Chapter 1

I propped up my languid body, half lying on the ground.

It took me only a moment to work out what had happened.

In the original novel, someone of high standing had slapped me in the street, and the innocent little princess had seen it.

Unable to bear it, she’d bought my freedom.

Afterward, though, her adoring elder brother, the crown prince, had shifted all his attention from her to me.

The princess wasn’t happy about that.

She didn’t dare make a fuss with her brother, but her admirers frowned at how dispirited she’d become.

Which brought us to the present scene.

The young general, Chi Ye, sat on the wall and eyed me with contempt. He told the stiff young scholar beside him, “Someone as high-minded as you probably hasn’t heard it before, but that’s all you hear in an army camp at night.”

He meant the women forced into prostitution for the soldiers.

Shen Yu, who’d placed first in the imperial examinations, stood stunned for quite a while before he understood.

Then undisguised disgust filled his eyes. “Shameless!”

With that, he stepped farther away, as though terrified some filth might rub off on him.

Chi Ye hopped off the wall, dusted his hands, and approached me.

He crouched casually, gripped my hair with one hand, and forced me to raise my head.

He pulled so hard it felt as though he might rip my scalp off.

I bared my teeth in pain.

Seeing the faint redness at the corners of my eyes, he sneered. “I’m not Jingheng. I don’t go soft over a pretty face.”

“Drop the act.”

He meant Crown Prince Zhao Jingheng. They’d all grown up together and called one another by their given names.

Chi Ye had spent his childhood in army camps with his father. He particularly despised the women there, once dismissing them as utterly filthy.

In his eyes, I—a musical entertainer—was no different from those women: someone lowborn who served men with her looks.

To him, their lack of choice and miserable lives apparently meant they deserved everything that happened. They merited no pity.

The deeper that hatred ran, the more enamored he became of the sweet, innocent princess.

And the more cruelly he treated me, the ungrateful disposable supporting character.

His expression was vicious as his palm repeatedly patted the side of my face.

It didn’t hurt very much, but the gesture was plainly degrading.

Shen Yu, normally upright and clear-headed, frowned and began to remind him not to go too far.

One sentence from Chi Ye shut him up.

“Weiwei’s been unhappy for days because of this little bitch. Don’t you want to get back at her for Weiwei?”

The righteous scholar looked away and turned his back.

As though refusing to witness a crime meant he could remain the princess’s elegant, unblemished young gentleman.

Ha. I sneered inwardly. What a hypocrite. All those books, and he might as well have fed them to a dog.

He was just as repulsive as the openly vicious Chi Ye.

The sad part was that my fate lay in their hands.

I had no choice. I had to manage them.

Yes, I was the expendable supporting character.

But before that—I had been the heroine of an erotic novel.

I looked up at the two inexperienced male leads, so convinced of their own cleverness and composure, and scoffed.

Now that I was here, I’d show them—

Who gave a damn about cute when sexy walked into the room?