Chapter 1

I transmigrated into an erotic novel as a supporting character—a female general built like a double-door refrigerator.

For now, though, I was merely a maid of all work, spending my days boiling water and sweeping floors.

Because I was so burly, the heroine initially complained that I hardly looked like a woman and would spoil the view in her bedchamber. Still, with my broad shoulders and thick waist, I could do the work of ten beasts of burden. She held her nose and accepted me.

Fortunately, she soon discovered another use for my strength: when a client couldn’t perform but still needed to preserve his manly dignity, she would ask me to give him a push.

She would even extend a delicate hand from behind the bed curtains without the slightest embarrassment.

“Hua Nu, His Highness is tired. Come and help him.”

Excuse me?

The heroine’s name was Yumo. She had once been a young lady from a respectable family.

Unfortunately, her family’s fortunes had collapsed. Destitute, she had been forced into prostitution, where she learned all the arts of pleasing men while still young.

Men from every walk of life flocked to her. While the prince lingered in her arms, another client, an oil peddler, could wait no longer.

He cornered me on my way to empty the chamber pots by the river.

When I ignored him and kept walking, he hurried after me.

“Hey! You, maid!”

“Stop! I’m talking to you!”

“Are you deaf?”

I was getting annoyed.

I turned and punched the oil jar in his arms to pieces.

The oil peddler fell silent.

As the shards clattered to the ground, he suddenly became exceedingly polite. “Sister Hua Nu, may I call you Sister?”

“You may,” I said without expression.

“Sister, could I trouble you to take a message to Yumo?”

Seeing my lack of enthusiasm, he glanced at my fist and made his voice small. “Tell her Ah Lang, the oil seller, is returning to Hebei tomorrow. For the sake of our past affection, would she give me something to remember her by?”

“Oh.”

After sending off the profusely grateful oil peddler, I went upstairs to find Yumo. She was wearing a gauzy robe so thin and light it was almost transparent, apparently preparing to bathe.

When she heard what I had come for, she shook her head. “Ah, poor Ah Lang.”

Yumo treated all her clients alike. She enjoyed the prince’s wealth and elegance, and the oil peddler’s gentle attentions too. Of course she would give him something.

Blushing, she picked the skimpiest garment from the clothes she had taken off.

“Take this. Tell him I’ll never forget him.”

I had no words.

Did I look like someone who deserved this?

Thanks to my tremendous strength, the prince was thoroughly satisfied with this visit. The following day, he announced that he would buy her freedom.

Yumo was, naturally, overjoyed.

As she bustled about packing her valuables, I brought over a stool and sat silently in the doorway, watching the traffic outside and the sun sinking toward the horizon.

The truth was, I had already lived through countless loops in this world.

A novel was only an imagined story, after all.

On the page, the heroine was like a black hole, able to accommodate anything. In a real body, she was terribly fragile.

She had died countless times on the very night she was sent to the perverted emperor.

Whenever a main character died, this world reset. Every time I found myself back at the start, I knew she had died. Again. And again. And again.

This time would be no exception.

So, as before, I watched the prince buy her freedom. I watched her happily climb into a small, blood-red sedan chair, to be carried away by an unknowable fate.

This time, however, the procession did not leave.

That had never happened before.

While I was wondering why, hurried footsteps sounded outside. Then a soft little hand caught my sleeve.

Yumo, who had always found me so objectionable, actually pleaded with the prince.

“My lord, please buy Hua Nu’s freedom too!”