Ranking

My son was being pestered by another boy.

The teacher called and asked me to come to the school.

When I arrived, he shouted at me for the first time. “Mom, what’s wrong with me liking boys?”

I looked at him, feeling neither anger nor resentment.

I crouched down and asked him in a low voice, “Then how can you be sure that you like boys?”

In the third month after our wedding, Shao Zhi took me back to Luoyang to pay respects to his clansmen. Along the way, he carefully explained the web of interests within his clan.

When he mentioned his eldest brother, his face filled with pride.

“My eldest brother is a very good man. He taught me riding and archery himself! ”

Now he serves in Luoyang as the Central Army Commander.

He is the one we are going to meet today.

” I hated Luoyang. There, someone had once forced me to drink a ladle of water from the Luo River and swear an oath: from then on, we would each marry another and never disturb each other again. Clutching the konghou in my arms, I only lowered my head and tried to refuse. ”

Ah Zhi, I was once a music courtesan.

I fear I might sully your honored brother’s eyes and ears.

It would be better if I did not meet him…

” Shao Zhi gathered me into his arms with pity and held my hand, telling me not to worry. ”

He won’t mind. I’ll secretly tell you a bit of gossip about my brother.

Before he married my sister-in-law, he once turned the whole world upside down over a music courtesan who played the konghou.

Later, afraid my sister-in-law would grow jealous, he forced that courtesan to drink from the Luo River and swear that they would each marry another and never disturb each other again.

“Besides, you are my wife now, and you play a fine twenty-three-string konghou. For my sake, my brother is sure to like you.”

I transmigrated into the villainess’s… apple.

That’s right, the Poison Apple from Snow White’s stepmother.

On the very first day after transmigrating, I cried because I was so ugly.

Damn it, half red and half green.

Maybe because I was crying too loudly, the Magic Mirror next door cautiously poked me.

“Um… actually, I think you’re the most… special… apple in this world.”

I paused, then glanced at his slightly reddened mirror surface.

“…Thanks, Comfort Hero.”

The emperor’s wet nurse praised the medicinal cuisine my family made, calling it miraculous.

That very night, soldiers came to seize the secret recipe.

My father and mother guarded it with their lives and died beneath the blades.

My sister-in-law was dragged away, violated, and left to rot in the wilderness.

I only survived because she had hidden me in the water vat in the back courtyard.

The tyrant’s wrath destroyed my family, all while my brother was far away at the border, defending his city for him.

Five years later, the newly appointed Guardian General returned triumphant from the war.

At the victory banquet, the tyrant asked what reward he desired.

He knelt and bowed solemnly: “Your servant has lost both parents and has only one little sister left in this world.”

“She has long admired Your Majesty. I beg Your Majesty to grant this wish.”

Elder Sister was a physician.

After she treated the Noble Consort, the Emperor praised her for having a “miraculous touch.”

Consumed by jealousy, the Noble Consort had Elder Sister’s hands severed.

She smiled and said, “I hear Doctor Song’s medical skills are peerless. In that case, heal your own stumps.”

She denied Elder Sister water and medicine, watching as she slowly succumbed to the agonizing pain.

Six years later, the Noble Consort contracted a strange illness that left her wishing for death.

I stepped forward and reported, “There is one person in this world who can cure this ailment.”

Hope flared in the Noble Consort’s eyes. “Bring this divine physician here at once! I will pay any price!”

I shook my head with regret. “Six years ago, Your Ladyship killed her with your own hands.”

On my birthday, the Fourth Princess and I both set our hearts on the same pomegranate-blossom crown.

At a loss, Father told each of us to choose a young man from the imperial clan to ride and shoot on our behalf.

Whoever struck the kite first after it was released would win.

I chose Qin Yan, my dearest childhood friend.

I knew he could hit the mark with his eyes closed, and I was certain he would make my wish come true.

But all three of his arrows missed by a hair.

I hid in the attic and wept after losing, until Qin Yan came to find me and finally snapped in exasperation, “That enormous gold crown would never have suited you. Jade is better. Plain, pure, and far easier on the eyes.”

“Stop competing with the Fourth Princess over everything.”

Then, with the solemn patience of someone offering hard-won wisdom, he said, “Jiajia, you need to understand that sometimes being right for something matters more than winning it.”

I took his lesson to heart.

So years later, when Father held trials to choose my prince consort, Qin Yan placed first in both the civil and martial examinations.

And I still did not choose him.

This was the seventeenth time I’d run into my roommate Cheng Yuming’s girlfriend on my way downstairs.

