Cunning Protagonist

In my last life, Xie Wujiu stormed the capital, and blood ran like rivers before the palace gates. In this life, before he could fall into darkness, I forced him into a private school and made him recite The Analects every day.

Only later did I understand: asking a starving person to speak of benevolence and righteousness can itself be cruel.

Noble Consort Qin was a peerless beauty, alluring enough to make the emperor cast aside his first wife and depose his legitimate son.

With tender eyes, Noble Consort Qin murmured, “His Majesty and I were joined as husband and wife in our youth. We are as devoted as a pair of mandarin ducks…”

Emperor Gaozu, inveterate male chauvinist: “Lady Qin is a mere concubine. How could she possibly have been joined to Us in our youth?”

“Throw this insolent wretch into the cold palace at once-and bring Us five hundred jin of memorials!”

◆ Male-chauvinist emperors with a single-minded devotion to a rich nation and a powerful army ◆

◆ We have no need of love. We want GDP! ◆

Notes:

1. This is a male-lead story in a fictional setting, and an unconventional quick-transmigration novel told through feudal monarchs who enter romance stories.

2. The emperors are written as typical rulers of feudal eras. They care only about raising GDP and have no time for romance. And yes, they truly are male chauvinists. Emphasis very much intended.

3. This is a wish-fulfillment story hostile to the pampered-concubine trope, with face-slapping and scum getting what they deserve. The emperors’ values do not represent the author’s. Please do not derail the discussion.

4. The direction and pace of the plot are entirely the author’s decision, and the author reserves the final right of interpretation.

Twenty years ago, my dad got drunk and let it slip to someone that he had made two hundred thousand yuan in a year raising chickens. Before long, every chicken on his farm had been poisoned to death.

Later, my dad bought an eighty-million-yuan apartment in Beijing outright, and he didn’t tell a single person back home. Even my grandparents had no idea.

Now my dad has long since become the CEO of a corporation worth several hundred million. Every time we go home for New Year’s or the holidays, he makes my mom and me help him pretend we’re poor.

At the New Year’s Eve dinner, I sat there bundled in a thick cotton coat and cotton slippers, both hands shoved into my pockets.

And so began my proud inheritance of my father’s fine tradition: talking absolute nonsense.

Who would’ve thought I’d overdo the act and run into someone I knew?

Me: “President Gu?”

Him: “President Shen?”

Then we both clapped a hand over each other’s mouths.

Does transmigrating into a vicious female supporting character mean you have to survive by clinging to the male lead?

Faced with the battered, humiliated male lead, Yu Tai smiles and opens with a live demonstration: sleeping with him.

Worried about a romantic clash with the original heroine?

Yu Tai glances at a certain demon beast she raised like her own daughter and sighs.

Ever heard of a heroine who insists on taking human form as a man?

And when Yu Tai’s identity as a demonic cultivator is exposed, plunging her into an unprecedented crisis?

The male lead she thought was weak merely flicks a finger, destroying half the cultivation world in a single blow.

???

Yu Tai: Is there something wrong with this novel I transmigrated into?

I was meant to marry the Emperor of Great Liang, but a decree for a political marriage sent me to Northern Yan instead.

On our wedding night, I mixed blood from the tip of my tongue into the wedding wine, intending to poison the tyrannical prince.

Yet, he drained the poisoned cup for me and said with a smile, “Don’t be in such a hurry. The heads of every official in this court-I will cut them off for you, one by one.”

[A Long-Planned Scheme + Forceful Possession + A Powerful Man Bows His Head for Love + Both Leads Chaste + Two Strong Leads Join Forces]

Pei Xianjing, the eldest legitimate son of the Duke’s household, enjoyed the Emperor’s deep favor. Accomplished in both civil and military affairs, fair-minded and incorruptible, he was hailed by all as an upright gentleman and a capable minister who could save the realm-an aloof, unattainable flower blooming upon a frozen peak.

A savior delivered all beneath heaven.

