Am I a Lustful, Good-for-Nothing Princess?
River snails, stir-fried snails, snail soup... Lu Yunxi stared at the few pointy, round snails in the creek, and these thoughts surfaced in her mind—strange yet familiar, memories from her modern life.
Yes, she had transmigrated—and as a fetus, at that. She had lived in this mountain village for sixteen years, and only after hitting her head did these memories come rushing back.
Should she grab some snails to take home? The creek was clear, so the snails inside would surely be fresh and delicious. Stir-fried over high heat with some chili and cumin—wouldn't that be so fragrant it'd make you lick your fingers?
At that thought, Lu Yunxi was already swallowing saliva. But she gave up the idea. Without salt, even the best snails would taste like nothing.
Ten years of war had ravaged the land. Her area was deep within Jin territory, so there hadn't been major battles, but various rebel kings had cut off all major transport routes, and salt was desperately scarce here.
The price of salt had soared, and sometimes even money couldn't buy it. Everyone had to eat bland food every day.
Salt was the king of all flavors. Without it, nothing tasted right. And when a person lacks salt, they feel nauseous and weak all over—it was truly miserable, and it was no wonder she had slipped and fallen earlier.
After resting for a good while, Lu Yunxi finally felt better and stood up.
She figured her top priority was getting some salt to eat, or she'd really die.
Salt. As an engineering-minded woman, she knew how salt was made—solar evaporation of seawater, well salt, lake salt, rock salt. The process wasn't complicated, but it was extremely dependent on resources. Her current location was far from the sea, and she'd never heard of any salt lakes around. Well salt and rock salt were buried underground, and she'd heard nothing about those either. How was she supposed to get salt?
Even a skilled woman can't cook without rice! It looked like she'd have to find ways to earn more money and maybe buy some salt.
Lu Yunxi decided to try her luck up the mountain first to see if she could pick some valuable medicinal herbs.
"Sis! There you are!" An urgent voice called out, and a boy came running over. He stopped, hands on his hips, panting, and said, "Mom told me to fetch you. She says it's something important."
The boy was Lu Yunchuan, Lu Yunxi's third brother. His skin was a bit dark, but his eyes were unusually bright.
"What's so important?" Lu Yunxi asked. At this time of year, what could be so urgent at home? She'd barely made it up the mountain and didn't want to go back empty-handed.
"Don't tell me—is Sister-in-law pregnant?" she suddenly thought to ask. That would be happy news. Her sister-in-law had been married to her eldest brother for three years and had always wanted a child but hadn't conceived. The villagers had already started gossiping.
Lu Yunchuan quickly waved his hands. "No, it's not that."
"Then what's the big deal?" Lu Yunxi said, disappointed.
"It seems to be a letter. Ugh, you'll find out when you get back. Anyway, Mom said to come back right away—it's urgent." With that, Lu Yunchuan grabbed Lu Yunxi's hand and pulled her down the mountain.
"Slow down, slow down, I'm dizzy." Lu Yunxi's voice gradually faded into the mountainside.
Meanwhile, on a nearby mountain road, a group of travelers was approaching. They were dressed as merchants, but on closer inspection, they concealed weapons beneath their robes, and their bearing was quite unlike that of an ordinary caravan.
At the head were a young man and a youth. The youth rode a chestnut-red horse, weaving forward and backward, clearly restless and spirited.
Suddenly, he darted off into a side path and came back holding a rabbit, calling out to the young man, "Uncle, how about roast rabbit for lunch?"
The young man glanced at the rabbit in his hands. "We're almost at Stone Village. Keep it down."
The topic seemed to irritate the youth. "Uncle, we've just taken the capital—now's the time to expand our territory and build our achievements! But His Majesty sends us to this backwater..."
"Careful," the young man cut him off.
The youth knew he'd misspoken, pouted, then rode up beside the young man, and with a sly grin, said, "Uncle, I heard His Majesty wants to marry his daughter to you?"
The young man turned to look at him, his face cold.
The youth had gotten no reaction, but pressed on, "His Majesty said his daughter takes after him. Good heavens—with His Majesty's looks, if she really resembles him, can that girl even be presentable?"
The young man furrowed his brow but said nothing and continued forward.
"Uncle, are you really going to marry her?" The youth chased after, unwilling to drop it. Everyone knew his uncle was utterly loyal to His Majesty. Back when His Majesty was nothing but a common outlaw with fewer than a thousand men and barely a hundred horses, it was his uncle's joining that turned the tide—victory after victory until they carved out a foothold in the Central Plains.
Later, his uncle led armies on countless campaigns and saved His Majesty from crisis more times than anyone could count...
All those feudal lords and rebel kings—who wouldn't have wanted a general like his uncle on their side? They had promised him gold and high office, but he was unmoved, eventually helping King Xiao seize the capital first.
The youth figured his uncle would probably marry that ugly girl after all. The thought of his handsome, refined uncle wedding such a girl made him disheartened on his uncle's behalf. He lost all interest in talking and rode ahead.
Back at home, Lu Yunchuan had carried Lu Yunxi back. Though everyone ate bland food, Lu Yunchuan's health was good, and when he saw his sister wheezing on the road, he hoisted her onto his back.
When they arrived, the door was shut tight. Lu Yunxi was genuinely startled, wondering if something bad had happened.
The realm had been at war for years—had it finally reached their doorstep? Would they need to flee, and if so, where?