As was her habit, she pulled a plump orange from her bag and offered it to me, her eyes curving into a gentle, sweet smile.

I didn’t take it. I simply called her name. “Jiang Tingyu.”

“Yes?”

“Try a different fruit,” I said, my voice flat. “Oranges cause too much internal heat.”

In the dead of night, only after I let out a satisfied sigh did Wei Che gently roll off me.

He had been putting in so much effort lately that I figured he was probably about to leave me.

With a faint sigh, I turned over and went to sleep.

After all, everyone knew it.

I was the most useless kind of lovesick fool.

When the sky wanted to rain and a man wanted to leave, what could I possibly do about it?

Beg him bitterly? Threaten suicide and make a scene?

That was what a real lovesick fool would do.

But I was a fake.

A long time ago, I had already understood one simple truth-

Everyone despised a lovesick fool.

Pretending to be one, however, was the advanced strategy.

My family has one enormous, very public secret.

Ever since she was born, my mother has been bound to a system: the Beauty System.

Apparently, if she ever drops out of the top three on the Beauty Ranking of the Four Seas and Eight Realms, she will die.

At first, neither of my parents was remotely worried.

With Mother’s looks, holding her place for another few hundred thousand years would be no trouble at all.

But sometimes the unexpected arrives without the slightest warning.

When my parents joyfully welcomed their first child, a floating Beauty Ranking of the Four Seas and Eight Realms appeared out of thin air beside the bed.

And there, in first place, was my eldest brother, whose name had only just been decided: Zhou Yi.

My parents were a little bewildered, but didn’t think much of it.

Until they had their second child.

My parents and big brother once again greeted the new baby with delight.

Once again, the ranking appeared in midair.

First place changed hands again.

It now belonged to my elder sister, Zhou Er.

That was when Father panicked.

He moved out of their bedroom that very night.

For several years afterward, he didn’t dare set so much as one foot inside after sunset.

Every evening, they would hold hands in the corridor, gazing at each other as they lingered over their farewell.

Then my brother and sister would each take one of them by the hand and escort them to their separate rooms, with my parents looking back every few steps.

They pined so badly their eyes practically glowed green, but at least Mother’s life was safe.

When Princess Huaying catches a lowly musician wearing her ceremonial robes, mysterious floating comments reveal that she is meant to be the vicious supporting villainess in someone else’s triumphant love story.

Refusing the fate of disgrace, exile, and death assigned to her, Huaying turns every trap against the scheming Prince of Qi and follows a buried imperial secret to the heart of a decades-old succession struggle.

Yet when rebellion finally erupts, Huaying discovers that her cleverest ally may be her formidable mother—and that surviving the story requires more than defeating its supposed heroine.

I drunkenly took advantage of the New Top Scholar. The next day, I waved a hand and offered him compensation.

To my surprise, he turned around and grabbed a rope, intent on hanging himself. I hurriedly promised him gold, shops, and a grand mansion.

He let go of the rope only to try and bash his head against the wall. I held him tight, refusing to let go. “A rank three position in two years, and entry into the Grand Secretariat in three!”

He silently drew a blade. I was completely out of options. “Could it be… you want This Princess to take responsibility?”

He sheathed the knife, lowered his eyes, and whispered, “…That would suffice.”

Chapter 0

My Empress Mother was a transmigrator. Before she returned to her original world, she told me:

I am the vicious villainess in a side story. I would supposedly be consumed by hatred born of love, commit all sorts of evil, and ultimately bring about my own destruction, my corpse abandoned in the wilderness.

“Until you have the power to protect yourself, remember: you must stay far away from Gu Qinglan.”

At first, I truly intended to stay away from Gu Qinglan.

But the plot still forced us to cross paths in the capital.

Left with no choice, I took on the role of the villain and began actively sabotaging him.

Yet, Gu Qinglan looked at me in confusion and said:

“Why is it that even though you’re so wicked, I still find myself falling for you?”

Tsk, tsk. Honestly? I have no words!

In my previous life, as my Imperial Younger Brother and I were being hacked into mincemeat by a flurry of blades, the Imperial Son-in-Law stood outside the bamboo grove, cold and detached, as if he were a mere bystander.

In this life, I looked at the handsome gigolo kneeling before me-the same man who had once died while shielding me from a blade-and I couldn’t help but smile.

“You’ll do.”

From a very young age, I knew I was a Villainess Supporting Character.

I knew because of a strange palace maid by my side named Sui’an. Sometimes, she would stare blankly at the top of my head as if there were words written there.

