Determined Protagonist

The man I was to marry was a young general who had lost the use of his legs.

Rumor had it that he suffered from an unspeakable ailment and didn’t have long to live.

Later, behind the bed curtains, I discovered just how vigorous he truly was. Face burning, I shouted, “Stop bullying me!”

The man laughed hoarsely and caught my hand. “Then how about Qingqing bullies me this time?”

I had always thought I was the heroine’s sworn enemy.

Only when I saw her willingly confine herself to a husband’s household for love did I realize how terrifying blind devotion could be.

Stroking her belly, she urged me to find a good man and discover the pleasures of love.

I shook my head, as determined as ever to follow my own path.

In time, she lost sight of her dreams in that household, all for love, while I made love itself a stepping-stone and climbed to the highest seat of power.

After being passed over for promotion yet again, Cheng Ying discovers that her secret boyfriend of twelve years, Lu Siming, personally vetoed her while openly favoring another employee.

When he denies their relationship in front of the whole company, she quits, leaves him, and rebuilds her career in Hong Kong.

Two years later, Lu Siming returns as a client, determined to win her back—but Cheng Ying has finally learned that choosing herself means refusing to live in a world where her love must remain hidden.

Our youngest sister had the part of the girl everyone adored.

My master and all six of my fellow male disciples were destined to cherish her as dearly as their own lives.

I was the vicious supporting character.

I would fight her for magical treasures and men, frame her, humiliate her, and bully her.

In the end, my master would rip out my immortal bones, my senior brother would cut out my immortal core, and my junior brothers would throw me into a demon pit to be tortured to death.

But after I fell into the Waters of Sin, I woke up to the truth.

Instead of storming back to our sect to confront her, as the story demanded, I took on six female disciples on my master’s behalf, all in one go.

Every one of them was beautiful, lively, and quick-witted.

I brought them back to the sect.

Our youngest sister became Eighth Sister.

The day I gave birth, the situation was critical.

I begged Zhang Shuai to sign the consent form for a C-section, but his mother wouldn’t allow it.

Through the door, he shouted anxiously, “Zhaozhao, try a little harder, you can definitely give birth naturally.”

In the end, I suffered an amniotic fluid embolism and both mother and child died.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back at fifteen.

Zhang Shuai stopped me at the entrance of the village: “Zhaozhao, I heard you’re going to Vocational School too?”

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.

Before I even married my husband, I already owed his family a life.

His elder brother had died in an accident while working away from home to save up for my husband’s wedding.

On our wedding night, my husband dragged me to his brother’s grave and forced me to kowtow.

“If it weren’t for you, my brother wouldn’t be dead.”

“You’ll spend the rest of your life paying for it.”

After that, I worked in the fields all day and waited on his entire family at night.

Whenever he drank, he beat me.

I fled to my mother’s house.

She held me and cried all night.

The next morning, she pushed me toward the door.

“Go back.”

“Your sister-in-law doesn’t want you staying here.

There’s nothing I can do.”

“Just bear it.

Once he’s old and too weak to hit you, your life will be over anyway.”

But I didn’t want to bear it anymore.

In the Fifth Year of Taiyuan, at the Start of Summer, a princess died in the Beiliang Royal Palace.

And a toad.

Anping was that unfortunate princess.

And I was that unfortunate toad.

Fortunately, since her death, I have become her.

Because of her physical development, Li Zhuguang was maliciously humiliated and secretly photographed by her classmate Zhang Kang.

Luo Xing, once her only friend, also turned her back on her amid the rumors.

To strike back, Li Zhuguang deliberately got close to Song Wangshu, the top student Luo Xing had a crush on, using Zhang Kang’s jealousy to force him to expose himself.

She then returned the evidence of the secret recordings to each of the victims.

After Zhang Kang was expelled, the off-campus landlord retaliated by planting a pinhole camera in her room.

With help from Luo Xing, Song Wangshu, her teachers, and her classmates, Li Zhuguang finally dragged the malice lurking in the shadows out into the sunlight-and learned to trust the people around her again.

The women in the detention center didn’t much like me.

Among all those streetwise girls, I was the only one who wore glasses.

When they finally asked what I’d done, I told them: I’d stolen five thousand yuan from my parents to go to Peking University.

They laughed and called me an unlucky kid.

The day I got out, my parents didn’t come.

A battered van did.

Blondie rolled down the window and told me to get in.

She was taking me to the station.