And so, when Xing Shuwei came to him four years ago with nowhere else to turn, he had shown her generous compassion and allowed her to stay. “From now on, you belong to me.”

Overwhelmed with gratitude, Xing Shuwei regarded him as the lifeline that had saved both her and her younger brother. She obeyed his every word.

Then, on the day after her eighteenth birthday, Pei Xianjing pinned her against his desk.

The courteous gentleman had become a ravenous wolf. “Weiwei, do you like the birthday gift I gave you?”

“You are the rose I planted with my own hands. Even if every inch of you is covered in thorns, I am the only one you may prick.”

Seven years ago, Song Yunnian was framed by her scheming sister, her reputation ruined, and she gave birth to a child of unknown paternity.

Seven years later, she returns with a vengeance, bringing her adorable child and multiple secret identities to crush her enemies and sweep away anyone who stands in her way.

Unexpectedly, she finds herself stuck with two “clingy pieces of candy”-one big and one small-and she can’t shake them off.

The little one says, “Mommy, it’s buy one get one free!”

The big one traps her in his arms and grits his teeth. “Hacking my account?”

Song Yunnian: “Master Fu, let me explain.”

The man pulls out two more children. “Stealing my kids?”

Song Yunnian grits her teeth. The scumbag who caused her to be disgraced back then was him?

Fu Yanchen pulls her into his embrace. “Steal one, pay back ten. Have another baby to compensate me!”

My mother taught me never to trust a man’s affection.

When a marquis’s family chose me to marry their reckless third son, I saw my chance to rise.

He already kept a pregnant mistress, but I had no intention of fighting her for his love.

I would save her, secure my place, and make myself indispensable.

In a house full of secrets, every crisis could become a rung on my ladder.

I was the eldest daughter of the family-the one no one favored.

From childhood, I was taught to be composed and proper, to serve as an example for my younger siblings.

And yet my fiancé was stolen away by my seemingly innocent and adorable legitimate younger sister.

My younger brothers remembered none of the good I had done for them. They only resented me for disciplining them too strictly. Even my parents saw me as nothing more than a tool to polish the family name, wholeheartedly taking my legitimate younger sister’s side.

Faced with all this, I spread my hands and gave up. From then on, I refused to involve myself in anything happening in the manor.

I let them flounder through one petty mess after another, gradually falling apart until none of the old warmth remained. Even that innocent and adorable legitimate younger sister, once she lost my support, was no longer the treasure of their hearts.

While everyone else was fighting for the Emperor’s favor, I built an intelligence station in the cold palace.

Until the day he died, the Emperor never knew that the woman stirring up the hidden currents of his harem was someone whose name he could not even remember.

I died in Yongxiang Alley during my third winter there.

Not truly died-only the kind of death where your name is crossed out in vermilion ink on the registry.

They said Noble Lady Li, who had once worked in the imperial garden and was later favored by His Majesty for her beauty, had gone mad.

Because on the late Empress’s memorial day, I let my hair hang loose, went barefoot, and sang a rousing rendition of “Liangzhou Ci.”

In truth, I was not mad. I had simply calculated that the Chief Eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial would pass through the imperial garden that day.

Madness was the best pass in the cold palace, and the best armor.

On the day I moved into the West Third Institute, only one lame old eunuch came to lead the way.

The weeds in the courtyard rose past my knees, and the moss on the well curb was as thick as a velvet blanket.

My roommate, Attendant Li, had been thrown in here three years ago after offending the Imperial Consort.

When she saw me arrive, she did not even lift her eyelids. She only kept rubbing a length of hemp rope in her hands, its edges worn fuzzy.

I set my only bundle down on the crumbling earthen kang.

Inside were two sets of worn palace clothes, a bald writing brush, and half a ream of yellow paper.

The paper pasted over the window lattice had a hole in it the size of a fist. The north wind poured in with a howl, carrying the faint sound of pipes and flutes from far away.

I stared at that hole, but in my heart, a sliver of light slipped through.

In a madwoman’s world, there were the fewest rules.

Here, perhaps, I could live.