Later, after spending enough time with her, I managed to piece together the truth from countless minor details: There really were words floating above my head, and those words were: Villainess Supporting Character.

The Prince Consort’s carriage plummeted over the cliff. Even in his unconscious state, he still gripped his childhood sweetheart’s hand tightly, refusing to let go.

I replaced the doctor meant to save him with a Taoist priest who could bind souls, sealing his spirit within a jade pendant. I want him to see it with his own eyes.

I want him to see that the childhood sweetheart he yearns for is nothing but a fickle, unfaithful woman.

That the sister he protected with all his heart is a cold-blooded, ungrateful soul.

That the mother he respects and loves is a person who would abandon all honor for the sake of profit. Only this is the punishment he truly deserves.

I am the most ill-fated princess in history.

Widowed young, my homeland was invaded, I was carried off to a foreign land, and after suffering endless humiliation, I died at the age of twenty.

When I woke up, I thanked heaven it had only been a dream.

But then my maid told me that Father Emperor had betrothed me to the doomed Cheng Su.

In an instant, dream and reality overlapped…

Thinking of Cheng Su’s beautiful face, I steeled myself and made my decision.

“Tell Father Emperor I refuse this marriage!”

Father Emperor is a transmigrator, and I have been able to hear his inner thoughts since the moment I was born.

[Huh, so this is the future villainess? She’s so soft and adorable; how did she end up turning out so wrong? No, I have to protect her. My daughter can only be the lead heroine.]

In the beginning, that was exactly what he did. He taught me self-respect and self-love, told me not to depend on men, and said that girls could hold up half the sky.

But later, things changed. He looked at me with eyes full of loathing, claiming I didn’t have a shred of the decorum expected of a young lady, and forced me to kneel in the Buddhist hall to copy Buddhist scriptures. And I could no longer hear his inner thoughts.

While I was offering prayers to Buddha on the mountain, a young gentleman suddenly intruded upon my solitude.

He apologized, his face flushing a deep crimson.

Yet, I heard his inner thoughts: [I have heard the Princess is kind and benevolent; I wonder if she will blame me.]

[I only ended up in the wrong place because I was trying to escape my eldest brother’s schemes.]

[How should I apologize to make the Princess happy?]

He did not know that I had experienced a dream.

In that dream, I followed the guidance of his inner voice to investigate his claims, only to walk step by step toward a dead end.

In the end, my Imperial Father grew to loathe me, my eldest brother was deposed, and I was drowned in a pond.

Only after my death did I learn that this young gentleman could choose who heard his heart’s voice.

It was by relying on this trick alone that he rose from being an Outer Chamber Son to the legitimate second son of a Marquis’s manor.

Now. I looked at the fair-skinned, red-lipped young gentleman before me, who appeared shy and timid.

I gave him a gentle smile. “Someone, come. For trespassing in the Forbidden Courtyard, give him thirty strokes of the cane.”

My cousin’s parents passed away, so my Imperial Mother brought her into the palace to live with us.

From then on, she enjoyed the favor of my parents, the protection of my elder brother, and the devotion of my younger brother.

Even my fiancé praised her for being exceptionally gifted and refined.

There was only one exception. His heart and eyes were filled only with me, never swayed by any outsider.

I married beneath my station to become his wife, and for a time, we lived a life of joy and freedom.

But later, he died-stabbed countless times before being hurled off a cliff.

I spent eighteen years in a Buddhist temple.

Eighteen years later, I returned as Princess Chang’an. To compensate me for those lost years, the Empress Mother made a public promise: she would grant me any one thing I desired.

I looked around the room, my gaze landing on Wei Zhao, who shone brilliantly amidst the unremarkable crowd. Pointing at him, I declared, “I want him to be my Imperial Son-in-Law.”

Only later did I discover that Wei Zhao and my younger sister, Princess Kangle, were childhood sweethearts. They were a mere imperial decree away from being wed.

But what of it?

Even if I had known from the start, I still would have claimed Wei Zhao as mine!

Changhui came here on a mission to save me.

When my grandmother passed away and the Crown Prince came to take me into the palace, I heard Xie Changhui’s inner thoughts.

[Don’t go. If you go, you will eventually fall in love with the Crown Prince and become a villain. You’ll commit heinous crimes and meet a miserable end.]

So, I refused the Crown Prince.

Later, when I encountered a sick youth on the road, I heard Xie Changhui’s voice in my head again.

