"My name is Shu Yidan of the Heavenly Wind Sect, hailing from the Shu Clan of River Shu. The clan was exterminated about 7 years ago, and my parents and relatives died in that tragedy. My grandfather is the only blood relative remaining….
I do have a Dao Companion, she is named Feng Shiyao. Our engagement was arranged around 5 years ago.
Marriage before you seize the throne will be inauspicious by its very nature. As for dowry… Well, my familial records state that pearls are preferable…" One by one, Shu Yidan answered all of the princess's questions.
"How tragic… Seven years ago, there town beside the River Shu was exterminated of all life, and even the River Shu was dried out in that incident. It was shockingly tragic…" Saying her condolences, Xiahou Shangyue asked the next question.
"So, how is your Dao Companion?" Her tone was carefully neutral, but Shu Yidan could still detect an undercurrent of jealousy.
"She is a good consort – quiet, obedient and faithful." That's mostly due to being ignored for half a decade…
"She is a gifted talent in cultivation as well. Our relationship was arranged, yet it has been quite harmonious – I would be lying if I say I don't have affection for her." I am lying to your face!
"I honestly was surprised when my divinations told that my fated love was facing danger. I broke out of my seclusion yesterday and spent the entire day meddling into Feng Shiyao's business… I kind of made a ruckus with Feng Shiyao's master…" This one is mostly true, though divinations are redundant due to future knowledge…
Portraying Feng Shiyao as a girl tied to him by arranged marriage would make her more sympathetic to Xiahou Shangyue. As for himself, Shu Yidan tried to give the best impression of being an immortal cultivator who lacked common sense.
"…So, when do you plan on introducing me to her?" Saying this, Xiahou Shangyue dropped the bomb.
"Not anytime soon. What if you bully her too hard? She is a sheltered girl raised by her master… A misspoken word might lead to her Dao Heart being crippled." Shu Yidan said while shaking his head.
"…Why do you think I would bully your Dao Companion?" Xiahou Shangyue said with an expression that indicated her thoughts: You think I have the guts to bully a immortal?
"…I have heard of what goes on in harems in the Imperial Palace! Don't think that I am naïve!" Saying this, Shu Yidan began. "I once read a story about the palace… Do you want me to tell you?"
"If it is such a story… then why don't you tell it to me?" With a seductive voice, Xiahou Shangyue pressed herself upon Shu Yidan's side.
Xiahou Shangyue didn't really care about the story, for she only care about having this man beside her. He would be leaving soon. So all she wanted was to increase the limited time they had together, to create more memories with him.
She knew that her affection for him was developing too fast as they hadn't spent even a day together. Yet it seemed only normal.
If destined love took months of courting to develop, would it be worth calling 'destined'?
Meanwhile, Shu Yidan began speaking. "Okay. I'll warn you – I am not that good at narrating stories so this might sound rough…" And this isn't that good of a story, plus I don't remember much of it as well…
Keeping his thoughts private, Shu Yidan began.
+++
There were all kinds of stories Shu Yidan had read on his time on Earth. Being a avid Chinese xianxia novel fan, he once tried to read romantic novels but they seemed unappealing. One day, a certain romantic novel that began with timetravel piqued his interest…
"In the Palace of the Kingdom, the Empress faced the Emperor, but his attention was on his favored concubine…"
…
"Facing the man who had forced her into death looking unfeelingly at her and his favored concubine smirking, she decided that if there was another chance, she would repay these ingrates with fire and blood!"
…
"Unexpectedly, she found herself back in time! A week before her marriage! The Emperor was a Prince, still weak and without backing – the backing he had gained from her marriage…"
…
"She failed to break the engagement and yet, she didn't wish to marry this ingrate again. However, it was now their wedding night, and even though they were lying in the same bed, the man looked coldly at her."
"In the past life, that man didn't touch her. Looking at how things were going, it seemed that it would repeat…
Turning away, she closed her eyes… and didn't see the man's cold look transform…
In a blink, she found herself pushed down…"
…
"Looking at his young face and the way he entreated her, she decided that he deserved another chance… This man was, after all, her only love…"
…
The Prince gave the protagonist a good fucking and she suddenly decided that he was a man that could be forgiven.
All kinds of things happened after that. Concubine got a face slapping and thrown out of the harem, but after that came Concubine #2 and after that, Concubine #3… the man had like hundreds of them and all of them hated the protagonist to the bone.
Loads of horrible things happened to the protagonist…
Like her pregnant stomach getting beaten by her man after he got drunk and losing her baby…
After that, she got pregnant again, but her drink got spiked with an abortion drug and lost her baby …
Or that time she got pregnant, but she was imprisoned and lost her baby…
Speaking of the Prince, he still became the Emperor. And he remained coldly indifferent, never caring about the protagonist for more than her body…
There was her childhood friend of a General who had affection for her, but being a virtuous lady, the protagonist didn't have the guts to cheat… The childhood friend was willing to rebel against the Emperor for her yet he died a virgin, still bearing a torch for the protagonist…
The epilogue was trash as expected – she finally gave birth successfully for once. The time travel was meaningless and the future knowledge was useless…
The story was the only romance novel he read – and he hated every chapter of it.
It was a horrible novel.
The only reason he completed reading it was because he had spent too much time reading most of the chapters so he felt obligated to complete it.
Why was he telling this story to Xiahou Shangyue anyway?
It was to reinforce her perception that Shu Yidan, being a book scholar, was a little uninformed about the mortal world.
It certainly wasn't because he had time travelled and wanted to go over what not to do, no, not at all!
+++
"…And they lived happily ever after, the end." Shu Yidan licked his lips, dry from the long story. The original work was 100x the size of a paperback, and even after rushing through most of it, it still took a few hours.
Looking at his princess, Xiahou Shangyue's face seemed like she didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
"How did you like the story? Was it as terrible as I thought?" Shu Yidan asked her.
"Yes, it was a horrible story. The protagonist was so retarded, it was as if she wanted to die. The antagonists were even more retarded, as they couldn't even kill her. The prince was trash and I have no idea what made him appealing to the protagonist. Who the hell keeps a harem of nearly a hundred restricted to a small space and hope for them to conflict against each other?" She couldn't help but rage.
"Glad to think that we share the same opinions. By the way, if you were in that position, reincarnated with knowledge of the coming future, what would you do?" Shu Yidan casually asked.
"Meet the prince and covertly poison him before the engagement. That would solve most of the problems. After that, get closer to the childhood friend to use him to get a backing. After that, the struggle for rising atop the path of nobility begins…" Hearing the serious answer, Shu Yidan couldn't help but smile – tackling all the problems one by one was the best!
"…By the way, do you have any childhood friends like that?" Shu Yidan knew that she didn't, but asked for the effect.
"Nothing like that, unfortunately. All my childhood acquaintances are people that I would love to poison…" Hearing her answer, Shu Yidan sighed – this world had lost an infamous Black Widow, a woman of peerless poisoning skills.
What a pity – not!