Tragic Past

I held my little sister’s hand as we crossed the street.

A police officer stopped me and asked, “Whose hand are you holding?”

I glanced at the empty space behind me and smiled.

From the moment I decided to become a criminal, I never thought of regretting it.

When I was a child, my father once gave me a ten-yuan bill as pocket money.

He said he had picked it up on the road.

I remember very clearly that on the back of that bill, written in black ink, was a line:

“There is a pyramid scheme on the fifth floor. Help.”

I took the money to show my father, and he smiled and told me,

“Who knows how many people have used this bill? Who knows when those words were written? Maybe the person who wrote them has already been rescued.”

I was in a hurry to buy chocolate, so I didn’t think much about it.

Because chocolate is sweet, after all.

Not long after, there was a piece of news on TV.

“A man mistakenly entered a pyramid scheme den, was beaten to death, and then dismembered.”

As a child, I stared blankly at the television.

My father also stared blankly at the television.

I asked him what was wrong.

He shouted at me angrily, telling me not to meddle in his business, and then left the house.

At the time, I didn’t know what was going on; I just felt confused.

It wasn’t until the New Year, at the family dinner, that my father got drunk and cried uncontrollably. In front of all the relatives, he confessed to picking up that bill.

The place where he found the money was directly below the den mentioned in the news.

In other words, the words on that ten-yuan bill were very likely written by someone who had fallen into that pyramid scheme, possibly even the person who was dismembered.

He sobbed, clutching a bottle of liquor, saying that it was his fault that the man died. The whole family comforted him, but I just stood aside, dumbfounded and at a loss.

So… I used that money to buy chocolate…

Something indescribable seemed to awaken within me.

Throughout my later life, I would often think of that ten-yuan bill.

I wondered, was the original owner of that money alright? Was he really rescued? Or… did that money really come from the man who was dismembered?

If it really came from him, he must have endured painful beatings and inhuman torture before finally seizing a chance one day to write those words for help on the bill and toss it out the window.

He must have clung to hope for rescue until the very moment he died.

Yet my father ignored that hope.

I always ask myself, if I had been the first to find that bill, could I have saved him? Or would I have overlooked the writing, just like my father?

This thought haunts me like a ghost, tormenting my mind more and more as I grow older.

Until that day.

A new “bill” appeared before me.

…

That dog of an emperor ordered me to marry a young eunuch, and I didn’t even blink before agreeing.

Yet, on the night of the wedding, I was tied up and hauled into the emperor’s bedchamber before I even had the chance to remove my bridal veil.

“Fine, I’ll be the one to marry him.”

The moment the words left my mouth, a sudden sense of relief washed over me.

It was no big deal. In fact, I suppose you could even call this a blessing, couldn’t you?

I paint faces for the dead and open The Door for the living.

After the Prime Minister’s Daughter met a sudden, violent end, I painted the last thing she ever saw.

Three months later, that very face smiled at me from a crowded street.

Later, when the Grand Princess lay within her coffin, she reached out and gripped my brush. “Don’t paint me,” she whispered. “Paint yourself.”

When the Crown Prince ascended the throne, he installed his Crown Prince’s Secondary Consort as the Empress.

The reason was simple.

It was written in the Destiny Book that his first Empress would die from a hail of arrows piercing her heart.

On the day the imperial decree for the installation was issued, my elder sister-the Crown Princess Shen Chengyun-entered my palace with a beaming smile and gave a rather sloppy bow.

“This consort offers her congratulations to the Empress.”

She leaned in close, her bright red lips curling into a venomous sneer.

“Shen Ruoruo, you’d better cherish these few days of luxury. Don’t get too ahead of yourself, though. If you do anything to upset me… well, whether you receive an honorable posthumous title after you die will be entirely up to me.”

“Is that so?”

I took a step back and spoke in a low, steady voice.

“Then Sister had better make sure she doesn’t die before I do.”

Elder Sister was a physician.

After she treated the Noble Consort, the Emperor praised her for having a “miraculous touch.”

Consumed by jealousy, the Noble Consort had Elder Sister’s hands severed.

She smiled and said, “I hear Doctor Song’s medical skills are peerless. In that case, heal your own stumps.”

She denied Elder Sister water and medicine, watching as she slowly succumbed to the agonizing pain.

Six years later, the Noble Consort contracted a strange illness that left her wishing for death.

I stepped forward and reported, “There is one person in this world who can cure this ailment.”

Hope flared in the Noble Consort’s eyes. “Bring this divine physician here at once! I will pay any price!”

I shook my head with regret. “Six years ago, Your Ladyship killed her with your own hands.”

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.”

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.

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.