Secret Relationship

The Young General, who avoids women, took a concubine.

The Crown Prince asked me, “Why does she look so much like my beloved consort?”

I smiled coquettishly, “I just have a common face.”

The friends of the Crown Prince of the Beijing Circle were always laughing at me for being a hick, saying I wasn’t even worthy of being a stand-in for his white moonlight.

They even predicted that I’d be packing up and leaving in less than a month.

I panicked and immediately summoned my seven older sisters for emergency training in the art of being a white moonlight substitute.

Even if I got fired, there was no way I was letting such a cushy gig fall into an outsider’s hands!

Then, a year later, the white moonlight returned to the country. The moment the crown prince saw her face-he threw up.

Trembling, he said, “I’m sick of it. So sick of it. For the rest of my life, I never want to see that face again!”

The day my interview results came out, I came across a post: “How lethal can a white moonlight really be?”

The top-voted answer had only been posted a little while ago.

“I’ll tell my own story. He had a crush on me in high school, and we ran into each other a few days ago while I was job hunting.”

“Even if I’m not as capable as the others, he’ll still make me the one-in-ten-thousand choice.”

Attached was a graduation photo of them at eighteen.

The girl wore a white dress, her slim back quiet and well-behaved.

The boy had his head turned, looking at her intently, his profile clean and… familiar.

My phone trembled faintly. It was the message rejecting me after the interview.

Only then did I understand. She was Xie Qingyue’s white moonlight-and what she had killed was my future.

I would rather be a tree waiting for spring than a bird that turns back.

I could allow my feelings to fall apart completely.

But my future, my freedom, my life-none of them could afford the slightest mistake.

“My youngest uncle is Yin Boyu. You’ve heard of him, right?”

My blind date asked the question with a hint of contempt.

“I have.”

“He’s only a few years older than me, but he’s already the one in charge of the family company.”

“Impressive.”

“My uncle really is impressive. Handsome, loaded, the whole package. Too bad he’s so cold. He’s almost thirty, and there’s still not a single woman by his side.”

Is that so? I took a sip of my milk tea and didn’t tell him.

My divorce certificate with Yin Boyu was tucked away in my drawer.

In my third year of disguising myself as a man and sneaking into the Prince’s Mansion to work as a guard, I got involved with the prince’s male favorite.

I had meant to cut things off with him and sever all ties for good.

But whenever he took my hand during our secret meetings, my resolve would crumble.

And just like that, spineless and useless as I was, I committed a capital offense.

One month after I died.

My childhood friend, the top celebrity I had long since cut ties with, did something completely out of character.

He canceled every job and shut himself away to write music.

In the end, he bid farewell to the music industry with a song called I Miss Her.

Everyone said he must have gone insane to give up such a dazzling future.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on New Year’s Eve, at the height of my fame.

The host prompted me as part of the program, asking me to call someone and wish them a Happy New Year.

Without the slightest hesitation, I dialed his number.

His voice trembled on the other end.

“Happy New Year to you too.”

This time, I want to live toward hope.

After we made love that night, I drifted off to sleep.

My husband, who never liked saying sweet words, suddenly said: “Honey, I love you.”

I opened my eyes.

That tone was all too familiar.

It was exactly the tone he used when he’d done something guilty.

Married life was so dull that I got myself a canary to pass the time.

Who would have thought the news would reach my husband, the man I’d married for an alliance? From that day on, he started coming home more and more often.

He even… kept finding new ways to surprise me. Until one day, he asked, “When are you going to take me to meet that canary you’re keeping outside?”

“What is it about him that has you so fascinated?”

I froze. “You want to meet him?”

After he gave me a firm yes, I took him to meet the bird I’d been raising.

A Gloster Canary.

The man who had been sleeping in a separate room from me for the past six months was standing there with a pillow in his arms when I blocked him at the top of the stairs.

“The two of us together aren’t even fifty yet. We’re at the age when we should be all over each other. Is sleeping in separate rooms normal?”

He frowned at me, staring so hard that cold sweat prickled down my spine.

At last, he nodded. “Mm. It isn’t very normal.” Emboldened, I snatched the pillow out of his arms and grumbled, “You never used to be like this.”

“What did I use to be like?”

“You used to hold me every night when we slept, and before bed you’d call me your little baby.”

“…Did I?”

“You did!”

Look at me. Do these look like the eyes of a liar?

I am the Empress.

The Emperor wished to take my maid as a concubine, claiming that any child she bore would be recorded under my name.

Later, the imperial physician informed me that I had been pregnant for a month.

I said to the Emperor, “In consideration of your many years without an heir, I shall have this child recorded under your name.”