Tragic Past

Chapter 0

The storm had passed.

Uncle Xiong rolled off me, sated, pillowing his head on my arm as the tip of his nose nuzzled into the hollow of my neck.

“I know every girl at Golden Sand Beach has a story, Shaluo. I want to hear yours.”

“Sure. Do you want the long version or the short one?”

“The long one.”

The long version wasn’t that long, either.

I was meant to marry the Emperor of Great Liang, but a decree for a political marriage sent me to Northern Yan instead.

On our wedding night, I mixed blood from the tip of my tongue into the wedding wine, intending to poison the tyrannical prince.

Yet, he drained the poisoned cup for me and said with a smile, “Don’t be in such a hurry. The heads of every official in this court-I will cut them off for you, one by one.”

I’m an influencer who specializes in adventure content.

For the sake of the show, I bought a cabinet that had once been used to hide a corpse.

Supposedly, the cabinet was cursed.

Anyone who owned it would die an unnatural death within ten days.

I’ve always been stubborn, and luck has always been on my side.

I absolutely didn’t believe it.

The night I had the cabinet moved into my home, I had a dream.

A girl covered in blood crawled out of the cabinet.

She beckoned to me, then glanced at the clock on the wall and used her fingernail to carve a “9” into the cabinet. …

Ever since Noble Lady Lin fell into the water, it was as if she had become a different person.

She had originally been born lowly and kept to herself, so much so that the Emperor barely noticed there was someone like her in the Harem.

But now, she had won His Majesty’s favor.

In just half a year, she was exceptionally promoted to Noble Consort.

Whenever it was just the two of us, she would flash me a brazen smile.

“Lu Lan, sooner or later, your seat as Empress will be mine.”

She was a transmigrator. I couldn’t beat her.

So the next day, I pushed another consort into the water.

And just like that, in the Harem under my command, there were now two transmigrators.

Have you ever heard of Crossing the Yin?

They say that when a woman undergoes Crossing the Yin, half her body has already stepped into the Yin Realm.

She has to stay in the same room as a dozen burly men, all night long, until dawn.

Only then can she snatch her life back from the hands of the Yin beings.

I had always scoffed at rumors like that.

Until one day, my beloved little niece underwent Crossing the Yin too.

But she was only six years old!

After my sister was widowed, she applied for a new Beastman partner.

As fate would have it, she was matched with my husband’s twin brother.

Upon learning this, Jiang Xu held me in a daze, his eyes wide open the entire night. I, too, suffered a rare bout of insomnia.

It wasn’t until the early hours of the morning that I heard him finally lose his resolve.

He slipped outside to make a quiet phone call to his brother.

“Ah Chi, I really don’t want to spend my whole life missing out on her.”

“Just help me this once.” “Don’t worry, Wen Ning is dim-witted; she’ll never realize you’re pretending to be me.”

“Remember? She already mistook us for each other once before.”

“Wen Lin hasn’t met you yet either, so even if I take your place for a few days, she won’t notice.”

“I’m begging you, just for a week. One week is all I need. I just don’t want to live with any regrets…”

He kept pleading until the sun began to rise.

Only then did Jiang Chi finally agree to pose as his brother to stay with me. At that moment, Jiang Xu and I both breathed a sigh of relief.

He never knew. In truth, I was just like him. I, too, harbored the regret of an unrequited love.

My younger sister eloped with a penniless scholar, and her cold-hearted fiancé broke down my door, demanding that I take her place.

I was so scared I clutched my waistband and begged for mercy.

“Brother-in-law, how can you blame this on me?”

The two cinnabar moles beneath his eyes were as red as blood, and his tone was utterly indifferent.

“An elder sister is like a mother. In other words, every grievance has its culprit, and every debt has its debtor.”

“So, are you coming with me on your own, or am I dragging you away?”

Th-thrilling. Was this the domineering forced-love plot they wrote about in storybooks?

The weak could not fight the strong, so I was just about to get out of bed when I realized my sister had run off wearing the only pair of padded winter pants in the house.

Left with no choice, I lay right back down.

“Forget it. It’s freezing out, so let’s not move.”

“If you’re going to seize me, then seize me. Hurry up, while the blankets are still warm…”

“…”

-A laid-back heroine who sleeps through the abduction x an action-oriented hero who carries on abducting while she sleeps.

I am the deadweight sister of the Number One Sword Cultivator of the Heartless Path.

He is a once-in-a-millennium cultivation genius, while I have never possessed a spiritual root.

Whenever I encountered danger, I would do nothing but cry out for my brother to save me.

My brother would always arrive instantly.

He would wipe away my tears with one hand while slaying every demon and monster with the other.

I thought he would always spoil me like this. Until I found myself in peril once more.

No matter how much I screamed, my brother didn’t appear.

The provoked Ghost Fiend had already coldly gripped my throat.

Yet, all I could see was a swarm of bullet-chat comments mocking me: [The male lead is staying away on purpose. He wants this drama-queen sister to suffer a bit so she finally learns her lesson.]

[She knows she’s weak but keeps running around recklessly. If she doesn’t die, who will?]

[She really messed with the wrong person this time. The villainous Ghost King has a violent temper and hates weak, useless girls who do nothing but cry.]

[And it’s because she barged in so rashly that the female lead found an opening to break through the formation and escape.]

[The villain lost his beloved female lead again. He’s gone mad with rage and is going to swallow the supporting female lead whole…] I was so terrified that I didn’t dare shed another tear.

But then, I suddenly heard the Ghost King’s complaining inner thoughts: {Am I ugly? Why does nobody like me?} {Everyone who doesn’t like me deserves to die-}

Seeing the youth’s eyes grow increasingly crimson, I spoke up in a panic: “-I like you!” “I… I only came here to confess my feelings to you.” “Please be with me, Senior!” He froze.

I followed an underworld Big Brother for six years.

But on my birthday, he brought home a girl.

He was covered in blood, and the pretty, delicate girl was hiding in his arms.

From then on, the man who had indulged my every whim never looked at me again.

Everyone thought I loved Xu Chang but could never have him, and that I was heartbroken beyond words.

I only smiled and toyed with the watch on my wrist.

I was an undercover police officer planted inside Huaxi’s largest criminal gang.

I’d stayed by his side all these years for one reason: to treat him to a taste of prison food. So how could I possibly… fall in love with him?

I transmigrated.

Straight into a run-down brothel.

The lowest, dirtiest corner of Tongzhi Alley.

When I first arrived, my immediate thought was to kill the madam.

Then escape with my life.

But I soon realized the hard part wasn’t killing the madam.

The real challenge was figuring out how to stay alive after I did.