Love Triangles

I chased after He Chenyi for six years, coming whenever he called, leaving whenever he waved me away.

While he was holding another woman and drinking a wedding toast, I was diagnosed with Leukemia at the hospital, with only three months left to live.

Later, he knelt by my hospital bed, crying and begging me to accept a bone marrow transplant.

How ridiculous. I never even wanted to live.

When I first started dating Xie Mingchen, he had absolutely nothing to his name.

My friends all told me not to be a fool. They said that with my looks and background, I could find any wealthy man I wanted; there was no need to suffer alongside him.

Now that he’s become the high-flying President Xie, a darling of the venture capital world, those same people say I only won out because I made my move early.

They claim that with his current status, surrounded by women of every shape and beauty, I wouldn’t even stand a chance otherwise.

Even my mother has switched sides. She keeps telling me to lower my guard and learn how to act vulnerable. She warns me not to spend all these years with him only to end up with nothing.

I couldn’t help but snap back, “If he doesn’t bring up marriage, am I supposed to beg him for it?”

“That stubborn streak of yours is going to be your downfall!” My mother sighed, frustrated by my lack of initiative. “What else are you going to do if you don’t play along? Are you really going to let someone else enjoy the shade of the tree you planted yourself?”

I didn’t want to argue; I just felt wronged.

Why was it that in this long-drawn-out relationship, I was the one who did the hoping and the one who felt the disappointment? And now, I was still the one expected to drop hints and nudge him into finally taking action.

Before we married, my husband had a girl who had spent five years chasing him with everything she had, but he fell for me at first sight.

Three years later, that girl returned to the country, successful and famous. She was now an internationally renowned photographer, dazzling and breathtakingly beautiful.

As for me, I was a stay-at-home mom, weighing over 130 pounds, with nothing to show for myself.

At a gathering, someone teased Lu Huaixu.

“Qin Shuang is still a virgin for your sake…”

He snapped at the person immediately, “Don’t talk nonsense!”

But that night.

He stayed out on the balcony, smoking for the entire night.

Because he was poor, Zhou Jinyan never brought up the subject of marriage.

That was until the day I saw him casually open a bottle of wine that cost as much as my entire annual salary.

It turned out that being born into royalty and living a life of luxury was the true Zhou Jinyan.

His friend asked, “Aren’t you tired of playing the pauper after five years? When do you plan to come clean with her?”

Zhou Jinyan flicked his eyelids open with nonchalance. “On the day of the engagement, I suppose.”

I didn’t get hysterical. On the day of his engagement, I boarded a plane and crossed the ocean.

I later heard that on the day of his engagement,

He suddenly had a change of heart midway, driving back to an old rental apartment.

When he saw that the place was empty and I was gone, he completely lost his mind.

I was dating eight boyfriends at the same time.

They all treated me as a stand-in for someone else.

But I didn’t care.

As long as the money was right, they were all my precious darlings.

Later, they found out about each other.

And they absolutely lost it.

I found the secret crush diary of the gloomy top student.

[Today was the physics final. Rice Ball Classmate sat right in front of me. Her neck is so long and white; I really want to grab it and kiss her.]

[I dreamed about her dancing last night. Can I just lock her up and make her dance for me alone?]

[Rice Ball Classmate came to ask me a question today. Her hair kept brushing against my arm. It was so itchy I almost lost control.]

[That guy from the next class keeps coming to see her, and she actually smiles at him. I really want to dispose of his body and then lock her away.]

[I accidentally picked up Rice Ball Classmate and brought her home. I’m holding back so much I’m going crazy.]

[Saw Rice Ball Classmate eating ice cream. I’m using my mind to soul-travel into that ice cream.]

Reading this diary made my face flush and my heart race. I quickly put it back where I found it.

That top student usually looks so cold and aloof, like he has no desires. Who would have thought he was such a pervert behind closed doors?

This Rice Ball Classmate is way too pitiful.

Even after I returned to my seat, my heart was still pounding with lingering fear.

Just then, the top student, Shi Jianjin, walked over. “Meng, I bought an extra rice ball. Here, it’s for you.”

Huh?

Seeing my confused expression, Shi Jianjin casually flicked my forehead. “Don’t you always eat rice balls? Rice Ball Classmate.”

Rice Ball Classmate?

Me: ???

I was the unloved young lady of the Marquis Mansion.

My father gave me to my elder sister’s fiancé and forced me to bear his child.

I was compelled to write a breakup letter to the man I loved.

“How could a Mountain Village Bumpkin ever be worthy of a lady of my station?”

Later, the bumpkin from that letter had risen to the highest ranks, and he mocked me with disdain,

“And you, an Abandoned Wife – how could you ever be worthy of me?”

I became a simpleton while saving my childhood friend.

He promised to repay me by finding me a good husband.

“Tonight, a man will collapse at your doorstep,” he told me. “That is the husband I have chosen for you.”

I followed his instructions to the letter.

Half a year later, my childhood friend returned from the borderlands.

I excitedly introduced my husband to him:

“This is the husband you picked for me back then. He’s a wonderful man, and he even said he wants to make me his Crown Princess.”

He froze in his tracks, his face turning deathly pale.

“It was supposed to be a beggar… How could it be the… Crown Prince?!”

During the first year of our marriage, at my birthday banquet, a songstress appeared wearing a silk dress identical to mine.

My husband’s expression turned ice-cold. “Someone, strip that dress off her.”

He was clearly defending my honor, yet I felt not a single spark of warmth in my heart.

For I knew that he was also the man who had once spent a fortune on that very songstress and made a pact to elope with her.

The day I died of illness, the entire palace was shrouded in grief.

Only Emperor Yan Lang was not sad; he was merely a bit annoyed.

He was annoyed that half a month ago, because he wanted to invest my sister, Cui Mingshu, as Noble Consort, I had a massive argument with him and had yet to bow my head and admit my fault.

He was annoyed that the tactless officials from the Ministry of Rites were kneeling outside the hall, claiming they did not know how to determine the Empress’s posthumous title, write her biography, or arrange her burial in the imperial mausoleum.

Memorials piled up on his desk like snow on the eaves, as the hundred officials exhausted every flowery word to speculate on the Son of Heaven’s whims.

They suggested posthumous titles like ‘Virtuous,’ ‘Moral,’ ‘Gentle,’ and ‘Respectful,’ yet I was once the woman who, because someone had skimped on Yan Lang’s rations, chased that eunuch through three streets with a knife like a common shrew, cursing him the whole way.

They described my life as ‘noble and carefree,’ yet after his enthronement, he and I did nothing but argue or give each other the cold shoulder.

It seemed I was always crying-always weeping.

When it came to the matter of the imperial mausoleum, Yan Lang finally recalled a sliver of my merit.

Having been husband and wife, he was not stingy in granting me glory after death, graciously permitting me to sleep in the same tomb as him.

Before the vermilion ink of his approval for our joint burial could dry, Aunt Sun, the head maid of Jianjia Palace, was already kneeling respectfully outside the hall. She said the Empress had a final request she wished to be granted.

Yan Lang likely guessed what it was.

In all probability, she wanted to bow her head and admit her mistake, then ask for a grander posthumous title, an honorary rank, and for him to forbid Cui Mingshu from entering the palace.

“The Empress does not wish to be buried with you. “She said this life was too wretched; she never wants to see you again, neither in the blue vault of heaven nor the yellow springs of the underworld.”