Female Protagonist

I am the most ill-fated princess in history.

Widowed young, my homeland was invaded, I was carried off to a foreign land, and after suffering endless humiliation, I died at the age of twenty.

When I woke up, I thanked heaven it had only been a dream.

But then my maid told me that Father Emperor had betrothed me to the doomed Cheng Su.

In an instant, dream and reality overlapped…

Thinking of Cheng Su’s beautiful face, I steeled myself and made my decision.

“Tell Father Emperor I refuse this marriage!”

I spent eighteen years in a Buddhist temple.

Eighteen years later, I returned as Princess Chang’an. To compensate me for those lost years, the Empress Mother made a public promise: she would grant me any one thing I desired.

I looked around the room, my gaze landing on Wei Zhao, who shone brilliantly amidst the unremarkable crowd. Pointing at him, I declared, “I want him to be my Imperial Son-in-Law.”

Only later did I discover that Wei Zhao and my younger sister, Princess Kangle, were childhood sweethearts. They were a mere imperial decree away from being wed.

But what of it?

Even if I had known from the start, I still would have claimed Wei Zhao as mine!

My Miss is a traditional lady of the old school; the rules are etched into her very bones.

On their wedding night, the Chen Family Young Master, disdainful that she wasn’t a “modern woman,” didn’t even lift her bridal veil before climbing over the wall and running away.

Her parents-in-law, fearing she might do something drastic, sent people to stand guard outside her door all night.

But the next morning…

Miss appeared properly dressed and groomed, kneeling respectfully to serve tea to her parents-in-law. “Since I have entered the gates of the Chen Family, it is only right that I serve my elders.”

Three years later.

The Chen Family Young Master returned, bringing with him a woman dressed in a Western-style skirt and high heels.

Standing side-by-side in the center of the main hall, they declared that arranged marriages were a relic of the old feudal system and demanded a divorce from Miss.

In the silence that filled the hall, no one could bear to look at Miss’s face.

Only I saw-

As Miss lowered her gaze…

Very slowly, ever so slowly…

The corners of her lips curled into a faint smile.

For three nights in a row, my maid said the same thing in her sleep:

“It seems one of the chickens in the backyard is missing.”

I simply assumed she was exhausted from her daily chores and thought nothing of it.

That was until we encountered a landslide on our way to the Capital. My maid was killed in the disaster, but I was rescued by soldiers who arrived just in time.

Trembling and lost, I sought out the commanding officer, intending to reveal my true identity as the daughter of the Provincial Commander.

He glanced at the maid’s clothes I was wearing and suddenly asked:

“Are the hens still brooding lately?”

At Yuchi Wei’s wedding, I once fired an arrow that pierced through the bride’s red veil, killing her on the spot.

I did it because that woman was a spy.

In the aftermath, Yuchi Wei was moved to tears of gratitude. He promoted me to be his personal lieutenant.

Because of that proximity, he eventually discovered my secret-that I was a woman disguised as a man.

Five years later, on our wedding night, he walked into the room carrying a funerary urn he had cherished for years.

“I want you to experience the same thing I did back then,” he said. “To taste the bitterest pain at the moment of your greatest joy.”

Only then did I realize he had deeply loved that spy all along, and his heart had never changed.

He gouged out my eyes and crippled my hands so that I could never fire an arrow again.

Amidst a world of bloody light, I set the house ablaze, dragging him down to death with me.

When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day of Yuchi Wei’s wedding.

“General, do you think the woman who just stepped out of the bridal sedan could be that spy?” my subordinate whispered.

I stopped him, my expression indifferent.

“We are only here today to offer our congratulations. We will not discuss official business.”

It has been three years since I transmigrated into this brothel.

I have mastered the arts of seduction, and no one knows better than I how to make a man lose his very soul in ecstasy.

But then, I overheard a group of new girls gossiping.

“It’s hilarious. Our Flower Queen really thinks she’s living in ancient times.”

“A refined Female Doctor, tricked into working as a whore for three years. These rich people really know how to have a good time.”

“Do you think she’d go insane if she found out this was all orchestrated by her ‘Young Marquis’?”

“Shh! Every actor who comes in here has signed a life-and-death waiver. Who would dare let her know?”

I froze in place, as if plunged into a pit of ice.

Could it be that these three years of transmigration were nothing more than a scam?

Before I could regain my composure, the Young Marquis’s cold voice suddenly rang out from behind me.

“Fudong, what are you doing here?”

During the Immortal Sect Grand Competition, I cut out half my Golden Core to save my arch-rival, Gong Hegui, a man everyone else avoided like the plague. Three months later, my sect demanded my remaining half-core to extend the life of the “Child of Destiny.”

On the very day they were forcing me onto the sacrificial altar, Gong Hegui blocked the Sect Gate, Marriage Contract in hand, and declared he had come to marry me.

I am a Bone Demon, trapped for countless years within that cold, desolate graveyard.

No one can see me, and no one can hear me. I have spent centuries in solitary silence.

Until one midsummer, when the sun was shining just right.

A young girl came to sweep the graves, but she mistakenly offered her tributes to me.

I took a bite of a crisp peach and said, “Truly sweet.”

She froze for a moment, then covered her mouth and stifled a giggle.

“Next year, I’ll come again.”

True to her word, she returned year after year, bringing me crisp peaches every time.

Later, she died, and her remains were carelessly tossed into the graveyard.

Her five-year-old daughter, clutching the hand of a younger brother who had only just learned to walk, came to the graveyard day and night to wail for their mother.

I couldn’t stand the noise.

I possessed her body, crawled out from the straw mat, and clumsily gathered those two little brats into my arms.

“Keep crying, and Mother will eat you.”

Everyone knows I am merely a stand-in for the Northern Liang Crown Prince’s true love.

To coax a smile from him, I would don his beloved’s favorite dancing silks and dance until my feet were raw with bloody blisters.

To shield him from harm, I would take an assassin’s blade without a second thought.

The Crown Prince once remarked, “In the bedchamber, she at least has some use.”

The people sneered at me: “How shameless, doing anything just to claw her way to the title of Crown Princess.”

I remained silent, as I always have.

Because-

The Crown Prince? He is a substitute, too.

Pei Ling’an said he wanted to break off our engagement again.

This time, it was because I refused to give the golden hairpin I had won for my poetry to my younger cousin.

“The Shen Family has fallen. No matter which daughter I choose to marry, Shen Tongzhi wouldn’t dare say a single word against it.”

He rested his chin on his hand, looking at me with a faint, mocking smile. “Break the engagement, or give the hairpin to Yuchi. Shen Yusu, the choice is yours.”

Everyone was waiting for me to bow my head.

Just as I had done countless times before.

But this time, I only tightened my grip on the golden hairpin and said softly,

“Then let’s break the engagement.”