Chapter 1

**Introduction**

I have always loved a good contest. Since childhood, I understood that happiness was something you had to fight for.

When Grandmother fell gravely ill, my foolish sisters shut themselves away to copy Buddhist scriptures.

I ran straight to her, knelt before the Bodhisattva, and knocked my head against the floor until my forehead split and blood ran down my face. I begged the Bodhisattva to take a hundred years from my life and give them to Grandmother.

She was so moved that she personally brought a motherless secondary daughter like me to live by her side.

Under Grandmother's care, I was fed, dressed, and educated just like my legitimate elder sister.

But my beauty was too striking. Soon, I became a thorn in the side of my legitimate mother and sister.

That was all right.

I slipped the handkerchief of my legitimate mother's widowed younger sister into Father's sleeve.

My stepmother immediately went on high alert. She had no time left to concern herself with a minor like me.

Then I used a feint to draw their attention elsewhere.

On the surface, I made a show of pursuing my elder sister's handsome cousin.

While she watched me like a hawk, I stole away her childhood sweetheart, Xie Jing'an.

I spent my whole life fighting and taking what I wanted.

In the end, I had a happy life: no concubines in my husband's household, children to fill the house, and more wealth than I could spend.

But as my husband lay dying, he clutched my hand and said bitterly:

“If you hadn't plotted against her at every turn, why would Yuetang have died with such resentment?”

“If there's another life, please stop competing with her. I beg you.”

Hah?

Who did he think he was?

He told me not to compete, and I was supposed to obey?

Reborn into a second life—

When he happily carried a token to confess his feelings to my elder sister,

the moment he disappeared around the corner,

I heard a splash.

I'd just knocked the Third Prince—the man my sister had long dreamed of—with a stick and sent him straight into the lake.

Watching the wealth and glory of my next life thrash helplessly in the water,

I smirked at Xie Jing'an.

Then, under his horrified gaze, I jumped into the lake with a splash.

Whether it was a life-debt or a compromising encounter, either way—

The Third Prince, with his future and power over all beneath Heaven,

would end up in the palm of my hand.

**01**

When Xiao Ce, the Third Prince, was pulled out of the lake, he was unconscious, his head split open and bleeding.

That's right. I did it.

He knew how to swim a little.

When I kindly jumped in to save him, he started kicking and thrashing wildly.

I had no choice.

I wrapped both legs tightly around his waist, clamped a hand over his mouth, and forced him underwater.

I held him there until he was gasping for air and struggling like a cornered beast.

Only when he smashed his head against the artificial rock in the middle of the lake and blood spread through the water did he finally stop fighting.

I didn't rush to pull him out.

In my experience, the more dangerous the situation the Third Prince was in,

the more valuable my act of saving him would be.

I let out a breath of relief—

This time, victory was mine.

The Third Prince admired the strong. I was precisely the kind of strong person he admired.

His mother, Consort Lin, was deeply calculating. I was even more so.

We were as perfectly matched as two kindred spirits meeting in the mountains and by the flowing waters.

We were destined to be family.

Xiao Ce was fiercely protective of his own, and Consort Lin was domineering and ruthless.

If I chose them,

I wouldn't have to scheme alone the way I had in my previous life.

I wouldn't have to fight and deceive my way through an entire household.

I wouldn't have to pretend to be gentle and generous, enduring one slight after another.

Unexpectedly, Xie Jing'an, who couldn't swim, suddenly jumped into the lake after us.

When I saw him flailing toward me like a vengeful ghost,

panic seized me.

Without hesitation, I kicked him three feet away.

I couldn't risk letting the Third Prince—and the wealth and honor I had in my grasp—slip away.

I turned and dragged the Third Prince, still thrashing, back to shore.

After personally handing him over to the servants, I collapsed by the lake, gasping for breath.

Hidden in my sleeve was the jade pendant I had casually taken from Xiao Ce's waist.

If Father tried to steal credit and let Shen Yuetang claim she had saved the Third Prince, I had the pendant as proof.

If Xiao Ce repaid my life-saving kindness with ingratitude and refused to acknowledge it, I had the pendant as proof.

If people accused me of scheming my way up the social ladder, I had the pendant as proof.

With a single jade pendant in my hand, the whole world was mine.

Suddenly, a shadow fell over me.

“You plotted all this so you could use saving the Third Prince to force me to marry you?”

Xie Jing'an looked like a dog dragged from the water. The servants who had just arrived had hauled him ashore with a fishing net, none too gently.

Soaked and disheveled, he looked down at me.

“Shen Yuemian, do you have no shame?”

His eyes were as cold as the lake. His face was dark.

The warmth and honor of a young man were gone.

In their place was a grave certainty that didn't belong on such a youthful face.

So he had returned to the past, too.

“Don't waste your effort. Yuetang and I grew up together. She's the only woman I intend to marry.”

**02**

The sneer on Xie Jing'an's lips made me pause.

Did he really think that, after being reborn, I still wouldn't know how to choose a better man—that I'd still want to fight over him?

In my previous life, that had indeed been the case.

We couldn't see the end of fate. We didn't know who would come out ahead.

All we could do was choose the best fish in the pond that we had any chance of catching.

And in my previous life, I had chosen Xie Jing'an.