Chapter 1

“We’re choosing women to take home tonight anyway. Keep me happy today, and I’ll pick you. Once we’re back in the capital, I’ll make you a concubine, at the very least.”

I opened my eyes to a familiar male voice.

Chen Wu, the commander of a hundred men.

A rotten stench came from his mouth. The arm gripping my hair was covered in tiny red rashes.

Anyone could see something was wrong with him.

He most likely had—

Venereal disease!

Yet I showed neither fear nor resistance. Instead, I obeyed him utterly.

In my previous life, I had struggled desperately after noticing the signs of his disease.

In my panic, I had even pulled out my hairpin and stabbed him.

Chen Wu’s screams of pain had been deafening.

They happened to draw the attention of the young general, Xu Zhaozhao, as she passed.

Standing outside the tent, Xu Zhaozhao watched me struggle beneath Chen Wu for a long while before suddenly smiling.

“Interesting.”

Then she ordered her men to drag Chen Wu away.

That evening, word reached me—

General Xu had chosen me.

I was going back to the capital with him…

The other women in the camp called it a hero rescuing a beauty. They said my good days had finally come.

Only after returning to the capital, after Xu Zhaozhao had severed my tendons and thrown me to the powerful men to abuse as they pleased…

Did I understand. No good life had begun. It was the beginning of a nightmare that would last the rest of my life!

…

At the thought, I dug my fingers into my palm, forcing down my revulsion. I raised a hand to Chen Wu’s face and spoke softly.

“Brother Chen, I’m so happy you’d take me back to the capital as your concubine. I’ll take very good care of you today. Only, I’ve just been with another man, and I’m not clean…”

“Why don’t you meet me tonight at the stream behind the hill?”

“Under the moonlight, in the water, I can attend to you nice and clean…”

“What do you say?”

Ever since Chen Wu had contracted the disease, everyone in camp had shunned him like a plague. No one had spoken to him so willingly.

My gentle voice left him weak at the knees.

He nodded eagerly.

“Yes, yes! I’ll be there tonight, between nine and eleven!”

I leaned close to his ear.

“Oh, and bring some weakening powder. When you see me bathing, don’t say anything. Just come up behind me and cover my mouth and nose.”

“I like being held from behind, unable to struggle free…”

“Tell me, Brother Chen. Doesn’t that sound much more interesting than this dreary tent?”

His eyes practically shone with excitement.

He released me at once and strode out of the tent, laughing.

“Wonderful! I’ll give you everything you want!”

He was very pleased.

So was I.

In my previous life, when Xu Zhaozhao had boasted to those aristocrats about how she had passed as a man in the army, I had heard her perfectly clearly—

Every night, once it was late and everyone was asleep, she secretly went to bathe in the stream behind the hill.

She had kept that secret for three years. No one knew.

Well, now.

I knew. And I had sent Chen Wu to her.

I could hardly wait.

Chen Wu, with his venereal disease, meeting Xu Zhaozhao at her bath. What a spectacle that would be. Ha!