[He is the blade you will use to kill. You love the Crown Prince, but he loves you. For your sake, he will slaughter countless people, only to die at the hands of the female lead.]

I picked up the boy and took him in as my younger brother.

Even later, when I finally met the female lead, I felt an unavoidable, murderous intent the moment I saw her.

Xie Changhui took my hand. “Shaohua, wake up. Think about who you are.”

Who am I? I am a daughter of the Song Family, the child of a founding official, and a future female general. I am certainly not some tool meant to spend my life plotting and fighting against others.

In my previous life, a woman armed with a conquest system won over my parents, my brothers, and my fiance one after another.

They adored her, indulged her, and let everything go her way until she stood at the height of favor.

As for me, everyone despised me.

I was imprisoned in a secluded palace alley for life, forbidden to take even half a step beyond its gates.

Only after I died did I learn that she had come from another world, and that every bit of my suffering fed her luck. Reborn, I traded away a lifetime of love for a single wish.

The Bodhisattva asked me, “What do you want?”

I whispered, “I want everyone she targets to know that she is here only to conquer them.”

And from that moment on, they could all hear her conquest alerts.

From the moment I was born, my Father Emperor could hear my inner thoughts.

[Whoa, so my Father Emperor is actually a brilliant and divine Emperor for the Ages!]

[It’s a pity he has a few stains on his record.]

[First, he’ll act on impulse and execute a great hero who served him well, only to cry afterward and curse others for not stopping him.]

[Then, he’ll execute the Chief Minister of the Court of Judicial Review, brewing a wrongful case that will shock the world for centuries, all while shifting the blame onto his ministers.]

[He’ll praise the Grand Preceptor as a ‘clear mirror’ in public, but after the man dies, he’ll raid his tomb and whip the corpse.]

[And the biggest death wish of all: he clearly loves my Mother Empress so much, yet he insists on making her give birth over and over again. When she eventually dies in childbed, he’ll be holding some other beauty while reminiscing about my mother. What a total scumbag.]

My Father Emperor’s brow twitched again and again. Finally, he couldn’t hold it together anymore.

“Quickly! Go and invite the masters from Huguo Temple!”

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.

During the year we fled the war, my mother saved a Princess Consort during labor, ensuring that both mother and daughter survived.

However, the barbarians arrived.

My mother told the Princess Consort to take us and flee first, while she stayed behind, sword in hand, to hold back the enemy.

With a single blade, she cut down countless foes, but in the end, she was simply outnumbered.

After her capture, she sought only the release of death.

Instead, they dislocated her arms and tore at her clothes, exposing her snow-white skin…

The Princess Consort and I were saved. However, the Princess Consort broke her word. She did not treat me like her own daughter.

Instead, she loathed my mother, claiming she had been rendered filthy and defiled by the barbarians.

Because of this, she made me her daughter’s personal maid.

After I went blind, lines of broken, disjointed text began to appear before my eyes.

[The princess is so pitiful. She injured her eyes saving her cousin, but right now, that very cousin is next door, rolling around in bed with the princess’s brother.]

[Too bad the princess can’t see. If she could, she should immediately bring people over and catch them in the act.]

My cousin had lost her mother when she was young.

The Empress Mother pitied her and had her enter the palace to serve as my study companion.

But several of my imperial brothers were always bullying her.

They liked seeing her teary-eyed, timid, and pitiful. I stood up for her, only to have my eyes injured by one of my imperial brothers.

I became blind. So it turned out that, behind my back, they had already become so intimate.

I did not go and catch them in the act as those lines wanted.

Instead, I had someone inform my other two imperial brothers.

My cousin was so pitiful. Surely she deserved a few more people to love her.

Later, I ascended the throne as Empress Regnant.

My cousin received the love of three of my imperial brothers.

All of us had bright futures ahead.

I lost my mother at seven and my father at ten, leaving me with only Grandma to depend on.

Grandma made a living sewing and doing laundry for others, while I spent my summers farming and my winters heading into the mountains.

We managed to scrape by.

When I was fourteen, I had a dream.

In that dream, I was a princess.

After being brought into the palace, I engaged in a life-and-death struggle against the Impostor Princess.

In the end, we were both killed by the transmigrator, becoming nothing more than stepping stones on her path to power.

My concubine-born younger sister has experienced Rebirth twice.

In her first life, she chose the Sixth Prince, but it was the Ninth Prince who eventually ascended the throne.

In her second life, she chose the Ninth Prince, but it was the Sixth Prince who eventually ascended the throne.

In this third life, she wants to destroy whoever I choose.

