Female Protagonist

Lin Wanrou was twenty-four this year, an old maiden who still had not married.

Madam Lin’s standards for a son-in-law had fallen from imperial kin to any promising young talent with ambition.

She refused to believe that, with the Grand General’s influence, she could not raise up one dragon among men as her son-in-law.

Lin Wanrou did not want to marry. She would rather stay at home for the rest of her life.

My younger sister gave birth to a son in the Eastern Palace.

I brought a fortune in family wealth and cartloads of rare medicinal pills with me to the palace to visit her.

The moment she saw me, she nestled into my arms and began to cry, tears falling one after another.

Her movements were intimate, her voice soft and spoiled. There was not the slightest trace of distance or unfamiliarity between us.

And yet my entire body went rigid, a chill crawling up my spine and sinking into my heart.

Because the face before me, identical to my sister’s in every way,

was not the dead woman’s skin I had sewn onto her with my own hands.

The night I married Pei Guanli, I cried so hard I soaked half my bridal veil.

Not because I didn’t want to marry him, but because everyone in the capital knew that Pei Guanli was more upright and proper than the ancestral tablets in a shrine.

He oversaw ceremonial protocols at the Ministry of Rites and revised the dynasty’s statutes and rites.

If a family used the wrong ritual vessels at a wedding, he could remember it for three years.

If someone wailed one time too many at a funeral, he could submit a memorial impeaching them straight to the emperor.

As the daughter of a merchant family from Jiangnan, this was exactly the sort of man I feared most.

Before my mother sent me into the bridal sedan, she clutched my hands and cried even harder than I did.

“Ah Ning, once you reach the Pei Family, speak less, smile less, and eat less.”

I asked, “Why eat less?”

Choking back sobs, my mother said, “Noble young ladies in the capital eat as delicately as if they’re painting flowers. You eat three bowls in one sitting. You’ll give yourself away too easily.”

I paused, suddenly feeling that before this marriage had even reached the bridal chamber, I had already lost on appetite alone.

I had transmigrated into an unfavored consort in the imperial harem.

Before I could even process that, a line of blood-red text appeared in midair:

[Your identity as a transmigrator has been exposed. Run!]

What?

My life came first, so I immediately made a break for it.

But along the way, as I fled, I discovered something.

The palace matrons, eunuchs, guards, and even the consorts from every palace began joining in one after another.

Every single one of them claimed to be a transmigrator.

Had I stumbled into a whole nest of transmigrators or what?

After we crossed the final palace gate, the emperor, leading the Imperial Guard, had us surrounded on all sides.

The young ruler looked at me at the head of the group and let out a cold laugh. “Su Cairen, are you planning to rebel?”

I glanced back.

Good heavens. The runaway party behind me had nearly grown into an army!

When I transmigrated into the role of the true heiress, a universally disliked person, the story had already reached its end.

The fake heiress, doted on by all, had won everyone’s affection, leaving me to be cast out onto the streets. Destitute and adrift, I still clutched a half-eaten meat bun made from lymph node meat in my hand.

Such a miserable script gave me not a shred of will to live.

I lifted my head to look at the clear blue sky, my expression serene and relaxed. I was fully prepared to give up, contemplating whether to follow the original owner into the afterlife and elegantly choosing between a car crash or jumping off a building as the more dignified demise.

Just then, a passing gang of robbers dragged me into a car.

They pressed sharp knives to my throat, grinning ferociously:

“Don’t move! This is a robbery! Call your family right now and have them send five million in ransom.”

“If you dare make a sound, I’ll send you straight to hell!”

As expected, heaven has its own plans.

I nodded contentedly with a smile, tossed the bun aside, and screamed at the top of my lungs:

“Help!”

During the years I spent as a concubine in Changning Marquis Manor, I humbled myself in every possible way to win Marquis Shen’s favor, stooping low and fawning over him without shame. In the end, he still gave me away as easily as one might hand off an object.

And yet, one day, his eyes would redden as he murmured by my ear, “Shiyi Niang, I miss you so much I’m going mad.”

Hah. Men.

At a family gathering, my younger sister, holding my boyfriend’s arm, beamed as she announced they were getting married.

With a room full of guests, I, dressed in monastic robes, faced their gazes with a calm expression.

Amitabha, I am a monastic.

The story of Lin Wei, the eldest daughter of the Lin Family, being forced into monastic life by her family, had long been known to all.

I’m the number one antique appraisal streamer on the entire internet.

Because I’m good at what I do, have a terrible temper, and always look like I rolled out of a dumpster, netizens jokingly call me “Mei Chaofeng.”

It’s perfectly normal for viewers who join my livestream to get roasted by me.

“Sister Chao, how do I turn on my camera?”

“Figure it out yourself. You’ve got two eggs hanging under your eyebrows, but all they do is blink instead of see.”

“Sister Chao, what do I do if I can’t switch screens?”

“You’re a living, breathing person. Don’t tell me you’re going to let a piss break kill you. Just go be stupid somewhere else.”

“Sister Chao, does this look authentic?”

“Calling that garbage would be an insult to waste sorting.”

Until the person who connected with me was a pure, handsome hunk with the sweetest, softest little vibe.

His face flushed red as he held up a pile of “junk,” fumbling all over the place.

“Sister… I’m sorry… I couldn’t figure out how to flip the camera.”

And there I was, chin propped in my hand, smiling as gentle as could be.

“It’s okay. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know how. I’ll teach you, okay? No rush.”

The viewers in the livestream couldn’t sit still anymore.

[Did she just change faces???]

[Double-Standard Sister!!!]

After I found out the handsome guy’s family had gone bankrupt and he’d been forced to become a male model, I verbally advised him to get out of that line of work as soon as possible.

In my heart, however, I was already calculating how to get my hands on him for a little fun.

But later, the “junk” he took out turned out to be more valuable than the last.

Among them, that emerald gemstone haunted my every thought.

The pitiful little thing transformed into a noble young master. He loomed over me, trapping me in the corner of the bed.

The outer corner of his eye, marked with a tear mole, curved slightly as his predatory gaze swept inch by inch over my skin.

At his fair throat, the emerald swayed gently.

“Give me what I want, Sister, and I’ll give you what you want.”

The first time I met Li Shuyu…

He had black hair, black clothes, and black-rimmed glasses.

He looked ascetic and buttoned-up.

Only after spending some time with him did I realize just how wrong I had been.

This seemingly aloof man would take off his glasses at night,

put in his lip stud and tongue stud, and say thickly,

“Don’t tremble, jiejie.”

After graduating from college, I moved into a shared rental with my rich second-generation boyfriend and started a business from scratch.

I was the one building the company. He was the one suffering through it with me.

Every day, I came home exhausted to our small apartment.

And every time, he would have a fragrant, steaming meal ready for me.

Life was hard, but we both felt happy.

Until one day, I saw the barrage comments:

[Oh my god, the male lead is still here suffering through this startup with his ex-girlfriend. When is the female lead finally going to show up?]

[The male lead is still too young. His parents already paved a golden road for him, but he refuses to take it and insists on staying in a rental eating instant noodles with his ex.]

[It’s fine. Once the ex-girlfriend’s startup fails and she starts drinking and getting violent, and later even cheats on him right in front of him, he’ll obediently go back and inherit the family business.]

[But honestly, summer, a rental apartment, bare skin, heads down and working hard… the sexual tension between these two is insane.]