Short story

Meng Fanyu carried himself with effortless distinction.

I thought that even if we eventually broke up, having him as my first love would leave me with no regrets.

So I pursued him with everything I had.

Eventually, I won him over, and he laid down three rules: we would date, never marry, and break up when we graduated.

For three years, we loved each other with abandon.

On graduation day, I was the one who ended it, but he went back on our agreement.

Our conversation fell apart, and Meng Fanyu lowered his proud head with a bitter laugh.

He told me I had better pray we never met again.

From then on, I did everything I could to avoid him.

But with the slightest turn of fate, the world can become very small, and two people who once belonged to each other are bound to meet again.

Three months after he dumped me without warning, I found my boyfriend again—with no memory of ever leaving me.

His eyes were clear, his mind stranded in the days when he had loved me most.

So I took him home.

I trapped him with the cheapest sweet nothings.

Then, just as he had once done to me, I turned his own tricks against him.

And drove him mad, one careful inch at a time.

I was the daughter of a wealthy merchant, married into the Marquis of Dingyuan’s household as a bride meant to bring good luck.

On the first day of our marriage, the old marquis choked to death on his medicine.

On the second, my younger sister-in-law drowned.

On the third, my younger brother-in-law fell from his horse and died.

A month later, only the young marquis and I remained alive in the entire estate.

We stared at each other, and he decided to divorce me before I could doom him too.

Before he could finish writing the divorce letter, however, an imperial edict sent him to the frontier to fight the enemy.

Sure enough, a month later, a servant returned with news of his death.

On the first day after my wealthy birth family found me, my biological parents gave me a warning.

“Now that you’re back, don’t go thinking you can compete with Nian for anything.”

I surveyed the family’s opening show of hostility, smiled, and pulled out an employment contract.

“I think you two have misunderstood something: a parent-child relationship is a legal fact.”

“But asking me to play the sweet, obedient daughter while serving as your adopted daughter’s stepping stone would qualify as premium emotional labor.”

“It’ll cost extra.”

When I was eleven, my stepmother pushed me into a river, and after being passed from hand to hand, I ended up in the pleasure quarter.

Five years later, on an ordinary morning, I painted my brows, opened her door with a smile, and said, “I’m back. I missed you.”

Not long afterward, my stepmother’s body was found in an old well.

My sister was a goldsmith who entered the palace to deliver jewelry, only to be knocked unconscious by Consort Yi.

Consort Yi had quarreled with the emperor, so she stole my sister’s clothes and exit token and slipped out of the palace for fun.

Furious and frantic, the emperor cut my innocent sister down with a single stroke, then rode out to find the woman he loved.

In the end, my sister’s body was thrown into a mass grave.

The emperor and Consort Yi returned sweetly together on the same horse, and their reunion became a celebrated romance.

Half a year later, I became one of the emperor’s beauties.

After all, I am not human—I am a marten.

If a fox spirit can bewitch a ruler, so can a marten.

In the fifth year since he took me for himself, the powerful young heir finally grew tired of me.

He handed me a bank card with a lazy smile. “Your childhood sweetheart isn’t actually dead.”

“Go find him.”

I stared at the address in my hand for a long time—so long that he lost patience, hauled me out of bed, and drawled, “I’ll give you a ride. Move your things out after today.”

He had just pulled on his coat and started looking for his car keys when his phone rang.

On the other end, his childhood friend was sobbing anxiously. “If you break up with her, what’s going to happen to Xu Xinghe and me?”

In my senior year of high school, my parents cut off every cent of my living expenses and tried to force me to drop out.

With nowhere else to turn, I enrolled at an elite school packed with rich heirs.

My grades were good enough to earn a full tuition waiver, but tuition was not going to keep me fed.

After going hungry for half a month, I finally worked up the courage to face the classmates who never studied and ask, “Does anyone need their homework done? It’s only five yuan per assignment.”

The young masters and heiresses, who had been busy showing off their wealth, fell silent and stared at me in shock.

Then the room erupted.

“Five yuan? Who do you think you’re insulting? Five hundred—I’m first!”

“Five thousand! Put me at the front!”

“Fifty thousand—and I mean dollars!”

“I’ll top every bid! Let’s see who dares fight me for first place today!”

When Princess Huaying catches a lowly musician wearing her ceremonial robes, mysterious floating comments reveal that she is meant to be the vicious supporting villainess in someone else’s triumphant love story.

Refusing the fate of disgrace, exile, and death assigned to her, Huaying turns every trap against the scheming Prince of Qi and follows a buried imperial secret to the heart of a decades-old succession struggle.

Yet when rebellion finally erupts, Huaying discovers that her cleverest ally may be her formidable mother—and that surviving the story requires more than defeating its supposed heroine.

My mother was mad for her entire life.

Before she died, she left me a vast fortune and a note.

The note read: Survival Rules for a Tragic Romance.

One: Never pick up a man by the roadside, especially one who has lost his memory.

If you have already picked him up, sever all ties with him at once.

Ignore this rule at your own peril.

Two: Remember that human beings possess an organ called a mouth.

Besides eating, a mouth can also be used to speak.

When someone misunderstands you, use your mouth to explain the truth in a timely manner.

Three: There are many ways to repay a debt of gratitude.

They do not include forcing your savior into marriage, then deliberately neglecting, suppressing, and abusing her.

If any of the above occurs, flee immediately.