Mistaken Identity

On the day I was deposed and consigned to the Cold Palace, Yan Yuheng came personally to see me off.

Before the palace gates were locked, he asked whether I hated him.

I touched the old gold hairpin hidden in my sleeve and smiled. For three years as Empress, I learned to speak like her, to carry myself like her, and to love him the way she once had.

But even as I was dying, he never understood: I was never like Shen Zhaotang. I had only acted too well.

Because of a bet, Jing Shaochuan lost me to his twin brother.

I acted as if I knew nothing and spent a night of reckless entanglement with his brother.

The next day, I blushed and asked Jing Shaochuan to buy some ointment for me.

“Where are you feeling unwell?” He frowned slightly, his voice deep and cold.

I murmured softly, “You were too rough last night. You hurt me.”

Jing Shaochuan froze visibly.

I took a step forward, hugging him gently and intentionally acting sweet and spoiled.

“But, you were so different last night compared to how you usually are… I really liked it, though.”

The Crown Prince had always been generous.

When we were four years old, I noticed his body had one more piece of equipment than mine.

I told him I wanted one too.

He pulled down his trousers and was just about to snip off half to share with me when the palace servants discovered us. That year, I nearly passed away at the age of four.

And he nearly became Nine Thousand Years Old.

Two years after my daughter’s death, I traveled to the capital.

The people there asked me, “Who are you looking for?”

I replied, “I am looking for my child’s father. His name is Shen Zhao.”

Everyone laughed. They said Shen Zhao was the capital’s premier noble scion.

“He is Princess Xunyang’s Prince Consort now,” they said. “How could someone like you harbor such delusions?”

I laughed, too.

Good. Because the one I intend to kill is precisely the Prince Consort.

When my younger sister went to Songshan Temple to pray for blessings, she saved Prince Rui, who had been gravely wounded and fallen unconscious.

After Prince Rui woke, he left her a jade pendant as a token and promised that if she ever found herself in trouble, she could come to Prince Rui’s Mansion for help.

Two months later, I went to the mansion.

I said to Prince Rui: “Do you still remember what happened outside Songshan Temple?”

I claimed her deed as my own and successfully became his princess consort.

But in the second year after our marriage, my younger sister came to visit.

Right in front of Prince Rui, she took out that jade pendant.

After my sister was widowed, she applied for a new Beastman partner.

As fate would have it, she was matched with my husband’s twin brother.

Upon learning this, Jiang Xu held me in a daze, his eyes wide open the entire night. I, too, suffered a rare bout of insomnia.

It wasn’t until the early hours of the morning that I heard him finally lose his resolve.

He slipped outside to make a quiet phone call to his brother.

“Ah Chi, I really don’t want to spend my whole life missing out on her.”

“Just help me this once.” “Don’t worry, Wen Ning is dim-witted; she’ll never realize you’re pretending to be me.”

“Remember? She already mistook us for each other once before.”

“Wen Lin hasn’t met you yet either, so even if I take your place for a few days, she won’t notice.”

“I’m begging you, just for a week. One week is all I need. I just don’t want to live with any regrets…”

He kept pleading until the sun began to rise.

Only then did Jiang Chi finally agree to pose as his brother to stay with me. At that moment, Jiang Xu and I both breathed a sigh of relief.

He never knew. In truth, I was just like him. I, too, harbored the regret of an unrequited love.

While I was hauling cement at a construction site to pay off my debts, the scrolling comments said I was the villainess.

The year I was most desperate for money, I copied the female lead, Su Wanwan, and got close to the male lead, Gu Zhiyan, before she could.

Because Young Master Gu was just that rich.

Even a little money slipping through his fingers would be enough for me to pay off my debts and cover my tuition.

I was a penniless wretch willing to do anything for money.

To win the favor of that cold, aloof young master, I spent a whole year pretending to be a pure, fragile Little White Flower.

Just when I was about to succeed in capturing his heart and marry into wealth, Su Wanwan suddenly appeared in front of Gu Zhiyan.

I thought my strategy had failed, but my debts were paid off anyway.

So I stopped pretending and went back to the slums.

On the night I had nowhere to go, I met a mission-taker.

He mistook me for the female lead and took me home.

My boyfriend was acting strange while we were getting intimate.

I was wearing the lace lingerie he’d been looking forward to for so long, yet he wouldn’t even touch me.

The lights were off as I leaned in and breathed into his ear, “I have a surprise for you. Do you like it?”

His breathing became ragged.

I felt a surge of joy, thinking it was finally working.

I hooked my arms around his neck and kissed him even more fervently.

But just then, my boyfriend’s voice suddenly drifted in from outside the door.

“The lights are all on, so why is no one here?”

I froze instantly, my blood rushing to my head.

If Jiang Chen was outside, then who was the man I was holding right now?

I am the Crown Princess.

The Crown Prince’s concubine came before me to flaunt her success. “I am already with child, yet you haven’t even been graced with his favor yet, have you, Sister?”

Rather than being angry, I was overjoyed. I fervently instructed the Imperial Physician, “You must ensure the child is protected at all costs.”

I have waited three years for the Eastern Palace to be blessed with a pregnancy.

Now, I can finally dispose of the father, keep the child, and rule from behind the curtain.

In my third year of disguising myself as a man and sneaking into the Prince’s Mansion to work as a guard, I got involved with the prince’s male favorite.

I had meant to cut things off with him and sever all ties for good.

But whenever he took my hand during our secret meetings, my resolve would crumble.

And just like that, spineless and useless as I was, I committed a capital offense.