Cute Children

My father rebelled, and I became the most honored legitimate princess.

No, wait-the Grand Tutor said it’s not rebellion.

How can it be rebellion when it’s the act of a founding emperor?

It was the descent of the Imperial Star, the gods and buddhas blessing the people, rescuing the masses from misery!

As the Grand Tutor taught, one should say:

The previous dynasty was tyrannical and unjust, the common people were in a living hell, suffering unbearably. My father the Emperor led a group of righteous men in uprising, successfully ended the chaotic times, and established the Great An Dynasty.

So I, an ordinary farmer’s wife in the previous dynasty, inexplicably became the one and only legitimate princess of the An Dynasty.

That’s right, I’m married, my husband is alive and well, I have both a son and a daughter, my life is happy and fulfilling, and for years I’ve topped the list of happiest young wives in the village.

Before becoming a princess, my biggest worry was that my son didn’t like meat and only ate vegetables, while my daughter didn’t like vegetables and only ate meat.

Now my biggest worry has become: being a legitimate princess and all that-I have no experience with it…

I’m the daughter of the heroine in an angsty novel.

When I was four, I finally understood those strange bullet comments:

[The heroine is still desperately staying up late, working to make money and support her daughter. She has no idea she already has cancer. If this drags on, her child is going to lose her mother!]

[If either the male lead or the female lead had just spoken up, there wouldn’t have been a “running away while pregnant” plot at all.]

[Their daughter is the real pitiful one. Her mother dies when she’s only six. The male lead never even learns the heroine died after giving birth to his daughter, and he spends the rest of his life alone.]

[And the most miserable one is our Xiao Bao. She obviously has a rich dad, yet she still gets sent to the orphanage…]

Mom was going to die?

I stared at my gentle, beautiful mother in shock. No way!

They may not speak up, but I do!

On a warm afternoon, outside an office building, I spotted a man in a sharp suit and threw my arms around his leg.

“Dad, send money! I need to save Mom!”

After five years of marrying into my family, my penniless scholar husband passed the imperial exam-and suddenly decided I, his butcher wife, reeked of grease and blood.

For half a month, he hemmed and hawed and refused to do his husbandly duties.

So I used the silver I’d earned selling pork to buy him two ink sticks and a ream of fine paper, then scraped together the last of my coins for a tiny bar of scented soap.

When I made it home through the rain, the big yellow dog under the eaves had one of the meat dumplings I’d wrapped dangling from its mouth.

From inside the house came a coy, wheedling voice.

“Father, the magistrate’s daughter smells so nice. Not like Mother.”

“And these pastries taste better than meat dumplings too.”

I took all the bits and pieces I’d hidden against my chest and threw them out-along with the father and son.

When Zheng Huaishu signed the divorce papers, he held our son in his arms and glared at me with resentment.

All the neighbors in the village laughed at me for letting a future official go.

The very next day, the matchmaker introduced me to a fair, slender stutterer.

A little girl trailed behind him.

Father and daughter gave me timid looks.

I asked irritably, “How often can you do your husbandly duties?”

“And how much meat will you eat in a day?”

The stutterer’s face turned bright red. The matchmaker yanked his clothes down over half his shoulder, and he said in a slow, gentle voice, “As long as my child gets a mouthful of rice… as her father, I’ll do anything…”

I was a widow starved for a man.

While I was burning incense and praying for a good match, some villain broke into my boudoir.

I knocked him out with a vase.

Then I took a look and-oh. A beautiful man.

So I tied him up, hid him in my little courtyard, and had my way with him every day…

Later, he ran off.

When we met again, I knelt on the ground and stammered in terror, “Th-this humble woman greets His Royal Highness the Crown Prince…”

The woman who lived across from us was beautiful, with a captivating, mature allure.

Every man in the building was bewitched by her. Only my husband scoffed.

But when the elevator suddenly plunged,

he completely forgot about me and our daughter. He turned around and pulled her tightly into his arms.

So tightly it was as if he wanted to press her into his own body.

I had plans to go sing karaoke with my best friend that night, but my five-year-old daughter just would not go to sleep.

