Politics

My younger sister eloped with a penniless scholar, and her cold-hearted fiancé broke down my door, demanding that I take her place.

I was so scared I clutched my waistband and begged for mercy.

“Brother-in-law, how can you blame this on me?”

The two cinnabar moles beneath his eyes were as red as blood, and his tone was utterly indifferent.

“An elder sister is like a mother. In other words, every grievance has its culprit, and every debt has its debtor.”

“So, are you coming with me on your own, or am I dragging you away?”

Th-thrilling. Was this the domineering forced-love plot they wrote about in storybooks?

The weak could not fight the strong, so I was just about to get out of bed when I realized my sister had run off wearing the only pair of padded winter pants in the house.

Left with no choice, I lay right back down.

“Forget it. It’s freezing out, so let’s not move.”

“If you’re going to seize me, then seize me. Hurry up, while the blankets are still warm…”

“…”

-A laid-back heroine who sleeps through the abduction x an action-oriented hero who carries on abducting while she sleeps.

The Emperor brought a beauty back from Jiangnan and declared his intention to make her his Empress.

I adamantly refused.

“Empress Dowager, why? She and I share such a striking resemblance; it’s a sign we’re meant to be!”

You have the nerve to say that? You’ve gone and dug up the illegitimate daughter I hid so far away!

My Mother was a courtesan, earning money with her own flesh and blood to support my father’s studies and imperial examinations.

Five years later, my father succeeded and was granted marriage to a princess by the Emperor.

Yet, in the Golden Throne Hall, he refused the marriage at the risk of his own life, and with great fanfare, married my Mother with ten miles of red bridal procession.

The princess was displeased.

Three days later, Mother was found abused and disheveled, dying at the entrance of an alley.

Half a year later, the princess finally married my father as she wished.

She did not know that this was the beginning of her misfortune.

I am the best cook in the capital. No one has ever said my food was bad.

That is, until my noble ex-fiancé-the one who broke off our engagement-ate a meal I prepared.

“This tastes awful. It’s a good thing I didn’t marry you.”

I calmly packed away the bowls and chopsticks. “It’s your Last Meal Before Execution. You’re still being picky?”

That’s right. I am a cook who specializes in delivering the Last Meal Before Execution to death row prisoners.

The emperor woke from a nightmare in the dead of night. In his dream, he had a daughter who had been lost among the common people. So he offered a handsome reward for any news of the princess’s whereabouts.

Everyone said His Majesty was a man of deep feeling.

But I knew there was another reason behind it.

The capital had gone a full year without rain. National Preceptor Xuanxiu advised the emperor that the only way to end the drought was to sink a princess into the river as a sacrifice to the gods.

The emperor had only one daughter, born of the Empress, and he treasured her like the apple of his eye.

And so, at long last, he remembered that sixteen years ago, when he had been living among the common people, he had once had another daughter.

He offered a great reward to find her so that daughter could take Princess Mingzhu’s place.

And die.

The first thing Lu Xiangzhi did after becoming the top scorer in the imperial examination was divorce his wife.

“The Shen family woman is virtuous enough, but far too dull.”

He married a woman from a brothel, while I remarried a spoiled heir.

Lu Xiangzhi believed I had only married that ignorant, good-for-nothing dandy out of spite.

He thought a Shen family woman valued wifely virtue above all else, while that dandy was too unruly to be managed.

It would not be long, he assumed, before the man grew tired of a dull woman like me.

He waited half a year, yet never heard that I had been cast aside.

When Lu Xiangzhi finally could not resist coming to see me, I was holding a discipline ruler and tapping my dandy husband’s head with it, rather helplessly saying, “The teacher explained it three times. You still don’t understand?”

My dandy husband wrapped an arm around my waist and grinned like a shameless rogue.

“I don’t. I want a kiss.”

After our entire household was seized, My Lady became pregnant with our enemy’s child.

“What does a mere blood feud over a murdered father amount to?”

Faced with my disbelieving question, she gently stroked her swollen belly.

Her face was full of happiness.

The way I went from a Little Beggar to the Heir Apparent’s fiancée felt like a dream.

That day, I was crouched on the ground, gnawing on a coarse corn bun while watching two nobles argue.

They were like a pair of fighting roosters. It made for excellent dinner entertainment.

The Girl in Red sneered. “I would rather marry a fool or an idiot than ever marry a useless good-for-nothing like you!”

The Brocade-clad Youth roared back, “I would rather marry a chicken, marry a duck…” Halfway through, he pointed at me.

“I’d rather marry this Little Beggar than ever marry you!”

The Girl in Red looked at my dazed, foolish expression and laughed from sheer anger.

Her voice went taut as she said, “Fine! If you don’t marry her, you’re a cowardly bastard!”

I was the founding Imperial Tutor of a dynasty.

I came here burdened with a mission from the System: to save a collapsing, chaotic realm.

In the end, all I earned was the hatred of countless people.

The young chief minister I had known since our youth became a stranger to me, standing against me at every turn.

The Guardian General I had personally promoted despised me for monopolizing power and ruling the court as a dictator.

And the Young Emperor, the boy I had raised with my own hands… He hated me most of all for tearing him away from the one he loved.

So they laid a trap for me and forced me to drink poisoned wine, driving me to take my own life.

Then, after my death… They summoned a shaman to call forth my memories.

They wanted to expose every evil deed I had ever committed to the world.

But later, after each of them had seen my memories… Every last one of them went mad.

My parents had always favored me most.

But on the eve of the imperial capital’s fall, they fled with the entire family-and somehow forgot to wake me from my sleep.

When I woke up, the courtyard was deserted.

Yet the moment I turned my head, I realized I wasn’t the only one who had been left behind.

The illegitimate son my father had with his mistress was still here too.

He stared at me without blinking, the look on his face hovering somewhere between a smile and a sneer.

“Second Sister, how did you end up reduced to the same state as me?”

Father and Mother will definitely come back for me.

The words were about to burst from my mouth, but I paused.

Then I cleared my throat and put on a calm, unbothered expression.

“I was the one who refused to leave.”