Female Protagonist

In the year of severe famine, Mother took me to Prince Zhong’s Mansion, a place so distantly related it could hardly be called kin, to seek charity.

We came back with eighty taels of silver and a cart of grain, which we shared with the villagers.

In exchange, the whole village was abuzz with rumors.

The villagers gossiped that she had traded her chastity for grain. After my father divorced her, she hanged herself with a hemp rope, swaying there with her eyes open.

Later, after Prince Zhong’s Mansion fell, the Little Commandery Princess from the mansion, who had once given me a Golden Phoenix, was kidnapped and sold into the brothels.

I pretended to redeem her, then robbed her of her last few pieces of silver.

People-aren’t they all like that?

My older brother was eighteen when he was married off as a live-in son-in-law to my sister-in-law.

My sister-in-law said that if he gave her a child, she’d reward him by letting him continue his studies.

Later, the day my brother passed the imperial exam, Father still refused to give up and asked,

“Son, now can my grandson change his surname back to mine?”

I am an old palace maid.

I have spent thirty-five full years in this deep palace.

The Chinese parasol tree before Qingliang Hall flourishes year after year, while I grow older with each passing year.

In this lifetime, I have seen the young and inexperienced Consort Zhen pass away, the Consort Yu in the prime of her beauty pass away, and even the white-haired Empress pass away.

They all died in the bloom of youth, crushed beneath the weight of imperial power.

Within these deep palace walls, how many beautiful women’s skeletons lie buried?

Five years after her elder sister fails to produce an heir, concubine-born Song Yao is forced into the palace as the Song clan’s replacement pawn. With her mother and ailing brother held hostage, she turns the family’s coercion into a weapon, pledging herself to a ruthless emperor while plotting to dismantle the clan that murdered her brothers. In a harem ruled by rival families, every act of devotion is a gambit—and Song Yao intends to survive long enough to claim the board.

I had the sharpest tongue in all of Chang’an.

It was so vicious that I was still unmarried at twenty.

When the dauntless Zhao family finally came to propose, I resolved to mend my ways, retire my lethal mouth, and become a quiet, lovely bride.

On our wedding night, my husband – famed for being as gentle and refined as jade – lifted my veil and rubbed his hands together in excitement.

“I hear that when my lady curses someone out, they have to rewrite their entire family tree before dawn?”

I hurried to reassure him. “Don’t worry, Husband. I’ve turned over a new leaf.”

Zhao Yuanxiu waved both hands, so anxious that he began to stammer.

“No, no, no.”

“From now on, my lady, please be even more ruthless. Spare no one.”

Me: What?

I had a boyfriend who checked every box.

From his face to his body to his personality, he fit my tastes perfectly.

So perfectly it felt like a romance scam tailor-made for me.

Until that day, when I saw the bullet comments.

[The Female Supporting Character doesn’t actually think the Male Lead likes her, does she?]

[If his Simp Bro hadn’t threatened to jump off a building, why would he have spent so much time with a woman he doesn’t love?]

[The Simp Bro likes the Female Supporting Character himself, but he’s too insecure to confess, so he can only quietly play the role of her best friend.]

[And just because the Female Supporting Character said she was interested in the Male Lead, he actually trained his own bro into shape and sent him over to be her boyfriend. That’s insane.]

[It’s fine. Once the Female Lead shows up, the Female Supporting Character will learn the truth, and then the Male Lead will dump her.]

Stunned, I turned to look at the boyfriend beside me.

His brow was furrowed, and he looked a little impatient.

Then he said,

“No matter how long you stare at me, I’m not wearing it.”

“This outfit is seriously too much.”

On the second day after learning that I was the impostor daughter, I finally lost control of my unhealthy obsession with my big brother.

I locked him in the basement, kissed him, and climbed all over him.

Then, during the day, I pretended nothing was wrong and helped the whole family search for their long-missing eldest son.

Like a rat in a sewer, I let myself sink deeper and deeper into a mire of despair.

An impostor daughter was unlikeable enough already.

Once they found out I was a pervert in love with her own brother, they would surely be disgusted by me too-wouldn’t they?

Then one day, my entire family began plotting right in front of me.

“Zhexue, your big brother has to appear at an international conference, so can I let him out for a little while?”

“Just half an hour. I promise we’ll lock him back up before you get home!”

Me: “?”

Cheng Xi once mistook Yan Jin’s possessiveness for devotion, but his attention fades until she can hear the impatient thoughts he hides behind a perfect smile.

Just as their relationship fractures, Qin Zheng—the dangerously obsessive first love she never truly forgot—returns from abroad determined to reclaim her.

Caught between a boyfriend who realizes too late what he has lost and an ex learning that love cannot be a cage, Cheng Xi must decide which kind of devotion she actually wants.

When General Lin Zhao returns from the northern frontier with a beautiful, unconventional young woman, Cheng Qingqing fears she is about to lose the husband she has loved since childhood.

Then Xu Liuzhao tells her an impossible truth: their world is a book, and Qingqing is its doomed heroine—a treasured canary destined to be abused, blamed, and caged by three powerful men.

Xu Liuzhao came to save her.

To survive, Qingqing must unlearn everything she was taught about love, obedience, and a woman’s place—and discover how far she is willing to go to claim her freedom.

I was the poor relation living under the Marquis of Ning’an’s roof.

When the marchioness saw my flawless complexion and natural beauty, she decided I should become her eldest son’s honored concubine.

My cousin, the heir, refused.

“With her background and her looks, if I took her in, what position would that leave my future wife in?”

Oh, what an exceptionally decent man. A pity he wasn’t meant for me.

So I put the thought aside and sensibly found another path for myself.

But just before my wedding, my cousin seized me and refused to let go. His eyes were bloodshot as he trembled. “You can’t marry him! I won’t allow it!”

“…”

The betrothal gifts had already arrived, and my dowry list was finished.

Who did he think he was, telling me not to marry now?