Left with no choice, I took her with me. Once we were in the private karaoke room, I ordered a couple of model guys to look after her.

Halfway through my song, the door to the room was shoved open.

My husband-my marriage-of-convenience husband-came in looking like he was here to catch me cheating.

“Su Xu, look at you getting bold. You actually dared to bring our daughter along while you ordered random men-”

Before he could finish, he finally saw what was happening inside.

His five-year-old daughter was currently sitting there with an arm around each of the two model guys. “…”

After stepping into a giant footprint out in the wilderness… I got pregnant.

It was such an outrageous thing that, naturally, my mother refused to believe it.

She slapped me across the face right off the bat and demanded to know which man I’d been sneaking into the woods with.

I clutched my cheek and didn’t dare make a sound.

In an attempt to salvage a little dignity, Mother had me put on a Heaven’s Headdress, implying that this child had no father and was a gift from the heavens.

Who would have thought that, as dusk approached, people really did descend from the sky?

Every last one of them was bristling with righteous fury, their eyes red-rimmed, looking even more wronged than I did.

“My Lord was born divine. He is the King of the State, and the Universal Lord besides. How could he possibly have anything to do with some village woman from the countryside?”

“Speak. What exactly did you do?!”

Thinking back to that enormous, awe-inspiring footprint from last night, I was completely bewildered.

“Me? I just… shivered on top of it?” -After Stepping on the God’s Footprint This story is adapted from the ancient myth of “the Jiang Maiden conceiving after stepping in a footprint.”

Basically, it’s a story about the female lead raising a child, the male lead also raising a child, or the two of them raising a child together.

I transmigrated into a tragic romance novel as the female lead’s sister.

In the original plot, I spent my time abusing her daughter while simultaneously trying to seduce her husband.

Ultimately, I groomed her daughter to become the next generation’s tragic heroine, while I met a miserable end myself-tossed into the ocean to feed the fish.

Now, looking at the innocent Little Bean Bun standing before me, I said: “If you love suffering, you’ll have a never-ending supply of it. So, do you want to swallow that bitter pill, or are you going to speak up for yourself?”

“Go up there and give him a piece of your mind. If you win the argument, I’ll buy you a burger; if you lose, I’ll buy you a drink.”

“What? You’re afraid to win? Do you really love being a perpetual runner-up that much? You don’t have to be number one, but you can’t settle for second best, and you certainly can’t be a pushover.”

“Your mother brought you into this world to enjoy life, not to suffer. Go compete, go grab what’s yours, and be brave! Go get ’em, baby!”

In my third year as a palace maid, I encountered a child.

Floating above her head were the words: Villainess Supporting Character.

I wondered to myself, just how wicked could a seven-year-old child be?

That was until I saw her shove a palace maid to the ground.

Beat the eunuchs. And ruthlessly berate the head governess.

Only then did I realize she was absolutely right to hit them.

I had been wanting to thrash those people for a long time myself.

This wasn’t some Villainess Supporting Character; this was my angel baby.

Later, she asked me, “Don’t you hate me?”

I replied, “Of course not. I like you as much as there are stars in the sky, grains of sand in the desert, and drops of water in the ocean.”

Blushing yet acting with her usual haughty pride, she tucked her hand into my palm.

“You will attend to me tonight.”

My Elder Sister and I have been bitter rivals since we were children.

At three, we fought over our mother’s attention; at five, we fought over the little boy across the street.

When we were six, people from the Marquis Manor came to claim her, saying my Elder Sister was their long-lost legitimate daughter who had been taken away as an infant.

I was so furious I didn’t sleep a wink that night. Later, my father-who had been away fighting at war for fifteen years-returned with a promotion and a fortune to take me away as well.

Once I arrived at the General’s Manor, the first thing I did was rush over to the Marquis Manor.

I stood there shouting for Gu Ruan to come out and face her doom, when suddenly, a small head poked out from the entrance.

She had my Elder Sister’s face. She toddled toward me, swaying unsteadily on her feet. “Mother is dead. Auntie, hold me~”