Lu Yunchuan knocked, and a woman opened the door, peeking out cautiously.
"Mother," Lu Yunchuan called.
The woman, Madam Chen, was Lu Yunxi's mother—nearly forty, with some wrinkles on her face, but sharp and neat in her ways. She pulled Lu Yunchuan into the yard in one motion and shut the door again.
Three tiled-roof rooms and a small courtyard—this was the Lu family home.
In the main room, the whole Lu family was gathered. Seated in the middle was Grandma Lu, Lu Yunxi's grandmother. Standing to her left were Lu Yunxi's eldest brother and sister-in-law, and to her right, her second brother.
When they saw Madam Chen enter, everyone turned to her.
"What's going on, exactly?" Grandma Lu spoke first. The villagers had been whispering that war was coming, and she was afraid too. Before Madam Chen could answer, she added, "If it's truly reached us, you all run—don't worry about me." She had already thought it through: her legs were bad, she couldn't get away.
She had lived through a military chaos as a child—soldiers stormed into her village, killing whoever they saw, looting everything, then burning it all down. They were crueler than bandits.
We can't stay here—we need to run, run now! She started to get up. She had some money hidden in her room; the children should take it and go, quickly.
"Grandma, if we go, we go together," said Lu Yunxiao, the eldest son.
"That's right," Lu Yunting, the second son, chimed in.
"Foolish," Grandma Lu snapped, exasperated.
"If Grandma won't go, I won't go either," Lu Yunchuan said firmly as he set Lu Yunxi down.
The others were about to argue, but Madam Chen raised her hand and said, "We are leaving, but not fleeing."
At that, everyone stared at her.
Madam Chen pulled out a letter and was about to explain, when suddenly a knock came at the door.
"Who's there?" The knock struck like a hammer on the hearts of everyone in the room, making them clench tight.
"I'll get it," Madam Chen said, moving toward the door.
"Mother, perhaps we should be cautious..." Lu Yunxiao began.
"I'm going with you." Lu Yunchuan followed Madam Chen out the door, grabbing a sickle from the yard as he went. If there truly were ruffians out there, he had summoned them—and they would not be leaving.
Madam Chen stopped at the gate, planted her feet, and asked in a low voice, "Who is it?"
"People sent to take you in," came a male voice from outside, steady and cold.
"Do you have proof?" Madam Chen asked.
A leather glove was slipped through the crack in the door. The glove was old, worn, and mottled with age. Madam Chen stared at it hard, then suddenly snatched it up and held it close to her eyes, examining it carefully. A choked sob escaped her throat, tears spilling down her cheeks. This glove was one she had sewn for her husband, Lu Tianguang.
"Who's at the door?" Grandma Lu called out from inside the house, worried.
Madam Chen quickly wiped her tears and opened the gate. Outside stood a young man, a boy, and a squad of people further back.
"Come in, quickly," Madam Chen said, stepping aside.
The young man wasted no time, entering first, followed by everyone else, until the small courtyard was packed full.
Grandma Lu and the others came to the doorway, staring at the crowd in astonishment. What was this?
Suddenly, the young man dropped to his knees. "I, your servant Xie Zhiyuan, by decree of His Majesty, have come to escort the Empress Dowager, the Empress, the princes, and the princesses to the capital." Behind him, all the others knelt in perfect unison.
Grandma Lu and the rest were dumbfounded. What was going on? Were they dreaming? Empress Dowager, Empress, princes, princesses—who were these people?
Madam Chen, though stirred with emotion, still kept her wits. She turned to Grandma Lu and said, "Mother, read that letter. Once you do, you'll understand."
Grandma Lu couldn't read, so she handed the letter to Lu Yunting, asking him to read it aloud.
Lu Yunting began to read, and the more he read, the more astonished everyone became.
Lu Yunxi's mind, however, exploded.
When she heard the young man announce himself, it suddenly hit her: she hadn't been born into this world—she had been transmigrated into a book!
It was a novel she'd read in her spare time, bored out of her mind. The story was set in the final years of the Jin Dynasty. The emperor was corrupt, the people were starving, and uprisings broke out everywhere. The male lead, Xie Zhiyuan, had been saved by the outlaw-turned-rebel leader Lu Tianguang, and so he followed him to conquer the world.
Of course, that was the backdrop. By the time the novel began, Lu Tianguang had already ascended the throne, and the male lead stood at the pinnacle of power.
Lu Tianguang—that was her father, the man who had disappeared ten years ago, supposedly to sell tea, and never returned.
And she, Lu Yunxi, was the book's vapid princess. Raised in a wretched, backwater village, suddenly becoming a princess was like a pauper scoring a fortune. She squandered money, decked herself in gold and jewels, threw her weight around—that was all small stuff.
The real problem? She was a lecher, and she'd set her sights on the male lead, Xie Zhiyuan.
Did villains in novels ever get to lay a finger on the hero?
The emperor tried to grant them a marriage, but the male lead refused. The vapid princess could only suppress her desires, venting instead by taking three husbands and keeping four male concubines, one of whom was the male lead's own nephew.
And still, she couldn't let go of Xie Zhiyuan. She tormented his nephew with wicked schemes, while plotting one idiotic, poisonous move after another to get her hands on the male lead.
In the end, she drove the male lead to rebellion, and her kingdom crumbled, her family perished. And the male lead, of course, after a storm of love and hate with the female lead, went on to live the blissful life of a pair of lovebirds, the envy of all.
