Short story

My father was an imperial censor, and nothing mattered to him more than his reputation.

He had fathered me on a prostitute.

Mother and I were the greatest stains on his life, and he would have liked nothing better than to be rid of us.

My younger sister and I were both princesses of a fallen kingdom.

The day our capital fell, enemy soldiers came to violate us, and my sister shoved me forward.

She thought I was certain to die.

Instead, the enemy’s young lord rescued me, and I later became his Noble Consort.

My sister was reduced to slavery and suffered every day.

Consumed by hatred, she killed me—and was reborn alongside me.

This time, she rushed to leave with the enemy soldiers first.

“Sister, this time, I will be the Noble Consort.”

What she did not know was that I had never wanted to be a consort.

With royal blood in my veins, if I was to become anything, I would become the empress who restored our kingdom.

Emperor Yuanzhen has ruled Jing for sixty years, while Empress Dowager Xue governed from behind the curtain for thirty-three.

I served as the empress dowager’s personal maid for seventy years—and I know a secret that could overturn the dynasty.

The emperor is not the late sovereign’s son, but a bastard born to the empress dowager and a Sumo barbarian.

One year into her marriage, Xie Wu refuses when her husband asks to take Lin Manrou as his concubine. The feud that follows costs Xie Wu her unborn child, her reputation, and thirty years of freedom—only for her to learn that both women were pawns in her husband’s plan to marry the cousin he truly loved. Reborn on the day he makes the same request, Xie Wu says yes. This time, she will play the dutiful wife, give every rival exactly what she wants, and quietly turn the Marquis of Annan’s household into a board on which only she knows the next move.

I took my younger sister’s place and married the fiancé who had suddenly gone blind.

After the wedding, we got along surprisingly well.

He believed the woman beside him was my sister, and that was why he treated me with such tenderness and devotion.

If nothing changed, our life should have passed quietly and smoothly.

Then one day, the man everyone believed would be blind forever…

Could see again.

He Qiong was hailed as the strongest Demon King the demon realm had seen in a thousand years, and every demon expected him to lead them in an assault on the Nine Heavens.

Unfortunately, before that grand ambition could be realized, a beautiful young phoenix lured him into the Celestial Emperor’s ambush and his soul was destroyed.

I fought desperately to seize one fragment of his soul, then hid across the mortal realm like a hunted dog and nourished him with my heart’s blood for five hundred years until I finally brought him back.

Surely hardship revealed true devotion, and after everything I had sacrificed to save him, He Qiong would finally understand who truly loved him and who deserved to stand at his side.

I thought his return would begin a tale of the Demon King bathing the Nine Heavens in blood, but instead it became a tortured romance between him and the Goddess of the Nine Heavens-the little phoenix who had stabbed him in the back a thousand years ago killed herself for love afterward, and the moment he learned the truth, he forgave every betrayal.

Fine, they could keep their tragic, undying love; I knew when I had lost, and I wanted no part of it.

But the love belonged to them while the suffering belonged to me, because just before I left, He Qiong held the phoenix’s last soul fragment and said, “Du Nan, your heart’s blood brought me back after five hundred years, so you can bring her back too, can’t you?”

A transmigrated woman wanted my husband to love her—and only her—for the rest of their lives.

To prove his devotion, my husband swore never to set foot in my courtyard again.

Everyone thought I would be devastated.

Even the transmigrated woman mocked me for being old and faded, accusing me of standing in the way of their love.

I looked at the bright son and daughter beside me.

Then I smiled and thanked her.

“From this day on, may the two of you be blessed with a house full of children.”

She did not understand what I meant.

She said I was merely hiding my heartbreak.

Then, five years later— After giving birth to four children, she learned she was pregnant yet again.

That was when she finally panicked.

After nearly six months of being bullied by the other four girls in our dorm, my roommate He Xiaorui finally snapped.

That night, she and I were alone in the room.

She suddenly climbed into my bed and kept telling me she was Noble Consort Xi of the Great Qing, of the Niohuru clan.

I was so frightened I had no idea what to do.

Then she suddenly smiled.

“Listen well.

Her Highness is about to take her revenge!”

After the college entrance exams, my brother and I got thrown out by our parents.

“I’ve put up with you two long enough.

Go stay with your uncle!”

Uncle was lovely.

He let us run wild in his mansion, though he did seem a little dead inside.

We thought we’d driven him to it.

Then we discovered he was heartbroken: the woman he’d adored for years had chosen someone else.

Looking at our mature, wealthy uncle, with his impossibly perfect looks and that vulnerable older-man appeal, my brother and I couldn’t understand what the other guy had on him.

“Uncle, want to take his place?”

On Qixi Festival, the Chinese Valentine’s Day, my husband turned out to have another woman.

He not only paid me two hundred thousand yuan a month, but also asked me to look after her during her pregnancy.

What could I possibly say?

Tears of joy streamed helplessly down my face.

I packed overnight and moved straight into their little love nest.

Before stepping through the door, I raised my price at the last minute. “Three hundred thousand.”

Xu Chen gritted his teeth. “Deal.”