All Novel

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!”

The general saved a woman.

Then he asked me to surrender my place as his lawful wife.

I held the divorce paper and laughed coldly.

“Gu Nianwu, success has gone to your head.”

You may command a thousand troops, but I command ten thousand ghosts.

Without me, where would all your glorious victories have come from?

The day I was cast aside for jealousy, more than half the capital applauded.

My mother-in-law wept and complained that I controlled her son, forbidding him from drinking and from taking concubines, making him the laughingstock of the city as a henpecked husband.

What no one knew was that my husband, Qi Chong, used that “henpecked” reputation as an excuse to turn away people asking to borrow money, dodge social obligations, reject beautiful spy-concubines sent by political rivals with ill intent, and rise smoothly through officialdom.

In the end, I alone bore the infamy of being a shrew and a jealous wife. I angered my father to death, and I myself fell gravely ill and died.

When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the first year of my marriage to Qi Chong.

At a banquet, Qi Chong didn’t dare refuse the beautiful spy sent by his superior, and pushed me forward instead. Lifting his cup, he put on a troubled expression and said,

“I like the beauty very much.

“But if I bring her into the household, my wife will be upset again.”

What he didn’t know was that I took the beauty’s hand, then turned back to him with a gentle, magnanimous smile.

“Since my husband is so fond of her, and I’ve already checked that your birth dates are compatible, why not bring her into the household today?”

Qi Chong’s face filled with shock. He froze where he stood.

My father was an imperial censor, and nothing mattered to him more than his reputation.

He had fathered me on a prostitute.

Mother and I were the greatest stains on his life, and he would have liked nothing better than to be rid of us.

Shen Qi had secretly loved my elder sister for years.

When she and I fell into the river together, he mistook me for her and pulled me out first.

My sister was swept away and drowned.

Knowing none of this, I fell hopelessly in love with him.

I made such a scene about marrying him that he gladly agreed.

After the wedding, however, he alternated between warmth and coldness.

At times he treated me tenderly.

At others, he looked at me as if he hated me to the bone.

Once bright and willful, I withered day by day and lived in misery.

Only as I lay dying did I discover the truth…

He was kind whenever I reminded him of my sister.

He was cruel whenever he remembered that he blamed me for her death.

After I was reborn, I climbed onto the bank by myself and watched him rejoice at having my sister back.

Then I turned and walked toward the most exalted man in the realm.

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.

When the Crown Prince ascended the throne, he installed his Crown Prince’s Secondary Consort as the Empress.

The reason was simple.

It was written in the Destiny Book that his first Empress would die from a hail of arrows piercing her heart.

On the day the imperial decree for the installation was issued, my elder sister-the Crown Princess Shen Chengyun-entered my palace with a beaming smile and gave a rather sloppy bow.

“This consort offers her congratulations to the Empress.”

She leaned in close, her bright red lips curling into a venomous sneer.

“Shen Ruoruo, you’d better cherish these few days of luxury. Don’t get too ahead of yourself, though. If you do anything to upset me… well, whether you receive an honorable posthumous title after you die will be entirely up to me.”

“Is that so?”

I took a step back and spoke in a low, steady voice.

“Then Sister had better make sure she doesn’t die before I do.”

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?!

On the day my mother, the Empress, had me choose a husband, I began to hear the inner thoughts of the little palace maid standing beside me.

“How can I tell the Princess that she can’t choose this man? I used the Simulated Life System to test him, and he’s a total scumbag! He’ll subject the Princess to the cold shoulder, take concubines, and keep mistresses. The Princess absolutely cannot choose him.”

I shifted my gaze away from that man and glanced at another.

“Ahhh! You can’t choose this one either! He’s a mama’s boy. Your mother-in-law will torment you to death!”

I frowned, finding it hard to believe. Am I really that weak? If I were to end up in such a state, it would mean my father and mother-the Emperor and Empress standing behind me-had become weak as well.

My gaze unconsciously fell upon Long Zhao, who stood in the crowd with his head bowed.

The little palace maid screamed in her head. “Princess, pick him! Pick him! He will protect you, ensuring the country is prosperous and the people are at peace, and that the land remains safe and sound!”

Oh ho! In that case, I definitely can’t choose Long Zhao. I’m afraid that if I do, she’ll stop screaming.

Married life was so dull that I got myself a canary to pass the time.

Who would have thought the news would reach my husband, the man I’d married for an alliance? From that day on, he started coming home more and more often.

He even… kept finding new ways to surprise me. Until one day, he asked, “When are you going to take me to meet that canary you’re keeping outside?”

“What is it about him that has you so fascinated?”

I froze. “You want to meet him?”

After he gave me a firm yes, I took him to meet the bird I’d been raising.

A Gloster Canary.