Nobles

I risked my life to save the Commandery Prince and my half sister from drowning.

But because my clothes were soaked through,

they slapped me with the filthy accusation of “deliberate seduction and forcing a marriage to climb the social ladder.”

From the woman who had saved their lives, I became a scheming tramp reviled by all of the capital.

On the day of our wedding, Murong Ling did not even lift my veil. His eyes were filled with disgust.

“You used such despicable means to force me to marry you. I, the Commandery Prince, will never let you have an easy life.”

Yun’e, whom I had dragged ashore with my own hands, twisted her handkerchief, her face full of grievance.

“What a deep schemer you are, Sister. When you saved me, you were swift and decisive, yet under the water, you lingered so intimately with the Commandery Prince for so long…”

I had poured my heart out to save two lives, only to end up condemned from both sides.

I endured every torment the Commandery Prince’s Manor could throw at me.

When I opened my eyes again and saw the two of them bobbing in the river,

I neatly changed direction.

Then I strolled into town and bought a skewer of candied hawthorns.

I took a bite-

So sweet.

For five years, I brought meals to the scholar next door.

When he passed the imperial examinations as Tanhua, he did not come back to marry me.

Others laughed at me for being foolish. Though it hurt, I still waved it off and pretended to be carefree.

Then, one year, Mother was beaten half to death by the principal wife. Clinging to what little old affection remained, I cast aside my dignity and went to beg him.

I begged him to find a way to invite Doctor Dong, the most renowned physician in Shangjing City, to come take a look at her, and to help me obtain some good medicine for my mother.

The scholar advised me with a troubled expression, “It isn’t that I won’t help you. It’s just… how could I possibly interfere in your father’s inner household? I know Mother has been wronged, but as a concubine, how could she never suffer a beating?”

Years later, the scholar was implicated by others and demoted, and came to beg at my door.

By then, I was already Lady Jun, a First-rank Imperial Mandate Lady, not someone ordinary people could meet at will.

People of the time had a saying: Better to offend Lord Zichen than to offend Lady Jun.

I idly picked at the gold foil on my nail guard and said slowly,

“It isn’t that I won’t help you. It’s just… I am only a woman of the inner quarters. How could I possibly have any say in affairs of court? Besides, as an official and a subject, how could one never suffer a grievance?”

On the day of the grand wedding, every guest in the hall witnessed Ah Ying take a sword strike intended for Gu Yanzhi.

No one knew that the blades, arrows, and poisons she had endured for him throughout her life were already enough to have killed her many times over.

All she had ever waited for was to die in his arms and hear him call her name just once.

“Madam, I’m planning to take a concubine.”

When Duan Qing said that, I was ironing the ceremonial robes he would wear to the palace tomorrow.

At his words, I nearly knocked over the iron brazier full of burning charcoal.

He sat there with one leg crossed over the other and went on as if it had nothing to do with me. “I’m bringing Miss Zhou into the household. A noblewoman from the former dynasty. You’ve met her.”

“Back when I followed the Emperor to fight for this empire, I lived with my head tied to my belt. Now that I’ve been made a duke, what’s wrong with taking the legitimate daughter of a marquis’s household as a concubine?”

“Old Han’s family are illiterate peasants, and even he married a girl from an earl’s household as his second wife!”

I looked at the utter entitlement on his face.

Then I took a deep breath. What was meant to come had come at last.

At thirty-eight, after spending half my life enduring hardship with him, it was time I enjoyed some peace and comfort.

And so, in the year I turned thirty-nine,

I decided to become a happy widow and savor the good life.

Everyone in the capital said that a first-rank maid from the Prime Minister’s Residence was worth more than the daughter of a fifth-rank official.

As the personal maid to the prime minister’s daughter, I had followed the Fourth Young Lady since childhood, learning to read and write at her side.

I understood literature and ink, knew music, and was versed in arithmetic.

When I was nineteen, the merchant Wen Family of Qingzhou, eager to attach themselves to power, came specifically to ask for my hand-a mere maidservant’s-in marriage.

The Fourth Young Lady showed me grace, acknowledged me as her sworn younger sister, and married me off in splendor.

I had thought the inner courtyard of a merchant household would be simple. I never imagined its waters would run as deep as those of the Prime Minister’s Residence.

The Second Branch eyed the account books with envy, while the concubines banded together to put me in my place.

