All Novel

My family was on the verge of bankruptcy, so to stage a comeback, my father cheerfully decided to marry off his daughter.

There was just one problem: I was a lesbian, and my prospective husband was gay—a forced match in every sense of the word.

Before our first dinner at the Liu estate, Dad reminded me again and again, “The Liu family is run by their eldest daughter now that she’s back from abroad. Be on your best behavior and make a good impression on your future sister-in-law.”

I nodded without paying much attention—then caught sight of the woman coming down the stairs, and my vision went black.

Wasn’t she the little canary I had kept overseas five years ago?

There’s something worse than being the third wheel when two of your friends start dating.

It’s when they break up. And then fight over custody of me.

Everyone knew that Fu Shengchao, the titan of the Beijing Circle, loved his wife more than life itself.

On the day she died in a car accident, his hair turned white overnight.

From then on, he grew more and more violent, and his relationship with his son became increasingly distant.

Father and son ended up treating each other like enemies.

Later, Fu Shengchao finally relented and agreed to find his son a stepmother.

I was among the candidates.

When our cooking skills were tested, everyone else presented delicacies fit for a banquet. I served a plate of stinky tofu.

When our talents were tested, everyone else showed off music, chess, calligraphy, and painting. I performed a set of tai chi.

When our knowledge of Fu Shengchao was tested, everyone else praised his abilities and glorious past achievements.

I leaned in and said, “CEO Fu, you have a mole on your left butt cheek.”

Fu Shengchao: “…”

That very night, I was kept behind.

Fu Shengchao pressed a gun to my temple, his expression cold.

“Talk. Who sent you?”

I dropped to my knees at once, but my eyes darted to the side.

Over there, a female ghost who had been dead for ten years was flying around in a panic. “That shouldn’t have happened! Everything I taught you was right!”

Bullshit! She also said her husband was cold on the outside but kind on the inside, and easy to coax!

After being cheated on.

Out of spite, I chose Xu Mo, the coldest and most aloof school heartthrob from high school.

In the dimly lit bathroom, he was unbelievably obedient.

Letting me do as I pleased, his body temperature was as cold as ice.

My fingers slowly reached for his belt.

But he grasped my wrist:

“Wait a moment, okay?”

I was stunned and looked up at him,

“Can you… save me?”

Chapter 0

After my Taoist temple went bankrupt, I opened a Haunted House.

Every ghost inside was personally captured by me.

Until today.

A tourist grabbed one of my ghost NPCs and wailed:

“Mom! I missed you so much, Mom!”

Oh no!!!

In the tenth year after I was abducted and forced to take part in ability experiments, I finally escaped.

Only to discover that the apocalypse had descended outside, and zombies had broken out everywhere.

My former best friend was being forced by her newly awakened husband to hand over her food.

“Everyone else turned theirs in. Why are you so selfish? You’re even hiding a few pieces of chocolate?”

My best friend defended herself in a small voice. “I wanted to save them for Tongtong.”

But the young woman beside her cut her off with a scornful laugh. “Sis, every time you get greedy, you use the kid as an excuse. Honestly…”

Under the contemptuous stares of everyone around them, I threw a backpack full of chocolate over.

It hit her squarely on the head.

“Is that enough?”

Expressionless, I said, “Say one more word, and I’ll kill every last one of you.”

When my elder brother returned to the capital after investigating a case, he brought back two Liuxian Skirts, one blue-green and one pink.

He first asked my eldest sister which one she liked.

When it was my turn, my brother smiled gently.

“Pink is delicate, and it suits your complexion too. Do you like it?”

If I didn’t, there would be nothing left for me.

I nodded and took it.

Later, when choosing tutors and selecting study companions, it was always the same.

It was no different on the day we were to choose our husbands.

The Crown Prince won my eldest sister’s hand, looking thoroughly pleased with himself.

The Third Prince was crushed. He pointed at me at random.

“Then the Second Miss it is.”

After we married, the Third Prince regretted it a little.

But he was a good man.

He was willing to hand over management of the household to me, and he took no concubines.

Even when my eldest sister and I fell from our horses on the same day, he was the one who risked his life to save me.

At the very end, he touched my brow bone and let out a long sigh.

“Even if all I can ask for is a resemblance, so be it. In this life, I sought the highest, and in the end got only what was second-best.”

And so, when I was given a second chance at life, at the banquet where husbands were chosen,

I covered my brows and eyes and answered the Third Prince in a muffled voice.

“Yinyin already has someone she loves.”

On New Year’s Eve, I received a message from the boy who had shared my desk in high school.

I’m broke. Can you lend me some money?

A medical report followed.

Late-stage stomach cancer.

I sent him the last 19,873 yuan in my account.

Will that be enough for now?

After a long silence, he sent a voice message, his clear voice ringing with laughter in my ear.

How are you still this gullible?

I had plans to go sing karaoke with my best friend that night, but my five-year-old daughter just would not go to sleep.

Left with no choice, I took her with me. Once we were in the private karaoke room, I ordered a couple of model guys to look after her.

Halfway through my song, the door to the room was shoved open.

My husband-my marriage-of-convenience husband-came in looking like he was here to catch me cheating.

“Su Xu, look at you getting bold. You actually dared to bring our daughter along while you ordered random men-”

Before he could finish, he finally saw what was happening inside.

His five-year-old daughter was currently sitting there with an arm around each of the two model guys. “…”

At a palace banquet, my elder sister accidentally inhaled an aphrodisiac and ended up alone in a room with the heir of the Xie family.

But she was already the Crown Princess, and if the secret got out, the consequences would be catastrophic.

To protect her reputation, the young lord publicly took responsibility and claimed that I had been the woman who spent that night with him.

After I married into the marquis’s household, he remained unfailingly polite but distant, as cold as frost behind a screen.

So determined was he to sleep in separate rooms that he even ruined his own reputation, pretending to be drunk and lamenting before others that he suffered from an unspeakable condition and could not perform as a man.

To preserve the family’s dignity, my mother-in-law simply announced that I was the infertile one.

My sister tormented herself day and night, convinced that she had ruined my life.

I alone breathed a secret sigh of relief, stroked my steadily rounding belly, and made an announcement at the family banquet.

“A miracle from heaven! My husband is going to have an heir!”