Weak to Strong

After my fiancé, Xie Zhao, left on a long journey, I wrote him two letters asking him to make a decision.

The first was about my stepsister, who wanted my betrothal goose and had been crying and throwing tantrums over it.

The second was about his younger brother, who had taken a fancy to me and was being far too attentive and far too hard to shake off.

Xie Zhao had never liked my meek, timid nature to begin with. He had always wanted to call off this engagement.

So on the very day I sent the second letter, he had an old man bring me a message:

“Since she wants it, just indulge her.

“She’s young and doesn’t know any better. Surely you do?”

W-who was he talking about?

Seeing that I suspected him of delivering the wrong message, the old man lost his temper too.

“From ancient times to now, I’ve heard of giving away a wife, but never of giving away a betrothal goose!

“Besides, Second Young Master Xie is half a month younger than your sister.

“He obviously means for you to marry someone else!”

My legitimate elder sister and I joined the Wuji Sect on the same day, and our master taught her the Carefree Dao.

When it was my turn, Master gave me a sidelong glance and told me to seek my own Dao.

But I could not read, so I thought he wanted me to learn the way of theft.

Thirty years later, he emerged from seclusion, took one look at the boundless emptiness where our sect had once stood, and was struck dumb.

“Have the demons invaded?!”

I am the strongest NPC in a horror game, they call me the Ghost Bride.

I wear a Red Wedding Dress, swaying my crimson nails, wandering freely through the vast ancient mansion, unbound by the rules.

I enjoy watching the terror on the players’ faces and the screams they let out.

Until one day, a middle-aged woman saw my face clearly, neither terrified nor screaming.

She shed tears: “My dear, I am your mother.”

The world is one giant slapdash production, and I somehow drift through it anyway.

My father is a financial tycoon, but I can barely handle addition and subtraction under ten. My mother is a gorgeous award-winning actress, while I look perfectly ordinary. My brother held his first solo art exhibition at four, while at five I was still toddling after him babbling nonsense.

Even our maid, Wang Ma, and our butler, Uncle Chen, turned out to be retired legends hiding in plain sight.

Thankfully, all of them adored me. I slowly made peace with being ordinary.

Then one day, a genius girl who had gone viral online showed up at our door and demanded that I give her back her place as the real daughter of the Su family.

Wonderful. The worry that had been hanging over me for years finally dropped dead.

My young mistress was a transmigrator.

She declared arranged marriage unacceptable and ruined the match between me and the childhood sweetheart I had hoped to marry.

Then she insisted that women should not be trapped inside the home and forced me to enlist with her.

We became separated from our unit and stranded in a vast desert without water.

I risked my life to obtain two barrels of water from desert bandits and repeatedly warned her to ration it.

While I slept, she used every drop to wash her hair and bathe.

I died of thirst, while she emerged spotless and was rescued by the passing Crown Prince.

When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day she first tried to persuade me to enlist.

To serve as the Sword Sect’s Chief Disciple’s cauldron.

Wei Xun warned me coldly, “On the bed, don’t make a sound.”

I was too talkative, too noisy, too irritating. The moment I opened my mouth, I stopped sounding like the woman he loved.

But if I stayed silent, he would pinch my waist and say hoarsely, “You have no spiritual root, but you do have a gift for being a cauldron.”

“One round of dual cultivation can raise my cultivation by thirty percent.”

He did not know it was not because I had any gift.

It was because cauldrons like him…

I had two more.

Chi Heng pretended to be poor and became my kept boyfriend.

Each month, I scraped together five hundred yuan from my living expenses to give him, and this went on for a year and a half.

As graduation approached, I finally found out:

He wasn’t a poor student on loans, but a young master who spent money like water.

He’d even been using someone else’s name the whole time.

The young master condescended to invite me to go abroad with him.

His friends all said I was lucky-with just a kind little white flower persona, I could climb up the social ladder.

Under his gaze, brimming with confidence that he’d get what he wanted,

I shook my head and said gently, “Better not.”

“I’m here to break up with you.”

I run a science-debunking channel.

I’m also a Taoist priest.

Every day, I livestream ways to expose feudal superstition for what it is.

One day, a young woman asked me to help sever a toxic romantic entanglement.

The next day, her boyfriend was dead.

Liu Ye always felt that he was a good person-specifically, a paragon of filial piety. When it came to his mother, he was exceptionally devoted.

The Joyous Funeral Fiend: Bullshit!

Toward his father, he was kind and amiable.

The Water Fiend: *Sob, sob*… Don’t come any closer! If you take one more step, I’ll die right in front of you!

To his friends, he was the type who would take a bullet for them.

Other Fiends: You mean you’d put two bullets in us!

In short, Liu Ye felt that he was a happy man.

The Fiends: Isn’t your happiness just the history of our blood and tears?

On my third day working as an NPC cashier in a Horror Game, the supermarket was ransacked by players.

They stormed in, smashing and looting everything in sight while gloating triumphantly.

“I told you the owner of this place was a loser. He has zero combat capability.”

“Take whatever you want, everyone. Just kill the boss once we’re done.”

My mouth was gagged, and I shook my head in sheer terror.

A player sneered, “Begging for mercy? It’s useless.”

That wasn’t it at all!

I was trying to tell them that today is NPC Internal Purchase Day.

In three minutes, every BOSS in the game will be swarming this place for the sale!