Short story

In college, I once “bought” myself a girlfriend.

If she agreed to be with me, I would cover her family’s medical bills.

Humiliated, the brilliant scholarship student from a poor family stayed with me for four years.

Then my family went bankrupt.

When I broke up with her, she was as cold as ever. She did not ask me to stay—not even once.

Years later, I was serving fruit platters at a karaoke club to pay off my family’s debts. She had become a CEO and was dating the handsome star from our class.

She asked me, “Do you regret it?”

“No.”

“Well, I do.”

In 2016, my younger sister fell into an abandoned mine shaft during a class outing.

It took three days to find her.

But there was something inexplicable about her death.

Her water bottle was still full, yet the autopsy concluded that she had died of thirst.

The sight of her body destroyed my parents. One died; the other lost his mind.

Our once-happy family was torn apart.

Ten years later, I earned a doctorate in criminal psychology.

I returned to that abandoned mine shaft and reconstructed the events of that day over and over again…

And uncovered a horrifying truth that overturned everything I thought I knew.

On our wedding night, my husband told me something plainly.

His heart belonged to Concubine Song, and there could never be anything between him and me.

I was not to use my position as the lady of the household to make Concubine Song’s life difficult.

Furious, I tore off my bridal veil and gave him two choices.

Either we went to his parents together and asked what exactly they meant by arranging this marriage.

Or he brought Concubine Song to me so the three of us could settle matters face-to-face.

He feared I would bully his beloved concubine, while I feared she would use his favor to humiliate his lawful wife.

After a brief hesitation, my husband chose to summon her.

The three of us sat down and agreed on three rules.

First, Concubine Song was never to set foot in my main courtyard, and anything that happened if she did would be her own responsibility; the same rule applied to me.

Second, since my husband refused to consummate our marriage that night, we would never share a bed for the rest of our lives.

Third, if his parents pressed us for an heir, he would deal with them, and if I suffered punishment or loss because of it, he would compensate me.

My husband’s face turned glacial as he signed the agreement in a fury.

From that day on, he never entered my room again.

Concubine Song basked in her victory and laughed at me for giving up the finest man in the world.

The two of them settled into their sweet little romance.

I was too busy building a life of my own to spare them a thought.

But three years later, my husband stepped into my courtyard with an uneasy look on his face.

I knew at once that he regretted everything-and that he wanted to sleep with me.

I said calmly, “Let’s divorce.”

A girl had been secretly in love with my boyfriend for years, using “business trips” as an excuse to see him four times a year-once in each season-and spending the rest of her life longing for him.

On the night before my boyfriend and I were to get engaged, she finally decided to let go, offering him her virginity as a parting gift.

My boyfriend told me he had only done it because he pitied her.

His Majesty handpicked three women to enter the palace and help secure the phoenix throne for the woman he loved.

The first was the Grand Tutor’s daughter, steeped in the classics and celebrated throughout the capital for her brilliance.

The second was the general’s legitimate younger sister, peerless with bow and horse and proud to the bone.

The third was me, a woman without powerful kin or scholarly fame, armed only with hands that could manage a household and turn simple ingredients into exquisite food.

On the night before I entered the palace, Grandfather reminded me again and again to keep my head down and stay safe.

I smiled and agreed, yet as soon as I turned away, I wondered why I should.

The learned woman had no respect for her sovereign.

The horsewoman let her mount trample the palace steps.

As for the woman raised to the phoenix throne, she could not recognize a written character if it were as large as a grain measure.

Now that I had entered this game, I did not want safety.

I wanted to win.

Now that I had caught the emperor’s eye, I would not settle for a share of his favor; I would take it all.

A week ago, the true heiress of the Cheng family came to our door.

Only then did I learn that I was a fake.

But my biological parents were already dead, so the Cheng family decided to keep raising me.

The heiress who had just returned was very dissatisfied with a fake like me.

Not only did she take away all of Dad, Mom, and my older brother’s attention, she also wanted to reclaim the fiancé who should have been hers.

I didn’t really care.

I only wanted to scrape by and keep a roof over my head.

But when I tried to give my fiancé back to her, the man who had always been gentle wore a dark expression I had never seen before.

He locked an arm tightly around my waist, lowered his head, and looked at me with an air of effortless menace.

“Yangyang, ever since we were little, I’ve known you could only be mine.”

Just then, the heiress pushed open the door.

She blinked, revealing two adorable little canine teeth as she smiled.

“Brother Yan, didn’t you promise Auntie that you’d have dinner with me?”

Strangely, I suddenly heard the roar inside her head.

—“That fucking perverted male lead—stay away from the heroine; she belongs to the second male lead!”

My family was on the verge of bankruptcy, so to stage a comeback, my father cheerfully decided to marry off his daughter.

There was just one problem: I was a lesbian, and my prospective husband was gay—a forced match in every sense of the word.

Before our first dinner at the Liu estate, Dad reminded me again and again, “The Liu family is run by their eldest daughter now that she’s back from abroad. Be on your best behavior and make a good impression on your future sister-in-law.”

I nodded without paying much attention—then caught sight of the woman coming down the stairs, and my vision went black.

Wasn’t she the little canary I had kept overseas five years ago?

Mother ascended to heaven.

She left me two things: an old yellow dog and a manual for cultivating immortality.

Oh, and one promise.

“Whenever someone beats you, shout your mother’s name three times, and I will come save you.”

I never shouted.

Father had seldom used his fists lately; he had heard that girls in our area had suddenly become valuable, and a wounded one would fetch a poor price.

After sacrificing a kidney for the family that never loved her, Song Zhiwei wakes up at seventeen on the day Zhou Jiashu offers her a cruelly false confession.

Newly able to hear other people’s thoughts, she rejects the boy who betrayed her and refuses to become medicine for her ailing half sister again.

As Zhiwei fights to reclaim her future, she discovers that Cheng Chi–the notorious silver-haired school tyrant–is the one person whose fierce devotion has always been real.

I fell for the beautiful, powerful, tragic second male lead.

For his sake, I shattered my spirit meridians and lost every trace of my cultivation.

Yet when the heroine burst into our wedding hall, he still abandoned me for her.

I called after him, “Xie Qingxing, take one step beyond that door, and I’m done with you.”

He merely held the girl in his arms and showed me the cool, aloof line of his profile.

“She needs me. How can I stand by and do nothing?”

But he had forgotten that Meng Zhiyuan was not the only person who needed him.

My spirit meridians were completely severed, and without pure-yang spiritual energy to sustain them, they would wither within half a month and take my life with them.

But that was all right.

Xie Qingxing was hardly the only cultivator in the world who practiced the Formless Sword.