Female Protagonist

I never expected that I would accidentally end up becoming colleagues with my ex-husband. After all, it had only been three months since we finally ended our miserable three-year marriage-a marriage that was nothing but mutual torture.

The daughter of the Yong’an Marquis Estate had committed a grave breach of etiquette within the palace, accidentally shattering a relic of the Late Emperor.

Furious, Grand Princess Anping ordered her to be seized and brought back to the Princess Manor immediately.

That night. The Heir of the Yong’an Marquis Estate knelt at the foot of my steps.

I reclined on my daybed, my fingertip tapping rhythmically against the armrest.

My gaze swept slowly over him, tracing the line of his brow, his Adam’s apple, and the breadth of his shoulders.

After a long silence, I finally uttered a single word: “Strip.” Those slender hands, which had once composed the most brilliant of essays, trembled as they reached for the buttons of his slate-blue official uniform.

I was a fake heiress.

When I was thirteen, my nanny suddenly told me I was her daughter, a fake heiress, and demanded that I take money from the Su family to support her and my biological brother.

I looked at her, then turned around and reported her.

I spent ten years in the imperial harem testing rouge, and not once did I fail to detect a single trace of poison.

That was until Consort Hua dropped dead after applying the “Drunken Beauty Red” I had personally verified.

It was then that a newly arrived talented lady told me: what truly kills isn’t the rouge, but the intent to murder.

After an argument with Zhou Mingyu, I jumped from the thirtieth floor with my five-month-old daughter in my arms.

When I opened my eyes again, time had actually returned to yesterday.

On this day, because the baby wouldn’t stop crying, Zhou Mingyu snapped at me for the first time: “Chen Ran, you don’t have a mother yourself, so it’s no wonder you don’t even know how to take care of a child!”

Our relationship had always been good, so I thought he hadn’t meant it; I blamed it on my own volatile temper and for taking things too hard.

But time continued to flow backward, and I discovered that this wasn’t the first time Zhou Mingyu had said such things: During my postpartum recovery month, he joked, “If your mother were still alive, my mother wouldn’t be so exhausted.”

On the day I was hospitalized to give birth, in response to the nurse’s questions, he said with a smile, “Her mother passed away, so who else could be her caregiver but me?”

At our wedding, he held my hand and vowed, “Chen Ran, I will definitely take good care of you in your mother’s stead!”

… It turned out he had always cared about the fact that I didn’t have a mother.

But the strange thing was, why didn’t I have any memory of my mother at all?

Had she ever truly existed?

If time continued to flow backward, would I eventually see her?

I was known for being a good girl. During our five years together, no matter how Liang Yansheng played around behind my back, I obediently endured it all.

Until that day, when I found a pair of stockings and a set of lingerie in his hotel suite that didn’t belong to me.

He didn’t show a hint of guilt at being caught. Instead, he just gave a lazy smile. “Be a good girl and go check out of the room for me.”

His friends were all placing bets on how long I could hold out this time.

Liang Yansheng rested his chin on his hand, sounding indifferent. “She’s such a good girl. She’ll settle down in a couple of days.”

He expected me to be just like before, begging him with puppy-dog eyes not to leave.

What Liang Yansheng didn’t know was that once a good girl like me reaches marriageable age, we always listen to our parents.

And so, while he was riding high on his own arrogance, I gathered my courage and asked the handsome man at my blind date: “If the child takes my last name, can you accept that?”

Li Xiuyi was my fiancé.

Yet, at his own birthday banquet, he announced that he was marrying another woman.

Everyone turned to look at me, their eyes filled with uncertainty.

Amidst the awkward atmosphere, I was the first to start clapping.

I even presented a ring as a blessing.

“I wish you a long and happy marriage, and may you be blessed with a child soon.”

I have been selling wontons in the capital for twenty years.

Prince Cheng’s Heir was galloping through the city when his horse’s hooves trampled my wonton stall. He even struck me with his whip.

The heir was incredibly arrogant. “You’re just a lowly commoner,” he sneered. “Even if I don’t pay you a copper, what can you possibly do about it?”

The next day, I went to the Capital Prefecture to beat the drum and cry for justice.

The Six Ministers of the Six Boards arrived in person, and the Left and Right Censors were present to observe the proceedings.

Marquis Ningzhao hauled the heir into the hall. “I’ve caught the little brat!”

The Emperor, seated upon the main throne, declared, “Beat this boy until even his father won’t recognize him.”

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?”

Before our wedding invitations could even be written, I was pinned down onto the Core-extraction Platform.

When the tip of Ning Changye’s sword pierced my chest, he suddenly coughed up blood before I did.

Only then did the entire sect see his Life Thread wrapped around my wrist.

But what they didn’t know was that if I failed to survive the next seven days, the Demon Abyss would tear open-and the person who truly deserved to die was still standing on the high platform, watching me with a smile.