Qiang Jin Jiu - Chapter 257: Tea talk

Every novel has a slag character, the one who decides to abandon the protagonist at his lowest, most helpless point, either because he can’t stand the poor guy’s circumstances or for other reasons. But after the protagonist wins his way in life again, they’re the ones who beg with broken sobs to be taken back.

Still, water once spilled can’t be recovered again.

Yet the unlucky Shen Jiayan has been bound to a Water Recovery* System to do just that.

*water recovery – comes from an idiom that means “spilled water can’t be recovered” (English equivalent: there’s no use crying over spilt milk).

- Description from Novelupdates

I had thought that my life couldn’t get worse when I walked in on my fiancé cheating on me with my best friend. But after a series of unfortunate events, I opened my eyes in a world that I had only read about in a webnovel, the Erudian Empire, ruled under the domineering, bloody reign of Emperor Helio.

The worst part?

I’m not even the main character! Reborn as Winter Royberg de la Erudian, I am the pitiful side character who is discovered to be a royal bastard princess due to a certain physical trait only the imperial bloodline possesses. But I know the end of Winter’s story and the unwanted royal punching bag is framed as a witch and killed at age 16 on the guillotine due to the scheming of the cruel empress.

An aloof, murder happy father? Check.

Psycho half-sister? Check.

Meddlesome author who wants me to follow the script? Double check!

I don’t want to die an early death again, so I’m determined not to ever be discovered as a royal again. But before I know it, I’m trapped in a palace of blood and opulence playing tricky games of power, games I have no clue how to win. How will I survive to adulthood in the imperial palace and get my happily ever after? And am I really the only person who fell into this world?

A Di [legitimate-born] daughter of a noble house turns into an abandoned daughter. No father to dote on her, no mother to love her, no problem. She uses one silver needle to save a dying man. What’s so unusual about a medical injection? She roams all over the world with a scalpel in her hand. Cutting throats, cutting open abdomens, cutting open skulls to mend bones. With amazing medical skills and ethics, she gathers a flock of officials, obtains the will of heavens, gains public favor, and receives Taizi’s [Crown Prince] doting. In the midst of a powerful momentum, her cheap father comes to reunite. She coldly refuses to go home or acknowledge ancestors.

In a world fractured by conflict and haunted by shadows of the past, Kokushibo—the first Upper Moon demon—meets his end, only to awaken in a new life. Reincarnated as Crimson, a child born into a different family, he carries the memories of a past he cannot escape. Burdened by centuries of guilt yet indifferent to the present, he resigns himself to duty—until an unexpected bond with his newfound family begins to thaw his hardened heart. As he struggles between the weight of his past and the weight of the new life, Crimson must decide whether he will remain shackled to his former sins or embrace the possibility of peace.