Before she became a great demon of unmatched renown, A Ni was just a little ghost who scavenged for scraps.
Nobody knew where she came from, and nobody burned paper offerings for her. Every year during Qingming or the Ghost Festival, she trailed after other ghosts and scavenged their leftovers, scraping by like that for two hundred years. Then, one day, she received a basket full of heavy gold ingots.
A windfall!
But her "wealthy benefactor" was still a little kid with a missing front tooth and a lisp. He was burning paper offerings and sobbing as he muttered, "F-for little A Ni. Little A Ni, you have to eat well underground and grow big and strong. Don't let anyone catch you and boil you into soup..."
Little A Ni was a small black dog raised by Weisheng Yue, the Fifth Prince of Great Yan. While fleeing from danger, she had been caught by the Empress just the day before and boiled into a pot of soup.
*
From then on, A Ni went from being a little ghost who scavenged for scraps to Weisheng Yue's sidekick, because "following him meant meat to eat."
She helped him fend off wild beasts, evade pursuers, bury his parents, and rise from the ashes.
She killed more and more people and grew ever stronger. Wherever she went, mountains wept and ghosts howled. In the end, she personally put a once-crying, indecisive little boy on the throne, watched him make his name in the history books, and saw later generations hail him as an emperor for the ages.
But she "died" on the day he ascended the throne and dreamed for eight hundred years.
When she woke again, the world had been turned upside down. Towering buildings rose into the clouds.
*
"In the first year of the Great Zhao era, Ni fell beneath the Divine Cauldron. State Preceptor Jing leaped into the cauldron, consumed by karmic fire until no bones remained. The entire nation was shaken."
"In the fortieth year of the Great Zhao era, the Prince of Chengyang rebelled. He cut down Emperor Yue and left his head to be devoured by dogs."
Good kill.
...But who was the Prince of Chengyang?
While nurturing her soul, she continued her unfinished business of scavenging for scraps and accidentally found a high school student's Chinese textbook. She crouched on the ground and thought about it for a long time.
Then she heard a whistle from above.
A teenage boy in a school uniform sat on the wall, smiling at her with leisurely composure. He tilted his head and asked, "Had enough of looking at my book?"
His name was Wei Chen.
He shared his name with the Prince of Chengyang, who had died more than seven hundred years ago: the later Emperor Hui of Great Zhao, who had murdered his elder brother and nephew and was brutal and tyrannical.
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Smiling schemer x devoted mussel
"I love you where no one can see."
Theme: A girl should be strong and self-reliant
