Female Protagonist

I was once the hardworking, dedicated wife of a low-ranking official.

But when my husband decided to take a concubine, I simply stopped caring.

“I’m going back to inherit the throne.” Xie Canghuai froze. “Stop messing around. There’s a limit to how much you can act out just because you’re jealous.”

I told him I wasn’t joking. I really did have a throne to inherit. “I can’t give you the position of Imperial Husband, but you can start as a Selected Attendant.” He thought I’d lost my mind and locked me away in a rural manor.

Me: “?” Why couldn’t we just do this the easy way? Do I really have to summon my eight thousand secret guards and give him a wicked smirk?

Third Miss Liu did not have a very good reputation.

When she was fourteen, she threw a length of white silk over a roof beam and hanged herself, an act that stripped the primary wife of her power to manage the household.

The entire capital whispered that she was far too calculating for such a young age.

When she was seventeen, she sat atop a wall and tossed her silk pouch into the arms of a complete stranger.

Once again, the capital buzzed with rumors, claiming she was conducting a private affair and lacked any sense of shame.

Her father was so livid he was practically hopping mad, threatening to have her drowned in a pond. As soon as this news broke, General He grew anxious.

He was the capital’s most notorious man fated to kill his wife. And he had just accepted Third Miss Liu’s pouch.

Zhao Qingzhu and I were betrothed through an exchange marriage.

The agreement was that his older sister would marry my older brother, and I would marry him.

He was a scholar, which meant his education was a money pit.

My family had to tighten our belts to provide for him, and the entire village laughed at us for being fools.

But five years later, he passed the imperial examinations with top honors and became the most sought-after bachelor around.

Suddenly, everyone was saying I was no longer worthy of him.

On the day of my hairpin ceremony, my brother-in-law, tipsy from wine, barged into my room.

That same night, my mouth was gagged and I was taken to the Marquis’s Mansion.

My legitimate elder sister told me she could not bear children and needed to borrow my womb.

A year later, I gave birth to a son.

My legitimate elder sister brought me to the Bamboo Garden, where four old maids covered my mouth and buried me in a pit they had dug long before.

Before I died, I kept wondering what the point had been of someone like me coming into this world.

But I never imagined that I would be dug up again.

The person who found me was small and thin, yet he staggered along with me on his back for ten miles.

He covered me with the only clothing he had and gave me a chance to live.

An old man took me in. From that day on, I changed my name and became someone else.

Five years later, my wonton shop opened in Capital City, and I happened to run into my legitimate elder sister and her family being sold off.

She begged me to save her son.

But I pointed to the young man kneeling off to the side and said, “I’ll only save him.”

Fu Qiu had always accepted her lot in life.

When she was a child, a blind man read her fortune through bone-weighing and said her bones were light, her fate was lowly, and that in this life she could only sell her body.

As it happened, her family was going through hard times, so her father simply sold her to a brothel.

When she was still young and first put on display, the madam said that although she was beautiful, her face carried a pitiful, sorrowful look, and the customers she attracted would never be decent men.

Sure enough, every few days, she suffered another bout of abuse.

By middle age, her looks had withered, and she married a merchant. The neighbors said her thin lips and fox-like eyes meant she would never be the faithful sort.

Before long, rumors were flying everywhere. The merchant could not bear it, and on a rainy night, he drove her out of the house.

Even so, she never hated anyone. She only hated that her own fate was so poor.

As she lay on the verge of death, the Old Blind Man happened to pass by drunk, bragging to the crowd.

“Twenty years ago, I saw a little girl in another town. She was so young, but she already had the looks to topple a kingdom.

“So I pretended to be blind, did a bone-weighing for her, and told her she had a lowly fate-that in this life, she could only become a whore.

“And guess what? Her whole family believed me!”

“Madam, I’m planning to take a concubine.”

When Duan Qing said that, I was ironing the ceremonial robes he would wear to the palace tomorrow.

At his words, I nearly knocked over the iron brazier full of burning charcoal.

He sat there with one leg crossed over the other and went on as if it had nothing to do with me. “I’m bringing Miss Zhou into the household. A noblewoman from the former dynasty. You’ve met her.”

“Back when I followed the Emperor to fight for this empire, I lived with my head tied to my belt. Now that I’ve been made a duke, what’s wrong with taking the legitimate daughter of a marquis’s household as a concubine?”

“Old Han’s family are illiterate peasants, and even he married a girl from an earl’s household as his second wife!”

I looked at the utter entitlement on his face.

Then I took a deep breath. What was meant to come had come at last.

At thirty-eight, after spending half my life enduring hardship with him, it was time I enjoyed some peace and comfort.

And so, in the year I turned thirty-nine,

I decided to become a happy widow and savor the good life.

At my elder sister’s engagement banquet, the man who was meant to become my brother-in-law suddenly turned to propose to me instead.

“Wrong. I wish to marry the Second Miss.”

Everyone was thrown off by this turn of events, not knowing how to react, but once they recovered they forced a smile and congratulated me.

Only my elder sister came to find me late at night. “In a past life, he and I spent over fifty years together. It was only after I married him that I learned there was another woman he loved.”

“For those fifty years, we fought constantly because of that woman, until we grew to despise each other. If you don’t want to marry him, sister can help you reject this match.”

But I declined her kindness and still intended to marry him.

I have no romantic feelings for him. Whether he loved one woman or several was something my elder sister cared about; I did not.

In the second year after my husband took a mistress, I heard a voice:

“A man who won’t behave? Break his legs, and won’t he behave then?”

I had spent two years in the Buddhist shrine, chanting sutras day after day, trying to cleanse myself of my sins.

But I could never understand what my sins were.

Everyone in the Ling Family blamed me for being unable to keep my husband.

Being childless was a sin. Being jealous was a sin.

That voice had to be guidance from heaven.

At last, I understood. If his legs were broken, he would no longer be able to leave.

So when Ling Xu came to the Buddhist shrine once again to ask whether I agreed to let his mistress enter the household,

I snapped the candle off the candlestick and drove the copper spike into his leg.

My family had three daughters, each lovelier than the last.

When we came of marriageable age, suitors nearly wore our threshold smooth.

Even the Emperor decided to interfere.

He insisted that one of us marry the great general, Xie Yuan.

Father and Mother could do nothing but sigh.

My two elder sisters exchanged uneasy looks, so I rose with righteous resolve.

“What’s there to worry about? Marrying a general would be glorious, and I might even get to ride a great stallion!”

“If neither of you will marry him, I will.”

Later, Xie Yuan pinned me in his arms and coaxed me again and again:

“Are you shirking again, Mianmian? Why won’t you ride your great stallion tonight?”

I had profaned the divine after all.

The aloof, ascetic monk from the altar now stood inside my red-draped bedchamber, tearing off his prayer beads as he clasped my ankle, his Adam’s apple shifting.

“Little Highness, this humble monk has broken his vows.”