Female Protagonist

In the third year of my secret crush on Zhou Jinghe, we got married. A year later, at a ski resort, his close friend and I both found ourselves in danger at the same time. Zhou Jinghe rushed over, shielding that female friend as they tumbled to the ground. As I fell onto the snow, I suddenly felt that everything was utterly meaningless. And when something is meaningless, it should simply be thrown away.

Young General Yan was having a spat with the girl who held his heart.

During the night banquet, he had hidden a stem of Evening Magnolia.

He declared that whoever found that flower would become the General’s Wife.

The noble ladies all turned their heads, scanning the room to see where the Evening Magnolia had landed. I remained silent.

I simply used my foot to quietly kick away the flower lying behind my seat.

A moment later, Yan Ci’s nonchalant voice rang out. “I wonder which lady has picked up my flower?”

On the day His Majesty traveled south to Jiangnan, the Empress Dowager took a liking to Miss Xu of the Xu Family in Yangcheng.

“Such a lovely, fresh-faced child ought to become a daughter-in-law of our imperial family.”

As she said this, the Empress Dowager’s gaze seemed to drift, intentionally or not, toward Fu Yanli at my side.

Fu Yanli was the current Fifth Prince, and also my husband.

Later, on the day Miss Xu was to be invested as consort, I stood at the palace gates, clinging to a sliver of hope. “Not even I may enter?”

The guards at the gate all knew me. One by one, they lowered their heads, not daring to meet my eyes. “The Empress Dowager said it wouldn’t matter if anyone else came, but Your Highness, as Crown Princess… you absolutely cannot enter the palace today.”

I nodded, returned to the manor, and picked up the bundle I had packed long ago.

The capital blazed with lights. All at once, I remembered Fu Yanli from that year, when everyone had turned their backs on him.

He had held me tightly, refusing to let go no matter what. “Jianxi, even if I die, I will never betray you.”

I was the Young Master’s maidservant, and I stayed by his side through every hardship.

When other servants tried to steal the credit that was mine, I put on a bitter little act to make him pity me.

When someone poisoned him, I risked my life to save his.

Step by step, I became the person he trusted most, hoping that, for the sake of all we had been through, he would help erase my name from the slave registry.

But once his wings had fully grown, he destroyed my freedom with his own hands.

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.

Song Qi drew a dare: check his phone.

Of everyone in his contacts, who had he told “I love you” the most?

The class beauty: three times.

Me: 972 times.

The jeering around us died at once.

The class beauty burst into tears.

In front of everyone, Song Qi deleted my contact information, then smiled as he coaxed her.

“That’s worth crying over?”

“You know I only dated her for three months to keep up an act.”

“Nothing I said to her was real.”

Those nine hundred-odd declarations had all come from one drunken night.

Song Qi had crouched by the roadside, impossible for anyone to pull away, his head bowed as he sent me the same three words over and over.

“Once I send you ‘I love you’ 999 times, the bet is off.”

“Then we’ll be together for real, okay?”

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.”

My cousin’s parents passed away, so my Imperial Mother brought her into the palace to live with us.

From then on, she enjoyed the favor of my parents, the protection of my elder brother, and the devotion of my younger brother.

Even my fiancé praised her for being exceptionally gifted and refined.

There was only one exception. His heart and eyes were filled only with me, never swayed by any outsider.

I married beneath my station to become his wife, and for a time, we lived a life of joy and freedom.

But later, he died-stabbed countless times before being hurled off a cliff.

I am Cui Yin, the eldest daughter of the Vice Minister of Rites.

I was raised in my maternal grandparents’ home since I was a child.

When I was seventeen, they brought me back to the capital, each of them appearing kind and benevolent.

But in private, my grandmother was indifferent, my father despised me, and my Stepmother Su hid a dagger behind her smile.

My older brother, born of the same mother, warned me, “Cui Yin, you must know your place and behave yourself. Otherwise, I will not show you any mercy.”

My innocent and romantic younger sister said with a beaming smile, “Sister, you grew up in a rural manor, and the clothes you’re wearing are quite out of fashion. I’ve gathered a few pieces I no longer wear to give to you.”

They even planned to marry me off as a successor wife to a profligate from the Commandery Duke Manor, a man who had beaten his first wife to death. …

Before entering the capital, I had originally intended to hang myself.

It was my maid, Huaihua, who desperately clung to my legs.

“Miss! Miss, don’t die! People from the Cui Family of the Capital have arrived. Let’s go to the capital and find some fun!”

I am ill; I suffer from hysteria and have no interest in life.

When I lose my mind, I only find pleasure through killing.

Well then, I hope they can bring me some joy.

After I went blind, lines of broken, disjointed text began to appear before my eyes.

[The princess is so pitiful. She injured her eyes saving her cousin, but right now, that very cousin is next door, rolling around in bed with the princess’s brother.]

[Too bad the princess can’t see. If she could, she should immediately bring people over and catch them in the act.]

My cousin had lost her mother when she was young.

The Empress Mother pitied her and had her enter the palace to serve as my study companion.

But several of my imperial brothers were always bullying her.

They liked seeing her teary-eyed, timid, and pitiful. I stood up for her, only to have my eyes injured by one of my imperial brothers.

I became blind. So it turned out that, behind my back, they had already become so intimate.

I did not go and catch them in the act as those lines wanted.

Instead, I had someone inform my other two imperial brothers.

My cousin was so pitiful. Surely she deserved a few more people to love her.

Later, I ascended the throne as Empress Regnant.

My cousin received the love of three of my imperial brothers.

All of us had bright futures ahead.