Military

I married a pig butcher in my young mistress’s place. On our wedding night, I said, “From now on, you slaughter the pigs and I’ll sell the meat. As husband and wife, we’ll work together and make a good life for ourselves. When we have children, we’ll send them to school and do our best to free them from the fate of becoming butchers.”

Then my rather handsome husband pressed a hand to his forehead and laughed.

When the palace announced that I was being elevated to Noble Consort, everyone in my family looked grim.

Everyone understood the principle that great merit can threaten the throne.

My father’s achievements were already so great that there was nothing left to reward him with.

This rank of Noble Consort was a naked warning.

If I wanted to keep my whole family safe, I had to hand the emperor a weakness of mine-something he could hold over me and use to put his mind at ease.

Father, Mother, your daughter is off to be arrogant by imperial command!

Starting today, I’m going to be the most outrageously overbearing little menace in the harem!

After winning the war, I entered the capital, and the Old Emperor asked what reward I wanted.

I pointed at the handsome man in purple robes and a golden belt standing in the hall. “I beg Your Majesty to grant me a marriage. I am carrying his child, and he promised he would marry me!”

The elderly eunuch beside the emperor hurriedly tried to stop me. “General, mind your words. This is the Second Prince.”

A faint, languid voice sounded behind me. “Whose child are you carrying?

“Isn’t your belly full of roast duck, roast chicken, candied hawthorn, red bean pastries, dried sweet potatoes…”

I turned to look, only to find that the handsome man who had just spoken looked exactly like the Second Prince.

I made a split-second decision and cupped my fists toward His Majesty. “If that one won’t marry me, this one will do!”

The elderly eunuch was beside himself with panic. “My dear ancestor, this is the Crown Prince!”

My younger sister and I were both princesses of a fallen kingdom.

The day our capital fell, enemy soldiers came to violate us, and my sister shoved me forward.

She thought I was certain to die.

Instead, the enemy’s young lord rescued me, and I later became his Noble Consort.

My sister was reduced to slavery and suffered every day.

Consumed by hatred, she killed me—and was reborn alongside me.

This time, she rushed to leave with the enemy soldiers first.

“Sister, this time, I will be the Noble Consort.”

What she did not know was that I had never wanted to be a consort.

With royal blood in my veins, if I was to become anything, I would become the empress who restored our kingdom.

When the Imperial Astrologer declares twin princesses an ill omen, one of them must be sent to the brutal frontier.

In their first life, Princess Jinghua remains in the palace, only to be poisoned by her embittered sister.

Reborn together, her sister seizes the chance to stay, certain that Jinghua will suffer in her place.

Instead, Jinghua grows into a formidable warrior and strategist while her sister’s stolen palace life collapses around her.

With Great Zhou weakened by betrayal and Jiang’s monstrous emperor demanding a bride, Jinghua transforms a marriage procession into an army—and sets her sights on the throne itself.

By imperial decree, I was forced to marry into the Xiaoshan Earl’s Estate as the heir’s second wife.

I had heard that my future mother-in-law was cruel, my sisters-in-law were impossible, and my husband kept a pampered concubine so vicious and overbearing that she had driven his first wife to her death.

Every respectable family in the capital avoided the place like the plague.

Before I climbed into the bridal sedan, Mother clasped my hands with tears in her eyes.

“My daughter, you must be careful.”

“Don’t kill anyone in your husband’s family. Your father will have a hard time explaining it to His Majesty.”

The general saved a woman.

Then he asked me to surrender my place as his lawful wife.

I held the divorce paper and laughed coldly.

“Gu Nianwu, success has gone to your head.”

You may command a thousand troops, but I command ten thousand ghosts.

Without me, where would all your glorious victories have come from?

I am the most unwanted true heiress in the capital.

My mother took one look at the rough, simple-minded girl who had grown up on the frontier and acted as though she wanted nothing to do with me.

She gave me a purse of silver and coldly sent me away. “Consider it your dowry.”

I was about to leave with my head hanging when my elder brother and half-sister stopped me.

My brother saw that I was beautiful and wanted to use me to win over powerful men.

My half-sister thought I was a fool and wanted to keep me as the maid who washed her feet.

My mother burst into tears and tried desperately to drive me away.

That was when I realized she had never refused to acknowledge me—she was afraid she could not protect me.

The servants tried to hold me there by force.

In the struggle, a jade pendant fell from my sleeve.

My half-sister’s face changed the instant she saw it. “Where did you steal this?”

I answered honestly, “A gentleman with an eye condition gave it to me after I saved his life.”

My father rebelled, and I became a noble legitimate princess.

Then, after taking the throne, he decided to make his old flame empress and force my mother to step aside.

Who could possibly tolerate that?

I command a hundred thousand soldiers and have won glory on every battlefield, yet he wants my mother reduced to a concubine—who does he think he is?

When I was eight, a lame Daoist wandered into our village.

Mother took pity on him and poured him a cup of water.

He declared that of the three of us siblings, one would become the supreme sovereign, one would become the mother of the realm, and one would stand in a doorway and sell her smiles.

My elder brother had studied since childhood, so naturally he was destined to become the supreme sovereign.

My little sister was beautiful, so naturally she would become the mother of the realm.

And naturally, the one fated to sell her smiles from a doorway had to be me.