I, Shen Qingci, the real daughter of the Shangshu Mansion, was abandoned in a mass grave because my right eye was red with cinnabar.
Eighteen years later, they were looking for me to come back to climb high branches.
In my previous life, they gouged out my eyes, called me a monster, and exchanged my life for glory and wealth. I then sent them on their way.
On the day of my rebirth, my right eye was covered with gauze, and I stood in front of the Shen Mansion and chuckled: "Didn't you say that I am a monster? Why are you looking for me?"
My father called me a monster, but I exposed him in public for cheating in the imperial examination;
My stepmother pretended to cry, and I presented the irrefutable evidence that she poisoned my mother;
The fake daughter stole my poems and pretended to be a talented woman. I recited the whole poem and asked with a smile, "Sister, why do you only remember half of it?"
My father is afraid of me, my stepmother hates me, and the fake daughter wants to take everything from me.
Only he, Gu Hanzhou, the young minister of Dali Temple, protected me from the knife on the bloody night in the ancestral hall, and defended me when I was falsely accused at the palace banquet.
He said: "Shen Qingci, if you take revenge, I will protect you."
But Prince Xiao Jingchen also said that he loved me, but between the prophecy and the country, he chose to gouge out my eyes.
Later, Gu Hanzhou put on a yellow robe, held the phoenix seal and asked me: "Qing Ci, this post belongs to you only."
I touched my gradually blinding right eye, smiling with tears in my eyes: "Your Majesty, I only have ten years to live."
His eyes were red: "It doesn't matter if it's ten years or one day, if you live for a moment, you will be my wife at that moment."
The meticulous history books record that he made a vacant post for me, reformed the law, and initiated the imperial examination for women.
According to folklore, he lived in seclusion in the Plum Forest after my death, and died with a smile on his face twenty years later, holding the glass beads I left behind.
But they don't know——
In this life, I have never regretted it.
Because some people are worth paying for with their lives; some roads are worth paving with blood.
