Female Protagonist

Criminal investigations, soul-ferrying powers, a formidable partnership, and a slow-burn romance.

Everyone knew that Ren Fengjue, the Young Marquis of Renxuan Marquis Manor, was an exceptionally capable man. At a young age, he was already a high-ranking court official and one of the Emperor’s most trusted favorites.

With an illustrious background, striking looks, and both brains and brawn, he seemed to move through life without ever meeting an obstacle he could not overcome.

That changed the day a woman claiming to be his fiancée appeared at his door and opened with a sentence that left him stunned.

Xia Ximo: “Write me a letter of annulment.”

Ren Fengjue: “???”

At first, Lord Ren was buried in official duties and had no interest in romance. If she wanted out of the engagement, so be it. He had never intended to marry in the first place.

Later, after one twist after another, the way he looked at his fiancée changed completely.

Ren Fengjue: “I have already petitioned the Emperor for a marriage decree. If we annul the engagement now, it would count as defying an imperial edict, a crime punishable by the execution of nine generations.”

Xia Ximo: “???”

I am a Zombie.

Early in the morning, my mom burst into my room, yanked open the curtains, and, wearing an apron and brandishing a spatula, shouted at me: “Still sleeping? Stayed up late again last night, didn’t you? I’ve told you to spend less time on your phone-are you deaf?”

I got up slowly. She glanced out the window and said, “Look at Xiao He next door-how many brains have they eaten already? And you’re still waiting here, waiting for me to feed you, is that it? Get out!”

I was really annoyed, but couldn’t say anything. I mechanically washed my face and got ready to go out and hide for a bit, but my mom said again, “Take your bag! And bring back some groceries from the supermarket: cabbage, celery, lettuce, and pork. Make sure it’s fresh!”

“Oh, and don’t eat the brains on the ground, too many germs…”

…

When I was a child, I fought with wild dogs for food. On the verge of starvation, someone shared half a steamed bun with me.

To repay his kindness, I disguised myself as a boy and stayed by his side as a servant.

This man was once the most noble Crown Prince of the dynasty.

One day, he fell from grace, reduced to ruin, and was humiliated and trampled by his lifelong enemy.

Later, he became the mad emperor whom everyone feared.

Yet on a snowy night, he took his own life, and before his death, pleaded desperately:

“Yunling, don’t look at me… I’m so filthy.”

When I opened my eyes again, time had rewound twenty years.

The Imperial Tutor harbored the ambitions of a Wolf, the general eyed the throne like a tiger, and the imperial brother plotted in secret.

Only the Little Highness remained innocent and pure, completely unaware.

In this life, I have come only to protect him.

In my third year as Empress Dowager, my greatest fear is not the court officials, nor the brushes held by the court historians.

It is the moments when I wake from a dream in the dead of night and instinctively call out the name of Xie Wuyang.

As the palace lanterns flicker to life, I am reminded that three years ago, I was the one who personally wrote the secret order sending him to his death at Yanhui Ridge.

I married into an ancient manor. My husband was handsome and gentle, spending every day personally selecting hairpins and picking out dresses for me.

Later, I discovered the manor’s secret, and my eyes welled with tears of terror.

He said, “You’re trembling. It’s not because you’re afraid of me, is it?”

“It’s alright. You just haven’t adjusted yet. I’ll teach you, slowly…”

After my husband cheated on me, I jumped. I threw myself off the twenty-eighth floor.

The wind howled past my ears as I closed my eyes. I had already done the math. Each floor in our complex was three meters high, making the twenty-eighth floor eighty-one meters up. From the moment I leaped until I hit the ground, I would have roughly four seconds.

Minutes earlier, my final conversation with Bai Yan had ended in disaster. I had screamed and ranted hysterically; I had begged and pleaded like a dog wagging its tail for scraps; I had even cursed him with the most vicious words and venomous language in existence. By the final moment, both of us were utterly drained. I sat on the edge of the balcony with my eyes rimmed red and my legs dangling in the air, asking him weakly, “Are you really set on this divorce?”

He looked at me calmly. The first time I had threatened suicide, he had been frantic with panic, but now his face held nothing but exhaustion. He asked me, “Are you quite finished making a scene?”

I said quietly, “If you leave today, I’m jumping.”

He gave me one long, deep look before turning to walk away. The door slammed shut with a deafening bang, and then I heard the sound of him waiting for the elevator.

Before she died, my closest friend gave me two things.

A piece of skin she had cut from her own body, and her lover.

She asked me to use that skin to make a shadow puppet for the opera…

I think I understood what she meant. She was telling me: Ah Mei, I’m giving you a generous gift. You should return the favor-kill someone for me.

My wife and I were a couple of influencers with over a million followers.

After she passed away, the account stopped updating.

Until one day, a stranger sent me a private message.

“I look a lot like her.

“I can be her double.”

Shen Shiji once saved my life, pulling me from a pile of corpses.

In the years before I was recognized by the palace and returned to my royal roots, he taught me to read and practice martial arts, treating me with the utmost tenderness.

That was until I killed the woman he had loved for years.

To avenge her, Shen Shiji became my Prince Consort.

He spent years plotting to turn everyone against me, stripping me of my allies and family. After subjecting me to every imaginable torment, he threw me back into that same pile of corpses.

Shen Shiji told me his greatest regret was saving me all those years ago.

And so, having been reborn, I scrambled out of that pile of corpses on my own, wasting no time.

Later, I heard that it rained heavily that day.

The usually aloof Young Marquis Shen ignored the filth and the mud, kneeling in the pile of corpses and digging until his hands were bloody and raw.

All just to find a Little Beggar.

At three in the morning, the funeral home’s Morgue was only supposed to have five registered bodies, yet I found a sixth, unregistered, nameless female corpse in locker number six.

A slip of paper was pressed against her chest with nothing but my name written on it.

Even more terrifying was the moment my hand brushed her wrist; I saw the last seven seconds of her life and heard her raspy, blood-choked voice whisper: “Shen Nian, don’t trust your father.”

That was the night I realized that sometimes, the dead don’t come to say goodbye-they come to reopen a case.