I didn’t choose the Sixth Prince, nor did I choose the Ninth Prince.

Instead, I chose the physically disabled First Prince. She was dumbfounded.

Later, I ascended the throne as Emperor, and my sister became a prisoner.

She raved in madness, saying it was impossible-that only the Sixth Prince or the Ninth Prince could ever be Emperor.

I couldn’t help but laugh. She will likely never understand that it doesn’t matter who the Emperor is.

What matters is that whoever I choose becomes the Emperor.

In the previous two lives, I chose the Sixth Prince and the Ninth Prince. But in this life, I chose myself.

After my rebirth, my mother held me in her arms, teasing me playfully.

“Jiaojiao, which one of them would you like as your husband?” I looked at my two young elder cousins.

In my past life, one of them killed me, and the other killed my body double. Both were ruthless, predatory men.

If I ever got involved with them again, would I even survive? I couldn’t help but burst into tears.

Clinging to my mother’s neck, I acted spoiled and pleaded, “Mother, I don’t want either of them.” “Then… you shall have both.”

My mother’s expression was one of absolute determination. Me: ??

On the day of the poetry gathering, someone teased Pei Yi’an. “Brother Pei has already been plucked by Princess Zhaoyue, unlike the rest of us who are still solitary figures. I truly envy you.”

Pei Yi’an suddenly flared up in anger. “Princess Zhaoyue and I share nothing but the bond of teacher and student. There is no other possibility in this life. Do not speak such nonsense.”

My younger sister chuckled softly in my ear. “Sister, did you hear that? Young Master Pei has no feelings for you. Stop being so sentimental and making a fool of yourself.”

I put away the jade pendant I had intended to give to Pei Yi’an and replaced it with a poem.

Then, I gave my sister a sharp slap across the face. “I’ve heard exactly what you wanted me to hear, Sister. Thank you for the lesson.”

Later, when I sought out others to consult on my studies, Pei Yi’an took it upon himself to offer me his tutelage.

I looked into his eyes and said indifferently, “I’m afraid of the wagging tongues of others. I wouldn’t want you to tarnish my reputation, Teacher.”

On the day the Crown Prince was deposed, I left the Eastern Palace with the palace servants, a bundle on my back.

When we reached a deserted place, the Crown Prince caught my hand. “Come with me. I can protect you.”

Tears shimmered in my eyes. “No. This servant will shave her head and become a nun, to pray for Your Highness’s blessings.”

With that, under his reluctant gaze, I walked into the nunnery.

Of course I couldn’t go with him. He was the male lead, and I was the vicious supporting villainess.

In the original plot, I was supposed to follow him and suffer every hardship at his side. But then he would fall in love with a time-traveling woman, reclaim the throne, and make her Empress.

As for me, I would have to fight that time-traveling woman in the palace, then die a miserable death in the end.

Ugh, please.

I did like the Crown Prince, but my motives weren’t exactly pure. More than anything, I wanted wealth and glory.

Since I already knew how it ended, there was no way I was going to suffer with him.

Luckily, I hadn’t awakened too late. I had already built up quite a fortune.

Five years later, after my first husband died and I was just preparing to marry my second, the Crown Prince appeared before me with a cold, shadowed face.

He gripped my hand with crushing force and said through gritted teeth, “Didn’t you say you were becoming a nun?”

I am Cui Yin, the eldest daughter of the Vice Minister of Rites.

I was raised in my maternal grandparents’ home since I was a child.

When I was seventeen, they brought me back to the capital, each of them appearing kind and benevolent.

But in private, my grandmother was indifferent, my father despised me, and my Stepmother Su hid a dagger behind her smile.

My older brother, born of the same mother, warned me, “Cui Yin, you must know your place and behave yourself. Otherwise, I will not show you any mercy.”

My innocent and romantic younger sister said with a beaming smile, “Sister, you grew up in a rural manor, and the clothes you’re wearing are quite out of fashion. I’ve gathered a few pieces I no longer wear to give to you.”

They even planned to marry me off as a successor wife to a profligate from the Commandery Duke Manor, a man who had beaten his first wife to death. …

Before entering the capital, I had originally intended to hang myself.

It was my maid, Huaihua, who desperately clung to my legs.

“Miss! Miss, don’t die! People from the Cui Family of the Capital have arrived. Let’s go to the capital and find some fun!”

I am ill; I suffer from hysteria and have no interest in life.

When I lose my mind, I only find pleasure through killing.

Well then, I hope they can bring me some joy.

