All Novel

The world is one giant slapdash production, and I somehow drift through it anyway.

My father is a financial tycoon, but I can barely handle addition and subtraction under ten. My mother is a gorgeous award-winning actress, while I look perfectly ordinary. My brother held his first solo art exhibition at four, while at five I was still toddling after him babbling nonsense.

Even our maid, Wang Ma, and our butler, Uncle Chen, turned out to be retired legends hiding in plain sight.

Thankfully, all of them adored me. I slowly made peace with being ordinary.

Then one day, a genius girl who had gone viral online showed up at our door and demanded that I give her back her place as the real daughter of the Su family.

Wonderful. The worry that had been hanging over me for years finally dropped dead.

The Pei family funded me for ten years, and Pei Shaoye hated me for ten years.

Because not only was I a top student, I was also well-behaved.

The proud and untamable young master once spoke of me with disdain to his friends.

“She’s so full of it, just a bookworm who only knows how to study. Without my family’s funding, she’d be nothing.”

When I won another scholarship, Pei’s father asked me what reward I wanted.

I said I wanted Pei Shaoye.

“Great, with you, Xiaoye will surely mend his ways.”

That very night, I had Pei Shaoye pinned beneath me on the bed, kissing him breathlessly.

With an indifferent face, I watched his lashes tremble and his neck flush red.

“Am I learning well, Young Master Pei?”

“What the hell… What kind of book is this?”

“Forcing Rebellious Men: A Smutty Po18 Novel. Forgot to tell you-top students don’t just study well, we also rock it in action.”

To serve as the Sword Sect’s Chief Disciple’s cauldron.

Wei Xun warned me coldly, “On the bed, don’t make a sound.”

I was too talkative, too noisy, too irritating. The moment I opened my mouth, I stopped sounding like the woman he loved.

But if I stayed silent, he would pinch my waist and say hoarsely, “You have no spiritual root, but you do have a gift for being a cauldron.”

“One round of dual cultivation can raise my cultivation by thirty percent.”

He did not know it was not because I had any gift.

It was because cauldrons like him…

I had two more.

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 the oldest unmarried young adult in my family, I had been suffering under the pressure to get married for years.

Eventually, I simply gave up fighting it.

My mom said she was so worried she could not sleep.

So I drove two hundred kilometers overnight, got home at three in the morning, stood by her bed, and pried her eyelids open.

My mom said everyone in the family was laughing at her because I refused to get married.

The next second, I tagged everyone in the family group chat:

[My mom says everyone is laughing at her because I won’t get married. I came to ask, who exactly is laughing at her? @everyone]

My cousin was the first to start a message chain:

[Your little cousin is not laughing at her.]

Then came an orderly line of replies:

[Auntie is not laughing at her.]

[Uncle is not laughing at her.]

[Second Cousin is not laughing at her.]

[Dad is not laughing at her.]

[…]

I was the bedchamber maid of the Second Master of the Marquis’ Mansion.

I heard he was quite handsome, but incapable of performing as a man, which had only made his temper stranger by the day.

So on the day I was to attend his bed, I stewed him an enormous pot of lamb tails. “My lord, as they say, for limp-tail syndrome, you supplement form with form…”

Before I could say another word, he lifted his eyes and smiled.

“Get out.”

My roommate Chen Ling was always coming up with strange rules. For example, after the dorm power went out, we weren’t allowed to turn on any lights, and once a bag of snacks was opened, it had to be finished within five minutes.

If we didn’t follow them, she would nag us about it all day long.

Just now, at three in the morning, she woke all of us from a dead sleep and said:

“You have to survive. The drill is officially over now.”

With that, she gave us an eerie smile, then turned and walked out the door.

A scream came from downstairs soon after.

She had jumped from the dorm room below ours.

My senior brother was both pitiful and broke.

His sect had been destroyed, his master captured, and his junior brothers and sisters were missing.

As for him, he carried a battered sword on his back and would go hungry for three days after every meal.

Even so, he still kept me by his side and bought me big steamed buns to eat.

“Once you remember your parents’ names, make sure you pay me back!”

“Mm-hmm!”

I prayed in secret that I must have been born into a wealthy family, so I could properly repay Senior Brother.

But before I could regain my memories, Senior Brother lost me again.

All he left behind was a bag of steamed buns and a letter.

[Dongze will execute my master at the Four Regions Assembly. I have to go save him.

[After I leave, eat the buns sparingly. You don’t have to pay me back anymore.]

I sobbed until my heart felt torn apart, clutching the letter as I chased after him.

But in my carelessness, I missed my footing, rolled down a hillside, and struck my head.

And then I remembered.

I was originally from Dongze.

And the Dongze Sect Leader who was going to execute Senior Brother’s master was none other than my father.

After being reborn on my wedding night, I fed the male lead the Virtuous Wife Charm.

The world-hopping woman tried to become his concubine.

He said, “How could one man promise himself to two women?”

The world-hopping woman gave him high-yield superior seeds.

He said, “With such a divine treasure, why would my wife ever need to worry about failing in her great cause?”

The world-hopping woman broke down.

“You useless piece of trash! If this keeps up, how are you supposed to rise up and rule the world?”

He said, “My wife can dominate a region all on her own. Why would I need to rise up and rule the world?”

On the day I ascended the throne, his charm broke.

“You vile woman! How dare you usurp my legacy!” His eyes nearly split with rage.

I propped my chin on my hand. “Someone, this man has shown disrespect to Us. Kill him.”

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.”