First Love

There’s something worse than being the third wheel when two of your friends start dating.

It’s when they break up. And then fight over custody of me.

I was the concubine Madam forced on the General.

She was testing whether his heart had strayed.

He remained perfectly unmoved and ordered me to copy scriptures all night to prove his devotion.

And me? My hand ached. So did my heart.

In the third month after our wedding, Shao Zhi took me back to Luoyang to pay respects to his clansmen. Along the way, he carefully explained the web of interests within his clan.

When he mentioned his eldest brother, his face filled with pride.

“My eldest brother is a very good man. He taught me riding and archery himself! ”

Now he serves in Luoyang as the Central Army Commander.

He is the one we are going to meet today.

” I hated Luoyang. There, someone had once forced me to drink a ladle of water from the Luo River and swear an oath: from then on, we would each marry another and never disturb each other again. Clutching the konghou in my arms, I only lowered my head and tried to refuse. ”

Ah Zhi, I was once a music courtesan.

I fear I might sully your honored brother’s eyes and ears.

It would be better if I did not meet him…

” Shao Zhi gathered me into his arms with pity and held my hand, telling me not to worry. ”

He won’t mind. I’ll secretly tell you a bit of gossip about my brother.

Before he married my sister-in-law, he once turned the whole world upside down over a music courtesan who played the konghou.

Later, afraid my sister-in-law would grow jealous, he forced that courtesan to drink from the Luo River and swear that they would each marry another and never disturb each other again.

“Besides, you are my wife now, and you play a fine twenty-three-string konghou. For my sake, my brother is sure to like you.”

After starting high school, I was taken in by the Xu Family.

The Xu family had a golden boy, Xu Ge, whom I secretly admired for three whole years.

But in Xu Ge’s heart, there was a perfect white moonlight.

The day his white moonlight went abroad, he sat red-eyed in a dim bar corridor for an entire night.

That night, the rain was pouring.

I left my only umbrella at the corner, then quietly slipped away.

Many years later, Xu Ge and I crossed paths again at a gathering.

I was there to pick up a friend who was dead drunk.

Through the smoky haze, a man in a gray hoodie nonchalantly pushed open the door, still surrounded by a flock of girls.

I watched for a moment, pretended not to recognize him, lowered my gaze, and left. Outside, the rain was pouring, and I stood at the door fretting.

Just then, an umbrella was handed to me from behind.

The hand holding it had a pale, strong wrist.

The man in the hoodie spoke softly: “Ruan He. “This umbrella of yours-you left it with me all those years ago.”

I have an older sister and a younger brother. With my plain looks and mediocre grades, I was always the most unremarkable person in my family.

Yet, I found myself harboring a secret crush on the sun-like Shen Dongye.

I spent three years chasing his light, and after checking my college entrance exam scores, I finally plucked up the courage to confess my love…

Three years after my death, Zhou Jibai won his first Best Actor award.

At the awards ceremony, the host asked, “At this moment, do you have any words you’d like to share?”

Zhou Jibai dialed a number, but no one picked up. A mocking smile played on his lips. “On the day we broke up, someone told me that if I ever won Best Actor, she would jump off the eighteenth floor.”

“Why is she afraid to answer the phone now? She didn’t actually jump, did she?” I was currently floating right beside him, trying to touch that trophy, but I nearly choked back to life at those words.

… Zhou Jibai, how rude can you get?

The first time I stayed over at my boyfriend’s place, his ex-girlfriend suddenly burst into the bedroom in the middle of the night.

I could clearly feel his body stiffen. The room fell into a dead silence.

“Song Yuan,” she choked out, her voice so hoarse it was barely recognizable.

But he acted as if nothing was happening, pinning my wrist down and nonchalantly continuing to kiss me.

During my first year of graduate school, I hailed a ride and ended up in a Maybach.

That was when I met a man.

And from that moment on, the trajectory of my life was changed forever.

To win Jiang Bai over, I, a spoiled little princess with a monthly allowance of hundreds of thousands, spent three whole years pretending to be dirt poor.

All just so I could mooch meals and drinks off him.

But now his “white moonlight” has suddenly returned, and she even had the nerve to mock me for being a broke loser.

Fine! Great! You want to see who’s richer?

I’m done pretending!

The year I graduated from high school, I rejected Gu Cong’s confession in front of the entire school.

I told him I already had a boyfriend.

He nodded politely and turned to leave.

At four o’clock the next morning, he boarded a plane to study abroad.

As for me, I continued my routine, heading out before dawn to snag a spot for my breakfast stall.

Eight years later.

Clutching my last seven thousand yuan, I boarded a train to the Capital with my gravely ill daughter in my arms.

After reviewing her medical records, the doctor shook his head.

“There’s probably only one doctor in the entire Capital who can perform this surgery.

“He’s a specialist who just returned from abroad. He once performed a successful operation on a patient with a condition very similar to your daughter’s.”

As he spoke, he called out to the man behind me with pleasant surprise.

“Let me introduce you. This is the man I was talking about-Gu Cong, Dr. Gu.”