Chapter 1

Chapter 1

We, the Descendants of the Kingdom of Women, can live forever.

Long ago, Tang Monk and his disciples accidentally drank Mother-Child River Water. My ancestors divided up and devoured the mass of flesh they miscarried afterward.

The price of an immortal soul is that our bodies decay far faster than those of ordinary people. To survive, we must continually make men pregnant, have them give birth to flesh-and-blood vessels, and then reincarnate through their wombs.

The moment I turned eighteen, Mom began urging me to find a young, strong man.

I looked at my boyfriend, Zhao Peng. He was undressing beside me, his muscles full and defined, his waist lean and his back broad. His youthful body gave off an irresistible allure.

He had always indulged my every whim and claimed he would do anything for me.

But every man who became pregnant after drinking Mother-Child River Water would, without exception, burst apart and die.

They would become nourishment for our reincarnation.

I was instantly torn.

When Mom learned that Zhao Peng had taken me home to meet his family, she eagerly sent me a voice message.

“Qianqian, you need to have a baby while you’re still young. Your grandma really can’t hold on much longer!”

In the video, the grandma who loved me more than anyone looked like a puddle of melted wax. Her flesh had withered away, and the arms that had once lifted me so easily were now as dry and brittle as dead branches. Yet even that wasn’t the worst of it.

Without a new body, Grandma would degenerate into a monster that was neither human nor ghost.

In a way, immortality was also a curse.

I panicked and tried to convert the voice message to text, only to hit the play button by mistake.

The next second, Mom’s booming voice rang throughout the entire private dining room.

The expressions of the Zhao Family men immediately changed. Zhao Peng’s father, who had been covertly sizing me up the entire time, was the first to speak.

“Qianqian, I wholeheartedly agree with your mother’s thinking.

“The Old Zhao Family has a tradition of sharing one wife. You want a child, and we need a wife. Isn’t that perfect?”

What?

I stared at him in horror.

No wonder Zhao Peng’s two younger brothers had raked their eyes over me from head to toe the moment I arrived. Their blatant stares had made my skin crawl.

His second brother, Zhao Qing, looked unimpressed. “You’re only a B cup, right? Flat as a board. You’ve really gone for something bland this time, Zhao Peng.”

His third brother, Zhao Tianbao, was even more critical. “With a figure like that, will she even be able to produce enough milk for the child? Breast milk is still the healthiest.”

I looked at my silent boyfriend, and my heart sank.

“You knew about this custom all along, didn’t you?”

Zhao Peng’s silence was answer enough.

Only then did I realize that he had deliberately approached me after learning that my hometown was remote, that I had grown up without a father, and that Grandma had raised me all by herself.

On the day he confessed his feelings, he had lined my route home from work with candles and roses. His eyes had been full of sincerity.

“Qianqian, will you let me be the one you rely on from now on?”

He had cared for me as attentively as if I were an infant.

He prepared everything I ate and used. He even washed my underwear by hand.

I had once believed that this was love in its purest form.

Zhao Peng’s face darkened. All his former tenderness vanished, revealing the viciousness beneath.

“Qianqian, you studied history. You should know this custom was perfectly common in ancient times. Didn’t Plato of Greece advocate communal property, shared wives, and shared children? When there are too many women, there are too many conflicts. Sharing one wife avoids a lot of problems. As for the children you give birth to, we’ll all raise them together…”

A terrible feeling swept over me. I had barely taken a few steps when my body went limp. I staggered and lost consciousness.

Before everything went black, I saw Zhao Peng and his father carry me into the cellar.

Then they began unbuttoning my clothes and taking pictures.

“Once a woman enters the Zhao Family, there’s no walking back out!”