Marriage

During the year of our purest love, Chen Ming and I shared a kiss in front of everyone when we won the Zhengfa Cup debate competition.

But later, when our son was diagnosed with autism, we both came to regret it.

After ten years of love, the wear and tear of life had transformed us from a match made in heaven into a pair of bitter rivals.

Time skipped forward to our son’s fifth birthday.

Chen Ming and I were in the car, arguing once again over our child’s illness.

Right in front of our son, we cursed each other, screaming for the other to drop dead.

The next second, an out-of-control heavy truck barreled toward us.

Chen Ming went against his instincts and jerked the steering wheel to the right, but the violent impact swallowed all the shouting and cursing anyway.

When I woke up again, we were back on the day we won the Zhengfa Cup.

This time, facing a stadium full of cheering and jeering, we pretended we barely knew each other.

I married a man three years my senior, and everyone said he was head over heels for me.

But not long after our wedding, he cheated.

He smoked, he drank, he got into fights, and he even kissed other women right in front of my face.

He did everything I hated most.

Duan Yi took a drag from his cigarette, looking down at me through hooded eyes. “What? Regretting it now?” Clutching the divorce papers in my hand, I took the glowing, red-hot cherry of his cigarette and ground it hard into his palm.

“Duan Yi, you ruined me. You should have died back when you loved me most.”

Duan Yi acted as if he had just heard the funniest joke in the world, his shoulders shaking with laughter. “That actually hurts.”

I am a Jiao who has failed the Zoujiao process several times. To leech off some immortal energy, I specifically sought out a Heartless Dao Sacred Body Snake Clan Husband.

In theory, every time he goes through a molting, he should forget a portion of his past.

By the ninth time, all his memories of the mortal world should vanish, leaving nothing but his Dao Heart.

But even after eight rounds of molting, he still remembers that he loves eating roujiamo!

The crispy kind! Just as I reached the end of my rope and was planning to slip him some poison… A danmaku drifted past. [Here it comes! The Villainess Supporting Character is finally going offline!]

My husband absolutely loathed his new graduate student.

He even went so far as to cause a scene in front of the Dean, demanding that she be transferred to another research group.

He claimed she was morally corrupt and a disgrace to academia.

That was, until the fire alarm went off. His custom-made suit was soaked through as he draped it over her head.

He pushed past me, carrying her in his arms like a princess as he rushed down the stairs.

I was the quietest, shyest girl in the village.

And yet, every night, I went to the ruined temple to seduce the village’s only scholar.

The scholar never took the bait. Disheartened, I decided to steal all the money from home and run away.

He stopped me. “We agreed. When I make something of myself one day, you have to leave on your own.”

I nodded as fast as I could.

Later, he really did pass the imperial examinations with honors, and I finally gained the ability to support myself. So I asked him to sign the divorce papers.

His eyes were bloodshot. “You want to leave me?”

The night I married Pei Guanli, I cried so hard I soaked half my bridal veil.

Not because I didn’t want to marry him, but because everyone in the capital knew that Pei Guanli was more upright and proper than the ancestral tablets in a shrine.

He oversaw ceremonial protocols at the Ministry of Rites and revised the dynasty’s statutes and rites.

If a family used the wrong ritual vessels at a wedding, he could remember it for three years.

If someone wailed one time too many at a funeral, he could submit a memorial impeaching them straight to the emperor.

As the daughter of a merchant family from Jiangnan, this was exactly the sort of man I feared most.

Before my mother sent me into the bridal sedan, she clutched my hands and cried even harder than I did.

“Ah Ning, once you reach the Pei Family, speak less, smile less, and eat less.”

I asked, “Why eat less?”

Choking back sobs, my mother said, “Noble young ladies in the capital eat as delicately as if they’re painting flowers. You eat three bowls in one sitting. You’ll give yourself away too easily.”

I paused, suddenly feeling that before this marriage had even reached the bridal chamber, I had already lost on appetite alone.

On the final day of the divorce cooling-off period, I waited for Yuan Shiyu at the Civil Affairs Bureau for three hours.

The person who eventually arrived wasn’t him; instead, it was a hospital representative delivering a critical condition notice and a last letter.

Everyone thought he had finally agreed to let me go. Only I knew that the first sentence of that letter read: Wantang, I’m sorry, I really can’t make it this time.

Liang Yu had always thought the first time they met was at an amusement park. But in fact, it was not.

Those days were marked by endless rain, and even her memories carried a damp, overcast gloom.

That morning, her older sister developed a fever again. She lay in bed, sleeping through the entire day until night fell.

After getting married, I found out my husband had once loved an ex-girlfriend deeply.

On the eve of her wedding, that woman drove through the night and gave herself to him, just to say goodbye to her youth.

When I found out, my husband begged me not to expose it. “Otherwise, her whole life will be ruined.”

Five years into my career, people called me pale, skinny, young-looking, and a fake-innocent schemer.

Meanwhile, my stunt double used me as a stepping stone to climb her way up, becoming wildly popular with an occult persona.

On shows, she told fortunes for celebrities, saying she had learned it from her boyfriend.

That boyfriend she kept talking about was the eldest son of a famous Occult Family.

But when she and I ended up on the same paranormal variety show, her talismans suddenly stopped working.

As for me, right in front of an audience of tens of millions, I took down a whole pack of ghosts with my bare hands.

“You want to be my nephew’s wife? Did you get my permission first?”