On a dark evening, young Evie was crouching in the crevice of a collapsed wall.
The exhausted child tightly hugged her knees and dozed off, only to be startled awake by the sound of hoofbeats.
She then shivered at the shadow cast before her.
“It’s okay, it’s me.”
A large shadow against the sunset spoke with a tender voice.
Recognizing the familiar voice, Evie muttered with a pale and scared face.
“Sir……”
Identifying the fortune teller belatedly, Evie’s voice was fainter than usual.
“What’s wrong, what happened?”
The fortune teller asked anxiously, and Evie forced a breath, speaking nonchalantly.
“It’s nothing.”
“Your knee is bleeding.”
“Ah.”
Evie, as if only just realizing her injury, gasped and covered her bleeding knee.
The fortune teller then took Evie’s hand and pulled out a handkerchief.
Evie pouted at his offered white handkerchief.
“You have a lot of handkerchiefs, sir.”
Evie was rude on purpose, feeling sorry that the fortune teller always had to throw away a handkerchief because of her.
Knowing this, the fortune teller smiled broadly. He then wiped Evie’s knee, asking again.
“What happened outside?”
“……I almost got caught.”
“Where?”
“I would know if I was caught, wouldn’t I?”
Evie spoke indifferently, soon furrowing her brow in complaint.
“It’s really ridiculous. Who are they to sell me? I wish they’d all be struck by lightning and die.”
Young Evie’s life was filled with challenges.
Every day was spent running away, stealing, getting beaten, hiding, and anxiously surviving the day for fear of being taken somewhere.
Her bold voice was not out of arrogance or vanity but a small yet strong will of Evie to somehow survive.
The fortune teller, who had been watching her for a long time, made a longconsidered proposal to the battered Evie that day.
“Evie, would you like to live with me?”
Evie, who had been grumbling, looked up in surprise at the unexpected offer.
She blinked her big black eyes at the fortune teller and incredulously asked,
“Sir, are you a pervert?”
“No……”
“People always say they’re not.”
Evie looked up and down at the fortune teller with a blatant eye.
So the fortune teller hastily explained.
“A lady is renting out the second floor of her house. It’s clean, and there are several rooms, and she said she would take care of meals, so I thought we could live there together. It’s not like just the two of us. Of course, you’ll have your own room.”
It was half a joke, but as the fortune teller explained in surprise, Evie chuckled.
Seeing Evie’s expression relax, the fortune teller asked again.
“Don’t you want to live there?”
“I don’t want to.”
“Why?”
“I don’t trust you.”
But Evie’s answer was still firm.
“There’s no such thing as a free lunch in the world. People always do what’s good for them; they don’t help others without a reason.”
“That’s not always true.”
“Even if it’s not always, most of the time, it’s like that. So I hate being helped without a reason. It’s bothersome to doubt whether it’s a bait or a trap.”
Evie spoke with a hint of sarcasm.
At that time, Evie’s attitude was utterly arrogant and rebellious, but her tender heart was secretly pounding.
In fact, Evie’s heart had sunk at the fortune teller’s offer.
It was because of the fear that the fortune teller might try to grab her like the people who had tried to catch her.
Of course, Evie did not distrust the fortune teller that much.
If she had no trust at all, Evie would have simply answered, “I know,” and then taken the opportunity to run away forever.
But Evie liked the fortune teller, and she wanted to meet and talk like this from time to time.
So she spoke more rudely and drew a line.
Don’t come closer because I don’t want to lose you, kind sir, and I don’t want to be betrayed by you alone.
Fortunately, the astrologer seemed to have understood Evie’s plea, and so he calmly smiled at her with his usual beautiful lips.
“So be it, if you dislike it, there’s nothing I can do.”
Despite Evie’s refusal, the astrologer remained kind, and at that, Evie finally relaxed.
However, looking at Evie, the astrologer spoke with a hint of pity.
“But Evie, in this world, there are favors without a price.”
“You really don’t understand how the world works, do you?”
But Evie stubbornly chuckled, then said with a breaking voice.
“All things happen only to those who are deserving of it. Even receiving help is the same. Even begging for bread and eating it requires the ability to earn sympathy. But as for me……”
Evie was about to boast but suddenly shut her mouth.
If she said, “I have no right at all,” it would seem too pathetic.
So, Evie rolled her eyes in thought for a moment and then briskly changed her words.
“As for me, of course, I will gain greater merit. So I’ll reconsider being with you then. Later on, when we go to Tienda!”
.
.
.
Thus they promised, about 8 years ago.
Now, having become sufficiently entitled to both receive help and love, Evie was still struggling in extreme loneliness.
After Being Cheated On, She Picked Up a Treasure (Female-dominant)
One-line summary: The husband I married on a whim had been secretly in love with me for a long time.
On the day when Jun Shao finally obtained the imperial decree for her marriage, Lan Qu, the person she had admired for six years, defied the decree and ran away.
Her gentleness and devotion, her promise of a lifetime together, were all disregarded by him. Instead, he dreamed of entering the palace to serve the Emperor’s sister as a sixth-rank attendant.
News of this incident spread throughout the capital, and the alleys in front of and behind the Lan mansion were crowded with people who came to watch the commotion.
Jun Shao should have been embarrassed and angry.
But someone stepped in to protect her dignity.
The figure was in a miserable state, yet still possessed an undeniable elegance and handsomeness.
The young lord struggled to climb the wall of the Lan mansion and shouted to her, “If he won’t marry you, I will!”
So, Jun Shao took advantage of the situation and married the person.
She thought the young lord did it to save the Lan family from the crime of defying the imperial decree, but never imagined that from beginning to end, what he coveted was her.
*
After the wedding, Jun Shao felt like she was living in a dream.
Her Wife-master was as beautiful as a fairy in a painting, skilled in the six arts, well-versed in poetry and literature, capable of being gentle and attentive, and also grand and dignified. Most importantly, she was the only one in his heart and eyes.
Jun Shao didn’t know how Lan Shiwu, as a illegitimate son without a father and blessed with beauty, had managed to preserve his purity, recklessly escape, and use his last ounce of strength to ruin his own reputation, all because of his love for her, just to stand before her.
She could only see him gazing at her with eyes full of love, and when she bestowed a name upon him, his eyes shone like stars.
“You have come to me like a weary bird perching on a branch. I shall call you A Qi.”
