Friendship

I was a third-rank hairdressing maid at Chengxi Palace.

My greatest pleasure each day was making Her Ladyship look beautiful.

What?

His Majesty had visited a dancing girl from Jiangnan?

Time for a fresh summer look full of little joys…

What?

His Majesty had developed a taste for exotic beauty?

Time for a midriff-baring outfit inspired by the flying celestial figures of Dunhuang…

My skills earned me the position of chief steward of the inner palace.

Then, when I turned twenty-five, I needed to leave the palace for a while.

The Noble Consort, who usually ignored everyone, clenched her teeth.

“I forbid you to go!”

The dignified, courteous Empress smiled gently.

“The palace rules are outdated.

It is time we changed them.”

But—but I was only going home to visit my family!

introduction:

[1v1 guaranteed sweetness + romance reality show + playfully going wild with memes + heartthrob + romantic battlefield + male lead]

Ning Xi lived for 21 years before realizing she was the universally disliked fake heiress in a novel where the rich family dotes on one child-a foil and stepping stone to the Real Heiress.

In the book, everyone who adored the Real Heiress got everything they wanted and became wildly successful, while anyone who went against her ended up miserable.

Ning Xi was silent. Ning Xi had an epiphany. Ning Xi got excited:

“I get it! I should chase after the Female Lead too! Be good to the Female Lead!”

So –

When the Real Heiress put on a brave face and spoke gently in front of Ning Xi’s fiancé, Ning Xi looked at her with genuine concern: “I know you want to be strong, but you don’t have to be strong anymore – I’ve got you!”

When the Real Heiress shed tears in front of Ning Xi’s Childhood Friend, Ning Xi yelled at him: “If you make her shed a single tear, I’ll make you bleed! If you break my sister’s wings, I’ll bring down your entire heaven!”

When the Real Heiress fainted in the arms of the Prince of Xiangcheng, Ning Xi swooped her up and warned him: “My girl – don’t touch, don’t steal, don’t even think about her. If you lay a finger on her, 110 takes me away, 120 takes you away!” (110 = police, 120 = ambulance)

When the Real Heiress was exposed for dating multiple guys and her reputation was ruined, Ning Xi fumed: “Even if we take ten thousand steps back, are those guys totally blameless?”

After going wild, Ning Xi’s whole mental state improved a lot.

But then, everyone else started acting weird.

The hot-tempered, sharp-tongued Childhood Friend started sending her abs workout videos; the cold fiancé’s eyes turned red and his voice shook as he begged her to get back together; the Villain Boss was willing to play the third for love.

Even the Real Heiress, who always put her down, was teary-eyed: “I thought I was just clever, but I didn’t expect you to truly love me.”

Ning Xi: ?

Everyone’s lost it…

I was a midwife.

Up in the hills, I found a pregnant woman.

She claimed to be the wife of the Marquis of Yongning.

She begged me to save her, promising to repay me a hundredfold.

I said nothing and quietly took her home.

To everyone else, she was my cousin, a rich merchant’s concubine who had come to me for shelter.

Because I had just returned from the Yongning estate.

Where I had delivered the marchioness’s baby.

The women in the detention center didn’t much like me.

Among all those streetwise girls, I was the only one who wore glasses.

When they finally asked what I’d done, I told them: I’d stolen five thousand yuan from my parents to go to Peking University.

They laughed and called me an unlucky kid.

The day I got out, my parents didn’t come.

A battered van did.

Blondie rolled down the window and told me to get in.

She was taking me to the station.

Qi He had spent three years trying to win me over, mistaking me for the heroine.

He sent me money, made transfers, and bought me a home.

I accepted it all without batting an eye.

I could hear his thoughts: Why hasn’t the romance progress gone up at all?

Am I not giving her enough?

I pretended I had no idea.

So he gave me more and more money.

Until one day, he finally realized he’d been pursuing the wrong woman.

My best friend and I ended up inside the same novel.

She was the scheming second male lead’s hopeless admirer.

I was the obsessive villain’s substitute lover.

In public, we pined for men who didn’t love us.

In private, we spent their money like there was no tomorrow.

After three years of living it up, the heroine—the woman they supposedly truly loved—came back.

Once we learned that both men would lose their minds over her, my best friend packed a little bag and knocked on my door late at night.

“I’ve saved enough.

Have you?”

“Not quite,” I said.

“But I can spend yours.”

So we faked our deaths and ran away together.

Three years later, she had the misfortune to run into her ex-husband.

“I’ll cover for you!”

I told her.

“Run!”

Then I turned around and walked straight into a solid chest.

The obsessive villain calmly undid his tie and bound my hands.

“Try getting away yourself first.”

Years ago, I saved the crown prince from a falling beam.

It broke my leg, and I became the capital’s notorious young lady with a limp.

Later, when he ascended the throne, he sat high in the imperial hall and asked what reward I desired.

Everyone thought I loved him deeply and would surely ask to enter his palace as a consort and remain at his side.

After all, no official family in the capital would take a woman with a limp as its mistress.

What they did not expect was that I would ask for a title of my own and the revenues of a thousand households.

As they whispered among themselves, no one noticed the faint tension in his brow vanish.

“Then let it be as you wish.”

On a family reality show, superstar Lu Ling was the pampered heiress from Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai, and award-winning actress Shen Fan was the Northeast’s eldest daughter.

Unremarkable me?

I was there to make them look good.

My family wasn’t helping.

In the trailer, their elders showered them with money or love.

My grandma kept telling me to quit showbiz.

“Girls should stay home.

They shouldn’t work.”

The internet tore into her.

[Another old relic.]

Then the full episode aired.

What Grandma had actually said was: “Why not just spend my pension?”

“By the time I’m gone, your dad should be retired.

You can spend his next.”

“I’ve been paying your social insurance at the highest contribution level.”

“By the time your parents are both gone, you’ll be collecting your own pension.”

The internet changed its tune instantly.

[People like this terrify me.]

[Don’t they say whatever you fear comes your way?]

In the year when I was at my most spineless, the Noble Consort called me oversensitive.

That very night, I took a rope to her bedchamber, intending to hang myself beside her bed.

Fortunately, she found me in time and rescued me in tears.

Later, a beauty newly arrived at the palace called me as stupid as a pig.

I said nothing.

I simply took out my rope.

The Noble Consort said nothing either.

She just kept slapping her.

“Even I daren’t scold her.

Who do you think you are?”

Yu Taozi has seen mysterious comments floating before her eyes since childhood, but only after learning to read does she discover the truth: her world is a romance novel, and she is the greedy country-bred villainess destined to be expelled for making the heroine cry.

When the rich male lead offers to keep her for one hundred thousand yuan a month, Taozi refuses to follow the script.

She rolls on the floor, demands justice, and turns every dramatic confrontation into a lesson in rural common sense.

Soon the heroine calls her an idol, the genius second lead begs to learn her farm skills, and the arrogant male lead is digging fields and getting rammed by pigs.

Taozi wants none of their romance.

She only wants to study hard, make her grandmother proud, and get into a good university.

But by derailing the plot, this simple country girl may give all of them a happier story.