All Novel

If I managed to ascend the throne, it was entirely thanks to my five short-lived older brothers.

Thanks to them, I now live like a beast of burden.

3:00 – Rise and wash up, then pay respects to the Empress Dowager.

4:00 – Morning lessons.

5:00 – Imperial Gate Audience.

7:00 – Breakfast.

8:00 – Handle state affairs and review memorials.

13:00 – Lunch.

14:00 – Riding and archery; inspect the princes’ studies.

15:00 – Handle state affairs.

17:00 – Free time.

19:00 – Evening lessons.

20:00 – Review memorials.

23:00 – Bedtime.

I am so done with this job!

My roommate was a professional bride.

She said she’d landed a big job recently, and the client was incredibly generous.

When I saw the fee wrapped in red paper, I tried to talk her out of taking it.

But on the day of the event, my roommate still snuck off.

And she never came back.

What she didn’t know was that every one of the event’s organizers…

wasn’t human.

When I transmigrated into the role of the true heiress, a universally disliked person, the story had already reached its end.

The fake heiress, doted on by all, had won everyone’s affection, leaving me to be cast out onto the streets. Destitute and adrift, I still clutched a half-eaten meat bun made from lymph node meat in my hand.

Such a miserable script gave me not a shred of will to live.

I lifted my head to look at the clear blue sky, my expression serene and relaxed. I was fully prepared to give up, contemplating whether to follow the original owner into the afterlife and elegantly choosing between a car crash or jumping off a building as the more dignified demise.

Just then, a passing gang of robbers dragged me into a car.

They pressed sharp knives to my throat, grinning ferociously:

“Don’t move! This is a robbery! Call your family right now and have them send five million in ransom.”

“If you dare make a sound, I’ll send you straight to hell!”

As expected, heaven has its own plans.

I nodded contentedly with a smile, tossed the bun aside, and screamed at the top of my lungs:

“Help!”

On the day the Crown Prince was deposed, I left the Eastern Palace with the palace servants, a bundle on my back.

When we reached a deserted place, the Crown Prince caught my hand. “Come with me. I can protect you.”

Tears shimmered in my eyes. “No. This servant will shave her head and become a nun, to pray for Your Highness’s blessings.”

With that, under his reluctant gaze, I walked into the nunnery.

Of course I couldn’t go with him. He was the male lead, and I was the vicious supporting villainess.

In the original plot, I was supposed to follow him and suffer every hardship at his side. But then he would fall in love with a time-traveling woman, reclaim the throne, and make her Empress.

As for me, I would have to fight that time-traveling woman in the palace, then die a miserable death in the end.

Ugh, please.

I did like the Crown Prince, but my motives weren’t exactly pure. More than anything, I wanted wealth and glory.

Since I already knew how it ended, there was no way I was going to suffer with him.

Luckily, I hadn’t awakened too late. I had already built up quite a fortune.

Five years later, after my first husband died and I was just preparing to marry my second, the Crown Prince appeared before me with a cold, shadowed face.

He gripped my hand with crushing force and said through gritted teeth, “Didn’t you say you were becoming a nun?”

The friends of the Crown Prince of the Beijing Circle were always laughing at me for being a hick, saying I wasn’t even worthy of being a stand-in for his white moonlight.

They even predicted that I’d be packing up and leaving in less than a month.

I panicked and immediately summoned my seven older sisters for emergency training in the art of being a white moonlight substitute.

Even if I got fired, there was no way I was letting such a cushy gig fall into an outsider’s hands!

Then, a year later, the white moonlight returned to the country. The moment the crown prince saw her face-he threw up.

Trembling, he said, “I’m sick of it. So sick of it. For the rest of my life, I never want to see that face again!”

The second young lady of the Guardian General’s Residence was young, beautiful, and of noble status.

After attending a gathering of noble ladies, she suddenly hanged herself.

She left not a single word behind.

Her elder sister, Wang Ping’an, the Guardian General stationed at the border, rode back to the capital overnight.

Then, with lightning speed, she abducted the other four noble ladies who had attended the gathering-

the Grand Tutor’s daughter, the daughter of the Minister of Personnel, the legitimate daughter of the Censor-in-Chief, and the County Lady of Zhongwang Mansion-and brought them to a farmstead on the outskirts of the capital.

I, along with Yuan Nanshan, the Vice Minister of Dali Temple, was also dragged here to help uncover the truth.

Seeing me stare worriedly at the four top-ranking noble ladies, the Guardian General gave a chilling sneer.

“Master Yu, I hear your divinations are infallible, and that you can see the past and the future.”

“I want to know how my sister died!”

“If you can’t get to the bottom of it today, all of you can accompany her to the grave!”

Wait. I’m going to die too?

I’m just a fortune-teller.

In the two years since my wedding, my husband had never once come home.

Lonely beyond endurance, I bought a convicted slave to warm my bed.

He was certainly diligent between the sheets, but as a person, he was far too vain.

My purse couldn’t take it, so I simply kept him on a poor man’s budget.

Unable to stomach a life of coarse tea and plain meals, he roared, “I don’t want to be your husband anymore!”

Puzzled, I said, “I’m already married. You’re just my kept man.”

His eyes went bloodshot as he gnashed his teeth. “You’re this broke, and you’re still trying to keep a lover on the side like everyone else?!”

And with that, we went our separate ways.

I packed my things and returned to the capital, where I heard that my long-missing brother-in-law had finally come back.

He was kneeling in the ancestral hall and had been given ten lashes.

My mother-in-law was so furious she cursed, “You actually fell for a married woman! Have you no shame at all?!”

I hurried forward to plead on his behalf.

To my surprise, my brother-in-law turned his head, looked at me, and slowly smiled. “Sister-in-law, have you been well?”

I was stunned.

Wasn’t this my vain, status-obsessed kept man?!

When I was four, a fortune-teller said I was fated to bring misfortune upon my parents. So they sent me away to a rural estate. For ten years, they never came to see me, nor did they care whether I lived or died.

At fourteen, they brought me home-so they could marry me off.

My legitimate elder sister laughed. “A fool marrying a sickly wretch. A match made in heaven.”

My parents said, “If this engagement weren’t impossible to break, and if your sister weren’t about to marry into a noble family, you wouldn’t even be worthy of carrying his shoes.”

“A married daughter is water poured out. Once you’re gone, don’t come back for anything.”

Only he held my hand and taught me to write my own name.

And then he taught me to write: “A woman, too, must respect and cherish herself, strive without ceasing, and press ever forward.”

Chapter 0

The year I turned thirty-two, I kept a poor college boy.

One day, passing by the university, I saw Shi Jin with a girl caged in his arms.

His eyes were red, wronged yet restrained. “Please don’t think I’m dirty…”

It was a perfectly straightforward sugar arrangement.

So why did he make it sound as if I had defiled him?

If he thought it was dirty, plenty of people wouldn’t.

I exhaled a stream of smoke, turned to the blond college boy passing by in head-to-toe fakes, and said,

“Ask him whether he’s willing to call someone mommy.”

As a washed-up actor with no buzz to my name,

I decided to take the plunge and shoot a BL drama for the traffic.

When I saw that my fanservice partner was Xi Sheng, I was dumbfounded.

“You’re a top-tier star. Why are you taking the plunge?”

Later, he held me in his arms, took his time teasing me, and bit my ear with a soft laugh.

“For this.”