Cunning Protagonist

On the day of my wedding to my husband, a female warrior barged in.

She lifted my bridal veil, pinched my cheek with a grin, and praised, “What a tender little bride!” Then she drifted away as lightly as she had come.

From that day on, a black ink stain appeared on my face. No matter what I tried, I could not wash it off.

My husband despised me and never once set foot in my room again.

My mother-in-law resented me for occupying the position of mistress of the household while failing to bear any children.

Even my sister-in-law sighed over her brother’s miserable fate, saying he had married an ugly woman.

I became the invisible mistress of the Marquis’s Mansion.

I worked without complaint and managed the household affairs.

I raised the son adopted into our branch and devoted myself wholeheartedly to planning for the Marquis’s Mansion.

Only when I accidentally saw my husband and the female warrior admiring flowers together on a spring outing did I finally learn the truth.

My husband and the female warrior had fallen in love at first sight long ago.

Unwilling to be bound by the rules of the Marquis’s Mansion, the female warrior had abandoned my husband and left. Yet she could not bear to hand the man she loved over to another woman, so she used a secret drug to ruin my face.

And my husband had found the female warrior long ago. He had obtained the antidote, but under the spell of her tears and tenderness, he threw it away and promised her that his heart would never waver.

For her, he kept himself pure in the Marquis’s Mansion. Outside the estate, he lived in perfect harmony with her, and they had a son and a daughter.

Their son was given to me to raise so he could inherit the Marquis’s Mansion’s estate.

Their daughter stayed by their side to bring them joy, and in the future, they would recruit a husband to marry into the family for her.

All these years, they had lived in bliss. I was the only one who suffered.

I secretly drugged the female warrior with Soft Tendon Powder, then set the villa on fire. After notifying my husband and son to come put out the flames, I had them bound up like thieves and thrown into the burning villa as well.

Knowing I had committed a capital crime, I wrote a petition in blood and struck the Dengwen Drum, accusing the Marquis’s Mansion of favoring an outside mistress and abusing the lawful wife.

The Marquis’s Mansion was stripped of its title and demoted. I was sentenced to death.

The Empress pitied me and granted me a divorce before I died.

From then on, I was no longer a wife of the Lu family. I was only a daughter of the Li Family.

After my death, I saw the masses spit curses at the Marquis’s Mansion. I also saw them call me a venomous woman.

Right and wrong, truth and blame-let others say what they pleased. But my life had indeed been wasted.

When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day of my wedding.

The female warrior flew straight toward me with a cheerful grin.

I yanked my husband in front of me as fast as I could.

This time, it was my husband’s face that was stained with a large black mark.

Chapter 0

Even now, the fact that I ended up on a blind date with a university professor still feels completely surreal.

I have a car, a house, money… The only thing I lack is education. He has a car, a house, money… and an education!

So what exactly does he see in me?

“Madam, I’m planning to take a concubine.”

When Duan Qing said that, I was ironing the ceremonial robes he would wear to the palace tomorrow.

At his words, I nearly knocked over the iron brazier full of burning charcoal.

He sat there with one leg crossed over the other and went on as if it had nothing to do with me. “I’m bringing Miss Zhou into the household. A noblewoman from the former dynasty. You’ve met her.”

“Back when I followed the Emperor to fight for this empire, I lived with my head tied to my belt. Now that I’ve been made a duke, what’s wrong with taking the legitimate daughter of a marquis’s household as a concubine?”

“Old Han’s family are illiterate peasants, and even he married a girl from an earl’s household as his second wife!”

I looked at the utter entitlement on his face.

Then I took a deep breath. What was meant to come had come at last.

At thirty-eight, after spending half my life enduring hardship with him, it was time I enjoyed some peace and comfort.

And so, in the year I turned thirty-nine,

I decided to become a happy widow and savor the good life.

When the palace announced that I was being elevated to Noble Consort, everyone in my family looked grim.

Everyone understood the principle that great merit can threaten the throne.

My father’s achievements were already so great that there was nothing left to reward him with.

This rank of Noble Consort was a naked warning.

If I wanted to keep my whole family safe, I had to hand the emperor a weakness of mine-something he could hold over me and use to put his mind at ease.

Father, Mother, your daughter is off to be arrogant by imperial command!

Starting today, I’m going to be the most outrageously overbearing little menace in the harem!

Meng Yuanxi and I were rescued from the fire at the same time.

But after we woke, her talent shocked the world, and her policy essays stirred the hearts of all who read them.

Even my fiancé, the Crown Prince, wanted to break off our engagement for her sake.

She said that in this world, she was destined to be the winner.

But I only said lazily, “After getting the chance to do it all over again, you still haven’t improved at all…”

On the eve of His Majesty’s bestowal of marriage, I lay in the Crown Prince’s arms and murmured, “Your Highness dotes on me so much. When my sister marries into the household, she won’t be angry, will she? Everyone else envies Your Highness for receiving His Majesty’s favor and being allowed to hold the wedding in the palace, but all I feel is sorry for you. It must be exhausting.”

I thought I was just putting on a fragile, sweet little act for the Crown Prince.

I never expected him to be sincere with me.

After fifteen years of marriage, Meng Ye had taken a mistress-a flamboyant young woman he kept on the side.

Cradling her pregnant belly, she stormed into my presence to demand a formal title.

“You’re a fading beauty with one foot in the grave, and you haven’t even produced a son to see you off. What right do you have to cling to the position of Madam?”

Amused, I looked past her at Meng Ye and asked, “Well? You tell her. What right do I have?”

He didn’t dare answer. He knew that if I, a Tiger Woman of a General’s Family, ever lost my temper, his little girl wouldn’t even dare to cry out loud.

On our wedding night, my husband apologized to me.

He said that to defend his true love, I had to take my own life.

“Tell me-poison, a dagger, a noose, or the river? Which do you choose?”

I asked, “Can I choose to die of pleasure?”

I was born rotten. I wanted a better life, so I would do whatever it took.

When I was eight, I waited until my father was drunk, then pushed him into the river and drowned him. After that, I took his corpse to the gates of the marquis estate and sold myself to bury my father, earning my way into the household.

When I was thirteen, I staged a beating so severe that the stewarding matron nearly killed me. The young lady happened to pass by and saved me, and I became her personal maid.

I thought that if I followed the young lady when she married, I might become the Young Lord’s bedchamber maid and finally live comfortably.

Who could have known that the young lady had fallen into a secret affair with a penniless scholar? With a silver tongue and pretty lies, the scholar coaxed her into eloping with him, dragging me along as well.

As I watched the lecherous way the scholar’s eyes swept over me, I let out a deep sigh. I truly did not want to kill anyone. So why did they never let me live a good life?

I was fighting someone in the street when Young Madam took a liking to me on the spot.

She gave me fifty taels of silver and asked if I was willing to become her husband’s concubine.

They say a debt of recognition should be repaid with one’s body. Fair enough.

But was this really the way to repay it?

Still, I was desperately short on silver, so I gritted my teeth and agreed.

Only after entering the manor did I learn that my husband was introverted, my mother-in-law was tyrannical, and my sister-in-law was insufferably arrogant.

Young Madam hadn’t bought me back to serve anyone at all.

She had brought me into this family to be King Yan.