Cunning Protagonist

Everyone in the capital said that a first-rank maid from the Prime Minister’s Residence was worth more than the daughter of a fifth-rank official.

As the personal maid to the prime minister’s daughter, I had followed the Fourth Young Lady since childhood, learning to read and write at her side.

I understood literature and ink, knew music, and was versed in arithmetic.

When I was nineteen, the merchant Wen Family of Qingzhou, eager to attach themselves to power, came specifically to ask for my hand-a mere maidservant’s-in marriage.

The Fourth Young Lady showed me grace, acknowledged me as her sworn younger sister, and married me off in splendor.

I had thought the inner courtyard of a merchant household would be simple. I never imagined its waters would run as deep as those of the Prime Minister’s Residence.

The Second Branch eyed the account books with envy, while the concubines banded together to put me in my place.

On the day I served tea to my elders, Concubine Zhou “accidentally” knocked over the teacup, and scalding water splashed across the hem of my newly tailored Su embroidery skirt.

I lightly brushed my fingers over the ruined twining lotus pattern on the fabric, then suddenly smiled.

Since some people insisted on throwing themselves onto the edge of a blade-

Then I would show them exactly what the methods of the Prime Minister’s Residence looked like.

In the eighteenth year after I transmigrated, I finally became a proper maidservant.

When Old Madam and Second Master quarreled, I was the one who stepped in to smooth things over.

I knelt on the floor, clinging to Second Master’s leg, and begged him not to say things in anger.

Second Master pinched my chin and sneered. “I know Third Brother has his eye on you. But I insist on making you my concubine. Even if he finds out, what of it?”

Of course Third Master would not do anything to Second Master.

He would only kill me without a word.

I belonged to Third Master. He would rather have me dead than defiled.

In their eyes, I was a maidservant, a plaything to be fought over and snatched around.

Pei Ling’an said he wanted to break off our engagement again.

This time, it was because I refused to give the golden hairpin I had won for my poetry to my younger cousin.

“The Shen Family has fallen. No matter which daughter I choose to marry, Shen Tongzhi wouldn’t dare say a single word against it.”

He rested his chin on his hand, looking at me with a faint, mocking smile. “Break the engagement, or give the hairpin to Yuchi. Shen Yusu, the choice is yours.”

Everyone was waiting for me to bow my head.

Just as I had done countless times before.

But this time, I only tightened my grip on the golden hairpin and said softly,

“Then let’s break the engagement.”

The day I married into the Gu marquis’s household, my father-in-law died and my mother-in-law fell ill.

The wedding feast became a funeral banquet, and I was forced to take charge in the midst of the crisis, assuming control of the household and carrying the funeral through with composure.

My husband thanked me for preserving the Gu family’s dignity, yet never set foot in my room again.

In time, he filled the household with concubines and fathered a brood of sons and daughters by them.

I raised them conscientiously and planned for their futures.

Then I overheard my husband speaking to them behind my back.

“I have never met anyone as coldhearted as your mother. Your grandfather died, and she did not shed a single tear. You may call her Mother, but never learn from her. She is unworthy of the name.”

By then, a physician had already told me I did not have long to live.

Not one of those children came to visit me or bring me medicine; they simply left me to die.

With my last strength, I set fire to the Gu residence and burned that cold, loveless place to the ground.

When I opened my eyes again, I had been reborn.

The Gu family came to propose marriage, and as I looked at the refined, handsome man before me, we spoke the same words at the same time.

“I refuse.”

It turned out I was not the only one who had returned.

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.

My elder sister loved sweets.

Every year, when lychee paste was sent from home, the first box was always hers.

As a child, I was greedy and stole a taste.

Mother frowned and said,

“Your sister is frail. Let her have it.”

Later, I kept giving way and giving way, until even my marriage was pushed behind hers.

When the Crown Prince came to consider a match, my elder sister disliked all the rules of the Eastern Palace and turned around to choose an Idle Prince instead.

So everyone’s eyes fell on me.

The Crown Prince said gently,

“The Second Young Lady will do as well.”

I married him.

After our wedding, he treated me well enough. It was just that every year, when lychee paste was presented as tribute, he would first send someone to deliver it to my sister’s residence.

I asked him about it once.

He smiled.

“Your sister loves this.”

“You’ve always been sensible. You won’t mind.”

Until, on his deathbed, he clutched my hand and suddenly called out my sister’s childhood name.

When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day the Crown Prince came to consider a match.

Mother pushed me forward.

I took one step back and said softly,

“This subject’s daughter already has someone in her heart. I fear I am not blessed enough to enter the Eastern Palace.”

One year into her marriage, Xie Wu refuses when her husband asks to take Lin Manrou as his concubine. The feud that follows costs Xie Wu her unborn child, her reputation, and thirty years of freedom—only for her to learn that both women were pawns in her husband’s plan to marry the cousin he truly loved. Reborn on the day he makes the same request, Xie Wu says yes. This time, she will play the dutiful wife, give every rival exactly what she wants, and quietly turn the Marquis of Annan’s household into a board on which only she knows the next move.

When he called out his first love’s name in the heat of passion, I knew that woman had to die.

The General and I were wed by imperial decree, our families perfectly matched in status. In a marriage like this, I never expected much in the way of affection.

Yet, he brought back a woman from his past-his “white moonlight.” She was pregnant, and he even intended to raise her status to that of an Equal Wife.

He does not understand me. Though I am a virtuous and kind wife, I will never allow another woman to claim a share of my husband.

The Prince Consort and I were famously husband and wife in name only.

He lived his life as the Lord Heir, and I lived mine as the Grand Princess.

We resided in separate estates and kept out of each other’s way. Until that reckless little cousin of his entered the capital.

She was a spoiled girl, indulged far beyond measure, relying on the Prince Consort’s protection and affection.

She “accidentally” barged into my study and set a fire that burned an entire room of my cherished memories to ash.

Afterward, she hid behind the Prince Consort, pouting as she complained, “I just couldn’t stand it. She’s already married to you, so why does she still keep a whole room full of portraits of other men?”

Pei Pingjin made excuses for her.

“My cousin was only being overly protective of me. Your Highness, please don’t be angry.”

I nodded. I was the First Princess, standing above tens of thousands. Why should I lower myself to get angry with a little girl?

So as I turned away, I abruptly drew my sword. With a sharp hiss, the blade pierced through the Prince Consort’s palm as he tried to stop it, then cut the little girl’s throat in a single stroke.

My father was the richest man in Great Zhou, and I was his only daughter.

To protect me, he arranged for me to marry into Marquis Manor with an enormous dowry.

On the day of my engagement, I had a dream.

I dreamed that Marquis Manor looked down on me for being born to a merchant family, while the Young Marquis doted wholeheartedly on his talented cousin.

After my father died, my dowry was swallowed up completely.

To make his cousin his legitimate wife, the Young Marquis bribed the midwife to murder me while I was in childbirth.

When I woke from the dream, the Young Marquis walked into my family’s jewelry shop with his cousin in tow.

“Since you’re going to marry into Marquis Manor, you ought to shed that stink of money. Marquis Manor can’t afford that kind of embarrassment.

“Give this shop to my cousin. Consider it a greeting gift from you, her future sister-in-law.”

I looked at his smug, superior face and let out a cold laugh.

Then I turned and ordered the steward to throw him out.

“What kind of down-and-out household starts eyeing a wife’s dowry before she’s even married in?

“Your highborn Marquis Manor has worse manners than a farming family!”