Clever Protagonist

I married the childhood sweetheart my elder sister refused to wed after his family fell on hard times.

From the day we married, I devoted myself to running our home.

We treated each other with courtesy.

When Ling Yan placed first in the imperial examinations, everyone congratulated me.

My years of hardship had finally paid off.

Then word came that he had offered a lavish betrothal gift to take my sister as a wife of equal standing.

His words spread through every street: “The eldest Miss Su is radiant and precious.

She deserves to be cherished.

Now that I have won the highest honors, I will never let her suffer the slightest hardship.”

A gifted man and a beautiful woman.

A match made in heaven.

I was the one who deserved to suffer.

That very night, I, the wife who had shared his poverty, packed my bundle and made room for my sister.

I went far away and vanished without a trace.

The newly crowned top scholar searched for his first wife until he was nearly mad, and at last found her in an out-of-the-way corner.

Looking at Ling Yan’s reddened eyes, I asked in bewilderment, “Why were you looking for me?

We never had feelings for each other.”

He stared at me.

Tears rolled from his eyes, but he laughed in anger.

“You’re saying you don’t love me?”

That morning, I was still a filthy beggar.

By nightfall, I had been scrubbed clean and smelled sweet.

I had sold myself to a brothel.

The madam looked me up and down, a smile spreading through the creases of her forehead.

“The Mid-Autumn Festival is in five days.

You’ll start taking clients then.”

I didn’t look at her.

The money was in my pocket.

Did she really think she still had a say?

All I wanted now was a good night’s sleep.

The room was lovely in every way, except that the fragrance made my head swim.

I shut the door and pushed open a small, carved window.

A streak of white light squeezed through the gap.

It widened until it filled my vision.

Why was there a luxurious room outside my window?

A man sat straight-backed at a writing desk, his head bent over the bow he was polishing.

He looked up and saw me too.

He wasn’t surprised, but he was very angry.

“I asked for nothing in return.

Who brought you into my residence?

This is absurd!”

Only then did I see his face clearly.

He was extraordinarily handsome.

It was Song Shan.

Wait.

Song Shan?

Hadn’t he been put to death by slow slicing at the third quarter of the noon watch that very day?

I had watched it myself.

My husband brought home his “true love” and insisted on taking her as a concubine.

Tears of emotion filled my eyes as I clasped his true love’s hand and refused to let go.

“How could I possibly let you settle for being a concubine?

You can have my place as his lawful wife!

“Why don’t we make it a one-stop affair today—divorce for me, wedding for you!”

There was no time to waste.

The imperial decree ordering the confiscation of the family estate was already on its way!

My father’s favored concubine trained my younger sister in all the arts of the pleasure quarters, convinced it would help her secure a man’s heart.

When I came of age, she proposed that Yuniang marry alongside me as an accompanying concubine.

There was only one flaw in her plan.

As the Qiao family’s legitimate eldest daughter and future head, I was never marrying out—I would take a husband into my own household.

When my beloved childhood friend publicly humiliated me, my own sister called it harmless fun.

I answered by turning his joke into a scandal that swept the capital.

After years in exile, I returned unwilling to bend—to my scheming sister, her five doting brothers, or the prince who treated my marriage as a bargaining chip.

They expected a disgraced noblewoman they could sacrifice.

Instead, I used every plot against them, exposed every betrayal, and chose to break before I bowed.

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.

On his deathbed, the late emperor entrusted me with his heir—and had me bound and dragged back overnight to assist the new emperor.

Isolated and alone, the new emperor glared through bloodshot eyes, snapping at anyone who came near like a wolf cub.

“Better that I betray the world than let the world betray me!”

My eyes lit up.

The new emperor, later: “On second thought, the world hasn’t wronged me quite that badly.”

My younger sister was blessed with heaven-defying luck, while I was a walking disaster.

Only later did I learn that she had bonded with a system.

She could choose one person to suffer misfortune and turn that misfortune into luck for herself.

I was the unlucky person she chose.

Then I bonded with a system too.

Mine had only one function: rewrite.

My sister remained lucky, but the people paying the price became my father, my mother, my brother, her boyfriend…

And she successfully turned herself into a jinx despised by everyone equally.

Luo Yufu sacrifices her chastity to save Crown Prince Xiao Jinhe, only to dream of the future he will force upon her: a loveless marriage, betrayal, and death beneath a rain of arrows.

When she wakes before their engagement is sealed, she refuses to repeat that doomed fate.

But escaping the Crown Prince means untangling the Empress’s schemes, her sister’s hatred, a hidden conspiracy inside her own family, and Wanyan Shu—the ruthless hostage prince who once killed her in that dream, yet now seems determined to stand at her side.

This time, Luo Yufu will not wait for destiny to choose her ending.

Song Yayue has spent fifteen years trapped behind a talisman-enforced silence, so no one suspects that the supposedly mute, illiterate bride is a born chatterbox.

On her wedding night, she catches her husband in bed with the Crown Princess—and nearly exposes herself to the blind Crown Prince who guides her through the dark.

But He Zhiyu is no more blind than Yayue is mute, and the two betrayed spouses strike a bargain: she will become his eyes and ears, and he will keep her alive.

As an adulterous affair unravels into a royal conspiracy, Yayue discovers that the deadliest weapon in the palace may be the voice she has been forbidden to use.