I was married to Chi Ni for three years.

It wasn’t until after his death that I discovered his morbid, obsessive longing for me through his diary.

“I’m so jealous of the Young Lady’s dog. I want her to put a collar on me, too.”

“I dreamed of the Young Lady. When I woke up… I was wet again. I am a sinner.”

Clutching that diary, I was reborn into a time ten years in the past.

These were Chi Ni’s most wretched, downtrodden days.

He looked at me with a cold, detached gaze, like a wild dog that couldn’t be tamed.

I curled my finger at him with a beaming smile. “Smile for me, or I’ll kiss you until your lips are raw.”

The cold indifference he had fought so hard to maintain instantly crumbled.

My mother was kicked to death by the horse of a nobleman from the capital. Everyone in the village warned me, “That nobleman only spared you because he thinks you’re a fool. Don’t even think about revenge.” After burying my mother, I went to the largest brothel in the capital to seek out my aunt. She wrapped an arm around me and said, “Good girl. We’ll kill him and make him pay for your mother’s life.” “The legitimate son of the Capital Magistrate, huh? Let me think about how he ought to die.”

Before Qin Ruyu transferred to my school, I was the smartest and prettiest girl there.

After she arrived, I never came first in anything again.

Even when I confessed to Fu Shaonian, he turned me down because he liked Qin Ruyu.

So I hated her to death.

Years later, someone brought her up in front of me.

“What a shame. Why did you two break up back then?”

Me: ???

I’m straight too, okay!

Before I became the bedchamber attendant of the Heir of Dingguo Duke Manor, I was once a “skinny horse” kept in the household of a Yangzhou salt merchant-a girl raised to be sold as a concubine.

To them, I was nothing more than a plaything passed between the powerful.

But they did not know that Qingliu, with her willow-slender waist, could also be a gentle, curved blade.

Before the spring hunt, my sister and I exchanged masks.

Seven days later, Prince Su’s heir asked to marry me—never realizing that the girl he wanted was her.

I spent one lifetime paying for his mistake.

Now I am back before the hunt, with my red fox mask still in my hands.

This time, when my sister asks to swap, I say no.

After my sister fell into the water, she seemed to become a different person.

She stopped chasing after the heir to Prince Qin. Instead, time and again, she pushed me in front of him.

With grief in her eyes and stubborn resolve in her voice, she said, “You have always been the one in his heart. I won’t stand between you anymore.”

At the same moment, lines of text appeared in the air before me.

“I know it hurts to give the man you love to someone else with your own hands, but this is the only way to make the male lead recognize his feelings sooner and spare you all that suffering.”

“People only treasure what they can’t have. Now that you’ve pushed your sister at Qin Yi, he’ll get bored with her and lose interest.”

“Once Qin Yi realizes you’ve truly given up on him, he’ll grovel and beg you to take him back.”

“Our Eldest Miss deserves the best. Change the male lead! Qin Yi has liked someone else, so he’s already tainted. Let him marry the supporting female character. Once he discovers how vicious the sister really is, he’ll regret everything—but by then, you’ll already have found someone better. Turn this angst story into a revenge fantasy!”

Tears shimmered in my sister’s eyes as she faced Qin Yi with absolute determination. “Don’t worry. I won’t pester you again. You and my sister are the perfect match.”

I hid my shock and looked at Qin Yi.

Only to find him staring at the words in the air too, momentarily lost in thought.

[Horror Romance + damp, unhinged, obsessive male leads with lots of strange quirks + dark otome vibe]

When Qiu Rongrong met Zhou Jingxing, she thought she could start over. Later, she realized it had only been an illusion.

The gentle “older brother” tore off his disguise and revealed his cruelty. The boy at school who always seemed to protect her turned out to be the one driving the violence. The murderer’s son took her hand and said he would save her-help her escape.

They all said she should atone.

But in this grand, feverish revel, she was the only innocent survivor.

She tried to claw her way out of the mire, to struggle up onto solid ground-only for them to drag her back down into the mud.

Her beginning with him started with deception.

“Remember what fear tastes like. I don’t just want you dead-I want you to die in agony.”

Her ending with him finally came from sincerity.

“Love is the most twisted form of revenge. If you hate me, then use love as your blade-drive it straight into my heart.”

On the day the Xiao Family ran into disaster, the servants all scrambled to grab whatever valuables they could find. Unable to outfight them, I could only take away the nine-year-old Second Young Master, who still couldn’t speak.

Later, after the storm had passed, he asked me if I would be his concubine.