Clever Protagonist

Father hauled a strange fish out of the sea, with a woman’s body and a fish’s tail.

Thinking he had caught a mermaid, he brought her home in wild delight.

He wanted her to weep pearls—and bear an heir for our family.

But Father had made a mistake.

What he had brought home was no mermaid.

It was a man-eating fish.

The whole capital knows Zhao Qingzhi as a jealous woman.

Only young General Pei dares to marry her, declaring that a man who can catch tigers and kill bandits has no reason to fear a fiery wife.

After the wedding, he proudly tells his friends he has tamed her.

But one friend knows the truth: the maid Zhao Qingzhi had beaten was her father’s illegitimate daughter, and the story behind her jealousy is far more painful than the rumors suggest.

Humiliated by the correction, the young general decides to prove who rules his household.

The next day, he brings that very maid home.

On my first day in the palace, I told my own fortune.

A west wind slipped along the foot of the wall, lifting three dead leaves.

Two fell into the gutter; one landed on my shoe.

I studied that leaf for a long while and reached a conclusion: Don’t compete.

Stay alive.

Excellent.

I decided on the spot that, from that day forward, I would be a layabout with principles.

I got up in the middle of the night to wipe the condensation off the window—and suddenly saw comments floating before my eyes: [Why’s the sleeping wife awake?

The male lead’s downstairs in the garden, coaxing our sweet girl!]

[Please don’t catch them!

I’m waiting for him to get some right under his wife’s nose!]

[The sleeping wife mustn’t wake up!]

Without changing my expression, I breathed on the window to fog it up again, then turned and lay down.

Mustn’t wake up?

I’d never truly been asleep.

I was born with a honeyed tongue.

I knew how to win people over.

As a child, I coaxed my father’s wife from despising me into loving me as her own.

After I married, I charmed my icy mother-in-law into treating me like her own daughter.

But it didn’t work on my husband.

He had a woman he loved and could not have.

In two years of marriage, he had never so much as touched a finger of mine.

Once again, at my mother-in-law’s bidding, I took a nourishing soup to his study and tried to coax him into sharing my bed.

He shoved me away in disgust and flung the soup aside.

“Wen Xiaoxiao, spare me your honeyed words and hidden knives.”

“I’d sooner die than touch you.”

Oh, well.

There really was nothing I could do.

If he wouldn’t be charmed, I would simply have to charm someone else.

I was an emperor.

Now I have become another emperor.

But this one has made a miserable job of it.

The crown princess is sleeping with the imperial tutor in the Eastern Palace.

My daughter is imprisoned and humiliated in her own residence by her husband.

Even my favorite niece has been judged by the country-bred heir to the Marquis of Xuanyang: “Fit only for a concubine, never a wife.”

Well.

You are all remarkably brave.

How about we find out how sharp my executioner’s blade is?

Father said I had an affinity with the immortals and sent me up the mountain to become a nun when I was little.

Only as I grew older did I learn that the place where I lived was Mount Tai.

And the nuns of Mount Tai were no proper nuns.

Just as the “slender horses” of Yangzhou were not horses, and the boatwomen of West Lake did more than row boats.

Men came for the thrill of doing the most profane things in a sacred place.

Then the emperor himself climbed the mountain to pray for an heir.

And I became pregnant with his only child.

The Immortal Lord dug out my spirit root to save his beloved junior sister.

With tears streaming down my face, I gently talked him around.

I coaxed him—and his entire sect—into signing a life-and-death pact.

As long as I did nothing wrong, everyone in the sect had to keep me safe.

Break that promise, and the backlash would consume their souls and reduce them to ashes.

Then my enemies began turning up at the mountain gates, one after another.

The leaders of both the righteous and demonic paths surrounded the sect, demanding my life.

Everyone in the sect went pale.

They stood no chance.

The Immortal Lord fought his way out of the encirclement, drenched in blood, and turned to me in desperation.

I spread my hands helplessly.

“Either kill them for me.”

I drew my sword at my leisure.

“Or, if you can’t, give me back my spirit root.

I’ll do it myself.”

After marrying the notoriously tyrannical emperor, I accidentally swapped bodies with him.

But the exchange wasn’t quite permanent.

By day, he dismissed officials.

By night, I rescued them.

He punished the consorts.

I soothed the beauties.

And he still had the nerve to snap at me.

“Which hand did you touch her with?”

Honestly.

Without me, this country would fall apart sooner or later.

I entered a horror game, and the final boss asked how I wanted to die.

“Thanks.

I’ll take old age, after a long life.”

The boss: “…”