Revenge

On the eve of my wedding, my biological father, stepmother, and fiancé conspired to commit me to a mental asylum.

My crime? Being so “insane” that I attacked someone with a knife.

Three years later, I was discharged with a ten-billion-dollar inheritance that requires only my signature to claim.

Everyone expects me to still be a lunatic, but this time, I’m going to make them pay.

While I am at my most lucid, I will reclaim the lives, the money, and the truth they owe me, one debt at a time.

On the day of our wedding, my wife stood on the roof of the building, clad in a pure white gown.

She wept as she asked me, “If I die, will the people who hurt me feel any remorse?”

“They won’t feel a thing,” I replied. “But I will kill them. I’ll make every single one of them follow you to the grave. If you still love me, if you can’t bear to see me become a murderer, then don’t jump. I’ll take care of you for the rest of my life.”

She wiped away her tears and forced a faint smile. “I’m sorry, but I can’t hold on anymore. Every single day I’m alive, I just want to die.”

I looked at her, a wave of desolate sorrow washing over me.

I loved her.

But if she jumped, I would understand.

In Jiangnan, the Shen Family possessed a secret technique passed down through generations: the ability to embroider a person’s final appearance before they died.

For thirty years, my father embroidered for the powerful and elite, never once making a mistake.

That was until he died in his embroidery room, and on the Death Portrait before him-depicting a face bleeding from every orifice-was me.

After I died, my bones became the sword in his hand.

Little did he know that I rarely exercised while I was alive, and I’d developed osteoporosis at a young age.

The sword forged from my bones was sharp enough, but it lacked resilience.

The very first time he used me, someone lopped off his head.

Before she died, my closest friend gave me two things.

A piece of skin she had cut from her own body, and her lover.

She asked me to use that skin to make a shadow puppet for the opera…

I think I understood what she meant. She was telling me: Ah Mei, I’m giving you a generous gift. You should return the favor-kill someone for me.

My virginity was sold by my family to a seventy-year-old tycoon for the steep price of one million yuan.

The price was fair, all things considered. After all, I wasn’t just selling my virtue; I was selling my life.

On our wedding night, the old man squeezed my throat and asked, “Do you have any final wishes?”

To stay alive, I told him three stories.

And then, I made a prophecy.

“You will die within my third story.”

While I was offering prayers to Buddha on the mountain, a young gentleman suddenly intruded upon my solitude.

He apologized, his face flushing a deep crimson.

Yet, I heard his inner thoughts: [I have heard the Princess is kind and benevolent; I wonder if she will blame me.]

[I only ended up in the wrong place because I was trying to escape my eldest brother’s schemes.]

[How should I apologize to make the Princess happy?]

He did not know that I had experienced a dream.

In that dream, I followed the guidance of his inner voice to investigate his claims, only to walk step by step toward a dead end.

In the end, my Imperial Father grew to loathe me, my eldest brother was deposed, and I was drowned in a pond.

Only after my death did I learn that this young gentleman could choose who heard his heart’s voice.

It was by relying on this trick alone that he rose from being an Outer Chamber Son to the legitimate second son of a Marquis’s manor.

Now. I looked at the fair-skinned, red-lipped young gentleman before me, who appeared shy and timid.

I gave him a gentle smile. “Someone, come. For trespassing in the Forbidden Courtyard, give him thirty strokes of the cane.”

I am the dowry maid for the legitimate daughter of the Shen Manor.

Last night, I woke up in the Heir’s bed.

Now, the servants of the entire manor are pointing and whispering at me: “A lowly wench like this deserves to be beaten to death with clubs!”

Shen Yujiao sat regally at the head of the hall. “In that case, let’s just promote her to a Concubine.”

She watched with a smile as I knelt and kowtowed to thank her for her mercy.

Yet, I caught the scent of Hehuan Powder in the air.

That was the very incense I had blended with my own hands for her husband’s use.

The neighbor’s kid jumped off the building after being bullied.

She landed directly on my brand-new car, her head lolling, hanging off the windshield.

She died, and her mother lost her mind.

When the neighbors held the funeral, several of the bullies actually showed up at the scene.

They mocked the mother relentlessly: “Your family line is completely dead now. You don’t even have a single relative left, do you?”

They were making too much noise.

I slowly pushed open my door to teach them a lesson: “A near neighbor is better than a distant relative.”

Besides, her neighbor might just be insane.

The couple living across from me fought until midnight every single day, while their child wandered around scavenging for trash to eat.

Anyone who dared to give the boy food was met with a barrage of verbal abuse at their doorstep, or even targeted with malicious sexual rumors.

One day, as I was passing through the stairwell, I spotted the boy hiding in a corner, too afraid to look at me. “Hey kid, want something to eat?” I asked.

He claimed he wasn’t hungry, but his stomach was growling like thunder. “Big sister, just leave me alone,” he sobbed. “My mom isn’t a good person.”

I leaned down and looked him in the eye. “Well, neither am I.”