Reborn as a Pearl, I'd Rather Go to Ningguta Than Become a Royal Adopted Daughter

The dust settled at the martial arts arena in the Imperial Garden, and Xiao Yanzi revealed a shocking secret before everyone.

"Father Emperor! I lied to you. I'm not your daughter, and I'm not a princess. Ziwei is the real princess!"

With tears in her eyes, Ziwei softly spoke the words she had kept hidden in the misty rain of Jinan: "Reeds are as strong as silk. Will the rock never change?"

The truth exploded into the open. The emperor flew into a rage and issued an order sending her, Ziwei, and Er Kang to the Imperial Clan Court.

The stone walls of the freezing prison chilled to the bone. Huddled in a corner, Xiao Yanzi suddenly recalled the ups and downs of her previous life.

She had once offered Qianlong her whole heart, yearning for his fatherly love and longing for the glory of being Princess Huanzhu and Princess Huanzhu of the Commandery. She had believed their father-daughter bond would last forever.

Until the full-moon banquet for Mianyi, when, amid the congratulations, one rebuke from Qianlong shattered every illusion.

At last, she understood.

The title of adopted daughter and the stipend were nothing but favors granted on a whim by the emperor. One imperial decree could take it all away.

Without blood ties as its foundation, their bond as royal father and daughter had always been an illusion.

Returning to the day she was sent to the Imperial Clan Court, she let go of all her past obsessions.

What princess? What noblewoman? To her, the splendid Forbidden City was nothing but a gilded cage.

In this life, she would neither yearn for the emperor's empty kindness nor be bound by her royal status.

If she had to choose, she would rather be sent to the bitterly cold Ningguta than remain an adopted daughter of the royal family, someone who could be discarded at any moment.

She would cast off the shackles of wealth and splendor with her own hands, and willingly head for the frozen frontier thousands of miles away.