live this life over, you would still want to have an illicit affair with me without so much as a matchmaker?”

“What do you take me for? It is not as if I cannot live without you!”

Seriously?

We already had children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, yet he was still this resentful?

He should have said so sooner.

Then the husband I had known since childhood, the one who was supposed to marry into my family, would not have ended up leaving alone after I broke off the marriage.

He would not have died so young in a distant land.

Thinking of Rong Zhen, I grew even more melancholy.

There had been three perfectly good people. How had I ended up the only one to live a happy, peaceful life?

My eyelids grew heavier and heavier.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the Flower-Viewing Banquet.

My buddy’s older sister was an aloof, goddess-level doctor, and every time I saw her, my heart started pounding.

Then one day, while I was eating skewers at a barbecue stand, I passed out from blood loss and got rushed to the hospital in an ambulance.

After she performed hemorrhoid surgery on me, I finally found out she’d been secretly in love with me for ten whole years!

Shen Wudu and I spent seven years breaking up and getting back together.

I was in charge of breaking up. He was in charge of getting us back together.

But after the last time I said it was over, he stopped trying to win me back. Instead, he took in a lover who looked almost exactly like me.

To make her famous, he stole my resources.

The Best Actress award I had chased for ten years-he handed it to her with effortless ease.

At the awards ceremony, a reporter asked if I regretted breaking up with him.

I smiled and raised my hand, revealing the diamond ring on my finger.

“I’m getting married.”

The moment the words fell, everyone saw the coldest, proudest Young Master of the Shen Family suddenly turn red-eyed.