Childhood Friends

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 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.

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.

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.

When I went to the Capital to seek refuge with my elder sister, I saved two young noblemen who were being robbed by river bandits.

I had heard that nobles in the Capital loved nothing more than repaying a life-saving debt with their hand in marriage.

So I took both of their personal jade pendants.

My plan was to make careful inquiries about their character once I arrived in the Capital, then decide whether or not I wanted to claim that debt of gratitude.

Who would have thought that the moment I saw my sister, I would hear the strangest thing?

On her way to the Capital, the Marquis’s Mansion’s cousin young lady had saved the Fourth Young Master and the Fifth Young Master. Now, she was being honored as a distinguished guest.

As for me, a wild girl from Nanzhou, I was instantly made to look like a little beggar beside that refined and well-mannered cousin young lady.

Even my sister was worried. “Now the Old Madam will definitely be in a hurry to arrange a marriage for the cousin young lady first. What are you going to do?”

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.

Chapter 0

Chu Huai, the Crown Prince of Beijing’s Elite Circle, confessed his love to my roommate.

A helicopter showered flower petals from the sky, stunning the entire school.

But my roommate was distressed. She asked me:

“But I only see him as a bro… What do you think? Should I say yes?”

I said:

“Say yes. He’s rich and handsome.”

She narrowed her eyes, and the next second, shoved me toward Chu Huai:

“A Huai, my roommate seems to really like you!”

I stumbled and fell at Chu Huai’s feet, a sharp pain shooting through my knees.

Chu Huai didn’t spare me a glance, only looking at my roommate.

His dark eyes were somber, a hint of pain in them:

“Are you a block of wood? How could I possibly like trash like that! You know who I like, don’t you!”

My roommate tilted her head, as if she didn’t understand.

Her beautiful eyes curved, full of innocence:

“Wow, you two are so perfect together! A Huai, I’m kind of shipping you two. Mom, Dad, your baby is here!”

Chu Huai clenched his teeth. For a moment, no one dared to breathe, and a deathly silence fell over the scene.

But I have a severe people-pleasing personality and never spoil the mood.

I said:

“Yes, yes, we’re so perfect together! Hubby, hubby, gogogo, our baby is born! Haha.”

While packing my mom’s things, a receipt suddenly slipped out of an old cardboard box.

It read: April 8, 2006. Aigo MP3 player returned and refunded. Goods and payment settled in full. Total: 498 yuan.

I felt as if I’d been plunged into an ice cellar.

The MP3 player I had thought had been lost for twenty years, the MP3 player that became the trigger every time my mom and I fought, had appeared out of nowhere, just like that.

Clutching the receipt, I asked her numbly, “Back then… did you return that MP3 player?”

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?!”

I was helping my mom sell grilled sausages by the roadside when a handsome guy in a cap scanned the QR code to pay. He gave his phone a little shake, signaling that the payment had gone through.

I smiled and nodded. Then my gaze suddenly sharpened, landing on the pale, prominent bone of his wrist.

There was a tiny black tattoo there.

I narrowed my eyes slightly and recognized it.

It was that bastard Chen Wen.

His friend came over, hooked an arm around his neck, and urged him on. “Come on, Chen Wen. Let’s go to the usual spot.”

But Chen Wen just had to do the opposite of what I wanted. He took two steps toward me, bent down, and met my eyes. A moment later, recognition dawned. He let out a laugh, his eyes curving like peach blossom petals.

“Is that… Boss Tang?”

“…”