Chapter 1: How Will She Survive?
Gan Qiongying died and then crossed over.
Struck by cancer in her prime, she closed her eyes and opened them again, only to find herself alive once more—all thanks to a lifetime of good deeds and the Buddha’s mercy.
Not everyone gets a second chance when their main account is ruined. The opportunity for rebirth is like a pie falling from the sky, and it just so happened to land right in her mouth.
Especially when she discovered she had crossed over into the body of a princess, she felt like setting off firecrackers and launching skyrockets to celebrate.
Just look at Gan Qiongying now, dressed in luxurious robes and adorned with jewels. She reclined gracefully on a chaise lounge, one hand resting on a soft pillow, the other extended over a small table beside her. Between her slender, delicate fingers, she held a teacup lid, leisurely skimming the floating tea leaves.
Her brows were delicately arched, her complexion fair and radiant, her attire vibrant. Though her eyes naturally tilted upward at the corners, they were sharp and solemn—narrow, elegant phoenix eyes that tempered the subtle allure rising from her rosy brows. She exuded an air of nobility and boundless grace.
She was a princess now!
Who hasn’t dreamed of being a princess?
But in truth, she wanted to cry—to wail, to scream, to roll on the floor kicking and thrashing in a fit of hysterical sobbing.
Because she had spent some time—nearly a month—quietly piecing together fragmented, long-buried memories and confirming one thing: she hadn’t just crossed over into an unknown dynasty but into a book!
The book was titled Husbands, Please Spare Me.
Speaking of this book… it truly was a sorrowful tale.
This was the book her younger sister, still in middle school, had secretly read under her desk during class, only to be publicly shamed and criticized during a parent-teacher conference.
Books like these, beloved by young girls, filled the shelves of bookstores near schools. They sold like hotcakes, ranging from tales of youthful heartache to stories of eye-gouging, kidney-stealing, fleeing to the North Pole while pregnant, and returning five years later with seven children to reclaim everything.
Gan Qiongying understood—she had also read extracurricular books during her school days.
But her mother had brought both the book and her sister to her hospital room, expecting her to scold her sister.
After all, the word “older sister” carried a natural authority; her sister had always been afraid of her since childhood.
At the time, however, Gan Qiongying was nauseous from chemotherapy. A person long-ill has little patience, so she followed her mother’s wishes and sternly reprimanded her sister.
Adolescents, with ninety-nine pounds of defiance in their hundred-pound bodies, are prone to rebellion. Her sister argued back, threw the book onto Gan Qiongying’s lap, and said Gan Qiongying was exactly like a villainess in the story… before running off in tears.
Gan Qiongying wasn’t angry. Later, she even flipped through the book and found that there was indeed a villainess named “Gan Qiongying.”
Once the effects of the chemotherapy wore off and the pain subsided, she couldn’t help but chuckle while reading. She thought, “Gan Qiongying”—a name born from her parents’ artistic sensibilities, a name that stood out among “cabbage” and “sugarcane”—wasn’t exactly common. How could it have ended up in a book?
With nothing better to do while lying in bed, half-alive, she casually flipped through the pages.
And that’s when she realized the brilliance of the book’s title—the brilliance lay in the words “Husbands.”
The female protagonist in this book didn’t have just one husband; she had several.
This book is quite entertaining. Gan Qiongying skimmed a few passages, and just reading about all the handsome ancient men—obsessed with the female lead, driven mad by her, tearing each other apart for her—was genuinely delightful.
Putting herself in that position would be an absolute thrill, wouldn’t it? All the good men in the world loving her to the point of obsession, treating her like a princess—who hasn’t dreamed of being adored by everyone?
Of course, while Gan Qiongying Ning was genuinely enjoying herself, she was also genuinely “experiencing” the turbulent love and hatred in the book alongside the female lead.
She wholeheartedly despised that malicious supporting female character, “Gan Qiongying,” who, out of envy and jealousy, constantly set traps for the female lead, drugged her, and even caused that kind and beautiful woman to lose a child and have her face ruined.
She didn’t identify with that character at all—who would put themselves in the shoes of a malicious supporting character in this kind of wish-fulfillment fantasy?
In the end, reading about the malicious supporting character losing everything and meeting a tragic end, dragged to death by the one she loved, made Gan Qiongying Ning feel utterly refreshed. She even wished she could jump into the book and join the protagonist in stomping on her a few times and spitting on her.
Reading is, after all, a deeply satisfying and mentally pleasurable activity.
But the catch is—Gan Qiongying Ning had transmigrated into that malicious supporting character who shared her name.
That’s right. Gan Qiongying Ning was now the malicious supporting character in the book who, relying on her noble status, constantly schemed and harmed others, angered the emperor, and was forced into marriage with a lowly merchant.
Gan Qiongying took a small sip of tea, swallowed it slowly, and shifted her position on the chaise lounge.
Life, indeed, is unpredictable.
But what was even more unpredictable than her identity as the malicious supporting character was the plot she remembered from the book.
In this world, the social hierarchy placed merchants at the very bottom. As the dignified Princess Duanrong of the Nanzhao Kingdom, how could she willingly accept being forced by imperial decree to marry a lowly merchant?
Thus, in the plot, she became twisted, deranged, and self-destructive, opposing the emperor at every turn. Not only did she fill her residence with male consorts, cuckolding the husband bestowed upon her by the emperor countless times, but she also tormented and humiliated him, with beatings and abuse becoming routine.
Most despicably, she used her influence to prevent her injured husband from receiving proper medical treatment, denying him even a physician. This ultimately led to his illness worsening until he succumbed to his injuries.
If the plot had ended there, Gan Qiongying Ning, having transmigrated, could have survived by living a life of piety, charity, and accumulating good deeds. The problem was that once the husband died, the male lead in the plot, Zhongli Zhengzhen, who had endured for years, finally erupted.
Borrowing passage through the territory of Jingxi Wang from the Jinchuan border, he raised an army and marched south, overthrowing the Nanzhao Kingdom. Overnight, the malicious supporting character became a princess of a fallen nation.
And the husband who had died tragically at the hands of the malicious supporting character finally had his hidden identity revealed—he was actually Zhongli Zhengzhen’s long-lost older brother, who had been living among the common people…
What followed was naturally the plot readers loved to see: the once-arrogant, malicious princess plummeting into the dust, reduced to mud to be trampled and humiliated.
All the evil deeds she had committed began to backfire. Even her maidservants wished they could tear her flesh from her bones. The once-noble princess of an entire dynasty ultimately met her end, dragged to death, her body left incomplete.
How satisfying!
When she first read it, Gan Qiongying Ning clapped and cheered—villains deserved such retribution!
But now… damn it all, she had become the malicious supporting character.
Recalling this, the joy Gan Qiongying felt while reading the book was now matched only by the intensity of her inner cursing.
How is she supposed to live with such a hellish ending!