Revenge

The rich playboy offered to treat me to dinner.

Under his guidance, I ordered a lavish feast for ten: king crab, lobster, precious French caviar, the works.

Then he gave me a malicious smile.

“Baby, if you can’t finish all this, you’ll have to pay for it yourself, you know.”

He thought I didn’t know about the livestream camera on his chest, where the chat was flooding with mockery aimed at me.

“Shocked now, aren’t ya? This meal costs 680,000 yuan total. Where’s a broke girl like you gonna find that kind of money?”

“Did you see how greedy she looked when she ordered? I’m dying laughing.”

“Did she really think it’d be that easy to take advantage of a rich guy?”

“Gold Digger Hunting Squad scores again! Bros, share the stream so we can enjoy the show!”

In the spotlight of the livestream, I didn’t panic like they imagined. I simply picked up my knife and fork, flashed a pair of playful little fangs, and smiled.

Hunting?

As an ancient beast famed for its appetite, I’ve always been fond of a certain human saying.

The most skilled hunters often appear as prey.

On the day the Xiao Family ran into disaster, the servants all scrambled to grab whatever valuables they could find. Unable to outfight them, I could only take away the nine-year-old Second Young Master, who still couldn’t speak.

Later, after the storm had passed, he asked me if I would be his concubine.

The Prince of Beijing’s elite circle mistakenly thought I had a crush on him and, with a haughty air, said he agreed to my pursuit.

Because I’m a coward, I was forced to date him.

The young prince has a bad temper, is unreasonable, and uses his handsome face to bully me with his beauty.

After three years of dating, I still couldn’t convince myself to spend a lifetime with him.

But, coward that I am, I didn’t dare break up.

Just as I was worrying, I saw his group chat message:

[“I’ve never seen someone as lacking in self as her. Come home a bit late and she starts checking up on me, so annoying! Next time she pulls that, I’ll just pay her off and send her packing.”]

I was so happy I almost jumped.

I’d get money, and I could break up.

This useless coward has finally found her spring.

I’m a woman, but I transmigrated into the most useless marquis in the Marquis Manor.

The original host let his second wife frame the eldest daughter born to his first wife, then sent that little girl off to a country estate to suffer.

When the eldest daughter finally returned, he stole her engagement and gave it to the second daughter.

When the second daughter was abused, he didn’t say a damn word.

When the third daughter was framed, he simply married her off to her abuser.

When the fourth daughter was being coerced, he scolded her for trying to drive a wedge between the sisters.

When his young son ran wild outside, he finally took action.

But he only helped the wrongdoer and even gave the victim a good intimidation session.

Every single thing he did was basically aimed at wiping out the entire Marquis Manor.

In the end, he got his retribution too.

The young son he truly loved wasn’t even his biological child.

As for his daughters, some died, and some became estranged.

In the end, the eldest daughter, who became the Empress, exterminated the whole family.

Now that I’ve transmigrated here, I plan to apply myself, get things in order, and be a proper father.

But since I’m a woman, I really don’t want to sleep with women.

So I directly told my one wife and three concubines,

“This master has been medically confirmed impotent. Tell me, what do you think we should do about it?”

I went on a celebrity dating reality show, and the host asked me which male guest I would pick.

Smiling, I looked toward the acclaimed Best Actor, the veteran singer, and the current young idol heartthrob.

“Among these guests is a serial killer. Three years ago, you dismembered my little sister.

You left no remains of her behind and turned her into a target for the internet’s scorn.

“Now, it’s my turn to hunt you down.”

The day I was cast aside for jealousy, more than half the capital applauded.

My mother-in-law wept and complained that I controlled her son, forbidding him from drinking and from taking concubines, making him the laughingstock of the city as a henpecked husband.

What no one knew was that my husband, Qi Chong, used that “henpecked” reputation as an excuse to turn away people asking to borrow money, dodge social obligations, reject beautiful spy-concubines sent by political rivals with ill intent, and rise smoothly through officialdom.

In the end, I alone bore the infamy of being a shrew and a jealous wife. I angered my father to death, and I myself fell gravely ill and died.

When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the first year of my marriage to Qi Chong.

At a banquet, Qi Chong didn’t dare refuse the beautiful spy sent by his superior, and pushed me forward instead. Lifting his cup, he put on a troubled expression and said,

“I like the beauty very much.

“But if I bring her into the household, my wife will be upset again.”

What he didn’t know was that I took the beauty’s hand, then turned back to him with a gentle, magnanimous smile.

“Since my husband is so fond of her, and I’ve already checked that your birth dates are compatible, why not bring her into the household today?”

Qi Chong’s face filled with shock. He froze where he stood.

From childhood, Lin Qingcai copied case files and transcribed testimonies in her father Lin Huaizhang’s study, yet she was always kept hidden behind the Lin Family’s spotless reputation. By chance, she discovered a confession in a secret compartment that had been forged to match her handwriting, and learned that her father, elder brother, and mother were preparing to make her take the blame for the Luo Family’s old case.

She was afraid of dying, and long since afraid of being cast out by her family. So before they could speak first, she beat the drum and brought her accusation before the court, charging her father and brother with falsifying testimony and shifting the blame onto her. Using the copied case records she had secretly preserved over the years, along with witness leads and fragments from the old case, she gradually exposed the truth in the prefectural yamen: the Lin Family and Duke An’s Mansion had colluded to alter statements, take silver, and frame innocent people.

Her father was exiled, her brother was stripped of his status, and her mother finally came to see the rift her favoritism had created. Lin Qingcai left the clan and opened Qingcai Writing Service in West Lane, turning the pen she had once used to help others conceal evidence of their crimes into one that wrote the truth for the weak.

Five years into my career, people called me pale, skinny, young-looking, and a fake-innocent schemer.

Meanwhile, my stunt double used me as a stepping stone to climb her way up, becoming wildly popular with an occult persona.

On shows, she told fortunes for celebrities, saying she had learned it from her boyfriend.

That boyfriend she kept talking about was the eldest son of a famous Occult Family.

But when she and I ended up on the same paranormal variety show, her talismans suddenly stopped working.

As for me, right in front of an audience of tens of millions, I took down a whole pack of ghosts with my bare hands.

“You want to be my nephew’s wife? Did you get my permission first?”

On my wedding day, my twin sister knocked me unconscious and locked me in the basement.

Then she impersonated me and married my fiancé.

“From today on, your man is mine.” Her eyes were filled with sheer determination.

She left in such a hurry

that she didn’t notice I had stopped breathing in the darkness.

At seventeen, the old madam gave the head maids in the courtyard two choices.

Either become concubines to the masters of the various branches, or become the wife of a steward from the outer quarters.

There were four of us. Three chose to be concubines; only Yuchuan chose the steward.

She asked me why. I lowered my head and thought silently:

Because I don’t want my children to be servants anymore.