On the day I served tea to my elders, Concubine Zhou “accidentally” knocked over the teacup, and scalding water splashed across the hem of my newly tailored Su embroidery skirt.

I lightly brushed my fingers over the ruined twining lotus pattern on the fabric, then suddenly smiled.

Since some people insisted on throwing themselves onto the edge of a blade-

Then I would show them exactly what the methods of the Prime Minister’s Residence looked like.

I am the Old Madam of the Marquis’s Mansion, and I wanted to save my granddaughter, who had been drugged.

Instead, I was forced by the lust-addled Prince Regent.

After one night of passion…

Me: “???”

Prince Regent: “???”

Chapter 0

I was the most beautiful woman in the capital, but because I was a little slow by nature, no one dared to marry me.

The Fifth Prince pined after my legitimate elder sister to no avail, then gave up on himself and married me as her stand-in.

He mocked himself, saying, “A fool and a cripple. I suppose we really are a perfect match.”

Very generously, I comforted him. “From now on, I’ll be my elder sister’s stand-in, and you’ll be the Crown Prince’s stand-in. We can still live our lives just fine.”

At the homecoming banquet, I watched the Crown Prince and my elder sister exchange tender looks.

The Fifth Prince’s expression was terrible, and my heart ached bitterly too.

Everyone else laughed at us, calling us a lovesick man and a resentful woman.

After we returned home, the Fifth Prince wrapped his robes tightly around himself and sneered, “Don’t even think about touching a single finger of mine tonight!”

I obediently lay down beside him and repented.

Sigh. It was my fault. I had stared at the Crown Prince for too long.

I was half-asleep when the Fifth Prince suddenly shoved me.

Furious, he snapped, “Shen Yufu! Are you really that honest?! I told you not to touch me, so you actually didn’t touch me?”

I said honestly, “All right, then you pretend to be the Crown Prince, and I’ll pretend to be my elder sister.”

The Fifth Prince bit my lip, forcing me to shut up.

I thought to myself, Didn’t we agree to be each other’s stand-ins? Why is he angry again?

The Fifth Prince’s heart is truly hard to figure out.

The day I died was the day my betrothed celebrated his wedding.

In a ruined temple on the outskirts of the city, blood poured from my eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. I lay collapsed over a prayer mat, weeping before the long-dust-covered statue of Guanyin.

In this life, this humble believer had never wronged Heaven or Earth. So why had I ended up betrayed and abandoned by everyone?

Guanyin did not answer. She only gazed down at me with compassion.

Outside the door came the hurried thunder of hooves. Someone, carrying the chill of the night on his shoulders, was walking toward me.

My eyes could no longer see. I could only turn uselessly in his direction and beg in a hoarse voice,

“Whoever you are, please… give me a proper burial. In my next life, I will repay you.”

Trembling, he gathered me into his arms. A single scalding tear fell onto the center of my brow.

On the night of the first snow, the cold was bitter.

The young granddaughter, cherished like a pearl in the palm of the Marquis of Loyalty and Valor, died in the wilderness at the age of sixteen.

My fiancé returned from the front, and with him he brought a woman.

She wore a long crimson robe, a curved saber fastened at her waist. She rode in through the city gates on horseback, bold and dazzling, like the wild azaleas that set the mountains ablaze in spring.

“So this is the kind of girl Ning Zhen likes.” She folded her arms and looked me over, one brow lifting. There was no telling from her tone whether she was pleased or displeased.

Ning Zhen only glanced at her helplessly. “A childhood promise can hardly be taken seriously.”

What a fine thing to say-a childhood promise could hardly be taken seriously.

I had waited three years for him, only to be given those words.

Marrying Zhao Yunyan, Duke Wei, was hardly a joyous occasion.

He had a cherished concubine, an understanding childhood sweetheart who knew his heart.

He also had a red rose who had once saved his life, a woman he kept outside the manor in a relationship no one could quite explain.

One had accompanied him through childhood; the other had dazzled him in his youth.

No matter how one looked at it, there was no place left for me, his lawful wife.

Mother wept and said I was too simple and straightforward by nature, that I would never be able to warm my husband’s heart.

How was I supposed to live like that?

I comforted her.

I did not seek true love, nor would I harm any concubine.

If I held on to my dignity and cherished myself, how could I not live well?