Friendship

The day my fiancé came to break off our engagement, my mother was so excited that tears streamed down her face.

As it turned out, I was not her biological daughter.

She had adopted me only so I could take the calamity meant for her real daughter.

She said, “Now that the ordeal has been fulfilled, you ought to return to your own family.”

I packed my bundle. There was little I could take with me, which made for easy travel.

My birth mother was waiting by the back gate.

She had a booming voice and had come driving an ox cart-every inch an uncouth peasant woman who knew nothing of proper manners.

Because of her, everyone in the Marquis Manor looked down on me even more.

And yet, the one who would bring me back to the capital in splendor was precisely her.

After Huang You wakes in the middle of the night and overhears two ghosts talking about hidden money, greed pulls her into a deadly game of fortune, curses, and borrowed fates.

Her roommate Wanting insists the ghosts are Water Ghosts looking for a Substitute, but each warning only makes the promised wealth harder to resist.

As more secrets surface, Huang You realizes that both the ghosts and Wanting are hiding their true intentions.

To survive, she must decide whom to trust before her Eight Characters, her life, and even her body are stolen by forces that have been circling her from the start.

I had a dream while boating on the lake with my friends.

In the dream, a man told me he had taken a liking to me and demanded that I marry him.

I refused.

The next day, a female classmate on the boat vanished without a trace.

When I dreamt again that night, I agreed.

He laughed with joy, but unfortunately for him, he had no idea that I am the sole Earth Master successor.

The celebrity Zhu Yuan is dead. I still hate her. She always made me feel as wretched and hidden as a rat scurrying across the street.

And yet, I found her third gift. It was a plain music box sitting in the hospital corridor.

I casually handed it to the child in the neighboring bed.

She was dying, too.

In the Fifth Year of Taiyuan, at the Start of Summer, a princess died in the Beiliang Royal Palace.

And a toad.

Anping was that unfortunate princess.

And I was that unfortunate toad.

Fortunately, since her death, I have become her.

Jiang Yu broke up with me again.

This time, I planned to do what I did when he first dumped me at eighteen-go clear my head by the river.

But the wind off the water was freezing, so I decided to just head back. On the way home, I passed a barbecue stall. I thought I’d be like my twenty-year-old self, too heartbroken to swallow a single bite.

Instead, I found that the owner’s grilling skills were actually top-notch.

When I finally made it home, I intended to write him one of those long, pleading essays for a reconciliation, just like I did when we went through our routine breakups at twenty-two, twenty-three, and twenty-four.

But then my boss told me I had to go on a business trip. After nearly a month of being busy, I was practically entering a second honeymoon phase with my career in a neighboring city.

Jiang Yu finally couldn’t hold out any longer and called me. “Why haven’t you come to apologize yet?” Only then did I realize I’d forgotten something. Going through a breakup when you’re a little older is truly a hassle.

I could only ask him tentatively: “I’m so sorry, really. I’ve been so busy lately that I forgot to write the essay.” “How about… we just stay broken up?”

When the Sword Venerable stood at the entrance of my Milk Tea Shop, sword in hand, the entire Sect thought he had come to demand an accounting for some grievance.

Only I knew that he just wanted to cut the line again for a cup of full-sugar milk tea with no ice.

But today, even the Demon Realm Young Master, the man destined to trample the Cultivation World underfoot a century from now, was standing behind him, clutching a queue number and waiting for me to call his turn.

My boyfriend’s manipulative junior had tried to steal him away from me one too many times. Finally, I reached my breaking point and gave him a piece of advice.

My boyfriend replied, “Got it.” The next day. The junior said, “Good morning, Senior! What a coincidence, seeing you here again.”

My boyfriend replied, “Good morning. I’m gay.” The junior: “?”

I have been selling wontons in the capital for twenty years.

Prince Cheng’s Heir was galloping through the city when his horse’s hooves trampled my wonton stall. He even struck me with his whip.

The heir was incredibly arrogant. “You’re just a lowly commoner,” he sneered. “Even if I don’t pay you a copper, what can you possibly do about it?”

The next day, I went to the Capital Prefecture to beat the drum and cry for justice.

The Six Ministers of the Six Boards arrived in person, and the Left and Right Censors were present to observe the proceedings.

Marquis Ningzhao hauled the heir into the hall. “I’ve caught the little brat!”

The Emperor, seated upon the main throne, declared, “Beat this boy until even his father won’t recognize him.”

After I died, my bones became the sword in his hand.

Little did he know that I rarely exercised while I was alive, and I’d developed osteoporosis at a young age.

The sword forged from my bones was sharp enough, but it lacked resilience.

The very first time he used me, someone lopped off his head.