All Novel

I was a female scripture teacher who recited sutras for the madam of the household.

Yet in the middle of the night, someone cornered me behind the incense-draped curtains and asked me who was better-looking: him or the Bodhisattva.

That night, I did not choose the Bodhisattva.

Unfortunately, after barely three months, he came to bid me farewell.

I thought he had simply grown tired of me, so I agreed without fuss.

From then on, he lived beneath the glow of red lanterns, lost in endless pleasure, while I returned alone to the ancient Buddha and my solitary lamp.

Who would have thought that later, when he learned I had been drowned in a pond… He went mad.

The first thing Lu Xiangzhi did after becoming the top scorer in the imperial examination was divorce his wife.

“The Shen family woman is virtuous enough, but far too dull.”

He married a woman from a brothel, while I remarried a spoiled heir.

Lu Xiangzhi believed I had only married that ignorant, good-for-nothing dandy out of spite.

He thought a Shen family woman valued wifely virtue above all else, while that dandy was too unruly to be managed.

It would not be long, he assumed, before the man grew tired of a dull woman like me.

He waited half a year, yet never heard that I had been cast aside.

When Lu Xiangzhi finally could not resist coming to see me, I was holding a discipline ruler and tapping my dandy husband’s head with it, rather helplessly saying, “The teacher explained it three times. You still don’t understand?”

My dandy husband wrapped an arm around my waist and grinned like a shameless rogue.

“I don’t. I want a kiss.”

In my previous life, a woman armed with a conquest system won over my parents, my brothers, and my fiance one after another.

They adored her, indulged her, and let everything go her way until she stood at the height of favor.

As for me, everyone despised me.

I was imprisoned in a secluded palace alley for life, forbidden to take even half a step beyond its gates.

Only after I died did I learn that she had come from another world, and that every bit of my suffering fed her luck. Reborn, I traded away a lifetime of love for a single wish.

The Bodhisattva asked me, “What do you want?”

I whispered, “I want everyone she targets to know that she is here only to conquer them.”

And from that moment on, they could all hear her conquest alerts.

In 2004, he used my body to pay off his gambling debts.

I didn’t blame him.

I only remembered that clean-cut nineteen-year-old boy back in 1997, and the purity in his eyes when he handed me a White Rabbit Milk Candy.

Later, he became successful.

He replaced the faded fake around my neck with a heavy gold chain.

He used a three-carat diamond ring to buy my silence regarding the women he kept on the side.

Later, when a business partner groped my thigh, he simply turned his head away to light a cigarette. “It’s not like you’re losing a limb.”

I dragged my suitcase into the rain and never looked back.

After that, I went on blind dates, got married, and spent my days in a cubicle, studying for certifications and working overtime.

He eventually found me, looking like a gambler who had lost everything, his eyes terrifyingly bloodshot. “Since you’re willing to marry just anyone from a blind date… then, why couldn’t that person be me?”

I smiled.

Elder Brother, I never wanted any of those things.

I only wanted that summer in 1997, before that piece of candy had even melted in my palm.

I have become my own shore; no one can push me into the sea ever again.

The day before our wedding, I accidentally stumbled upon a chat log between him and one of his old buddies.

“I’ve never met anyone so easy to fool.”

“She’s from a single-parent household, you know? She’s starved for affection.”

“So, even if I treat her just a tiny bit well, she comes crawling back to lick my boots.”

…

Honestly, I once believed he was the one who rescued me from the mire I was sinking in. As it turns out, he was just playing me for a fool the entire time.

I thought I had found love, but all my sincerity had been thrown to the dogs.

My husband was sick and dying.

But before he died, he insisted on divorcing me.

He transferred every asset under his name, including the company, to me and left himself without a penny.

The night we signed the divorce agreement, he held me and cried like his heart was being ripped out.

He said this was the last thing he could do for me. He didn’t want me, after his death, to become the widow everyone pitied-the woman whose husband had died.

It was his one and only wish before he passed. As the wife who loved him so deeply, how could I possibly refuse?

The night before we were supposed to pick up the divorce certificate, he suddenly fell into a coma and was rushed to the hospital.

The doctor issued a critical condition notice.

And I signed the consent form to forgo treatment without hesitation.

They couldn’t save my husband. He died on that rain-lashed night.

I turned away, wiped the tears from my eyes, and tore the divorce agreement to shreds with a smile.

That same night, I called the funeral home. Before dawn broke, I had him sent into the cremator and burned down to a handful of ash.

After disguising myself as a man and joining the army in my husband’s place, I failed to endure the loneliness and kept a lover on the side.

When the war ended and I returned home, I discovered that my husband had taken a concubine too.

Well, now I didn’t feel guilty anymore. We were even!

But then I saw that beautiful concubine.

I was utterly stunned.

Can someone please tell me why my lover had become my husband’s concubine?

The Noble Consort was the most clearheaded woman I had ever met.

Even though His Majesty showered her with endless, singular favor, she always guarded her heart and refused to give it away.

I thought that if things went on like this, she would eventually be moved by His Majesty and meet him with sincerity in return.

Unfortunately, I never got to see that day.

Because His Majesty found someone else to cherish. He came to the Noble Consort for advice, asking her to help him win over the young woman he adored.

He said, “I have never liked a girl this much before. What do you think of me marrying her and making her Empress?”

My boyfriend insisted on a Platonic relationship, believing that carnal desire was a sin.

Just for trying to kiss him, he sent me away for “spiritual purification.”

The purification worked.

I no longer felt any desire for him.

However, my desire for other men doubled.

Later, as he stared at the hickey on my collarbone, he started acting like a lunatic in public again.

“Must you insist on falling into the abyss of sin?!”

His friend pulled me onto his lap, kissing my hand with a smirk. “I’ve committed a crime. Why don’t you call the police and have me arrested?”

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.