Revenge

I was a midwife.

Up in the hills, I found a pregnant woman.

She claimed to be the wife of the Marquis of Yongning.

She begged me to save her, promising to repay me a hundredfold.

I said nothing and quietly took her home.

To everyone else, she was my cousin, a rich merchant’s concubine who had come to me for shelter.

Because I had just returned from the Yongning estate.

Where I had delivered the marchioness’s baby.

The princess went out in search of amusement and was captured by the enemy.

On the battlefield, they demanded a hostage in exchange.

Lu Wei, our commanding general, turned to me—the woman standing beside him disguised as a man.

I had spent more than ten years at his side, risking my life with him and helping him win battle after battle.

Only he knew I was a woman.

He had even promised to spend his life with me.

But when he saw the enemy’s blade against the princess’s throat, his anguish was plain.

“Once we’ve brought her back, I’ll come for you.”

He handed me over himself.

By the time that blade reached my neck, he already had the rescued princess in his arms.

Dragged into the enemy camp, I waited day and night for him.

Instead, the news arrived that he was about to marry her.

That evening, I revealed to Xie Lin, the enemy emperor, that I was a woman—and chose to be with him.

Later, Lu Wei finally declared war, announcing that he was coming to rescue me.

Watching Xie Lin make our baby laugh, I sent back a languid reply: “Today is my son’s one-month celebration.

Don’t spoil it.”

Lu Wei lost his mind.

The Noble Consort told me she had traveled here from another world, and that we were all characters in a novel.

She was the heroine, I was the wicked second female lead, and the emperor was the hero.

She was determined to win him over.

Sure enough, she took his undivided favor, then my authority over the palace women.

She even wanted my throne as empress.

“What do you have to rely on but a man’s affection?”

I had finally had enough.

This woman from another world had no power whatsoever.

How dared she reach for my position?

“A sparrow is still a sparrow.

Even if I gave up this phoenix’s nest, could you hold it?”

My ancestors had helped found the dynasty.

My great-grandfather had saved an emperor’s life and received the extraordinary honor of burial in the imperial mausoleum.

My father had inherited the title of duke, and my elder brother was now a chancellor of the first rank.

“You call this ‘palace intrigue,’ do you?

Then let us see what you have to pit against me.”

My older sister was about to be married when a serial rapist attacked her.

In a single night, her reputation was destroyed and her engagement broken off.

Father fell ill with rage; Mother cried herself blind.

And the rapist?

He became the personal guard of a princess from a marquis’s household.

The gentle, kindhearted princess said, “Ah Qing isn’t bad at heart.

He only made a mistake because he briefly lost his way.”

Later, I killed the child she had struggled so hard to conceive.

My sister, now a prince’s wife, took her hand and said gently, “My little sister isn’t bad at heart.

It was only an accident that led her to do something wrong.”

But the princess’s face twisted with hatred, her eyes venomous.

All her former gentleness and kindness were gone.

My elder sister was said to be a bodhisattva reborn.

Her kindness cost me my dowry, my home, and finally my life.

When a magpie chose two brides for the crown prince, she became his virtuous wife, and I became the concubine who would bear children for her and do her dirty work.

Even my own son wished she had given birth to him.

I ended that life with a plate of poisoned pastries.

Now I have opened my eyes on the day of the consort selection again.

This time, I will not be her stepping-stone.

At my birthday banquet, my husband presented me with a portrait of myself on horseback.

The face in it was an ugly pig’s head.

The young woman holding it laughed at my scars, and he asked me to forgive her: immortals, he said, knew nothing of mortal rules.

I drew my sword and cut off her arm.

Now she knew mine.

The day Divine Sword Mountain, the greatest sect in the realm, came to Jingzhou to test our spiritual roots, I had just stolen my cousin’s fiancé.

She neither cried nor made a scene.

She simply laid her hand on the sacred testing artifact.

Radiance blazed.

The hall erupted.

She had heavenly-grade spiritual roots, a gift seen scarcely once in a century.

I hurried to put my hand on it too.

Not a glimmer.

Not a sound.

I had no spiritual roots at all!

But I knew when to bend.

I threw my arms around my cousin’s legs and begged through my tears.

“Sister, I was wrong before.

I’ll be your slave, your maid—anything.

Please take me with you to cultivate!”

I was reborn on the very night Liang Zhiyan and Zhao Lingyi had arranged to elope.

As his fiancée, I gave him money for the journey.

Grateful to me, he slipped out of the city with her under cover of darkness.

What awaited them was a life of sleeping rough and grinding poverty.

He would never again have the chance to wield the power he had held in my previous life.

A merchant had been away for three years without returning home.

Everyone said he had fallen for someone else and set up a mistress in another town.

His wife refused to believe it.

On New Year’s Eve, she stood beside the road with a bronze mirror in her arms, listening to the words of wandering souls.

When she learned where her husband was, she set out alone to find him.

A year later, their daughter Yihe received a letter from her mother.

The letter assured her that all was well.

But Yihe knew her mother was in danger.

To uncover the truth, she followed her mother’s example and took up a mirror to seek an answer.

After a long wait, a wandering soul’s face appeared in the glass.

Slowly, it spoke: “The Son of Heaven is lighting the Everlasting Lamp.

“Human bones are its wick.

Human flesh is its oil.

“While the lamp burns without end, its master cannot die.

“Thus may the Son of Heaven live forever.

“Your father has already been rendered into lamp oil.

As for your mother…

“She is to be the emperor’s new empress.”

My mother was a general.

A powerful prince humiliated her, then spread vicious rumors to avenge his wounded pride.

When my brother sought justice, the prince’s sister accused him of rebellion.

The emperor condemned our entire household, and she was crowned empress.

They thought we were all dead.

They were wrong.

I survived—and entered the palace as the emperor’s favorite Go player.

Now I would become his favorite consort, and make every move count.