It was 11:47 PM when Su Yuxiao decided that General Huo Lingfeng was the stupidest man to ever exist in fiction or reality.
She pushed her chopsticks into the instant noodles so hard that the cup cracked. The soup spilled onto the desk, but she didn't notice or care. All her attention was on the phone, resting against a jar of chili oil, where the latest chapter of The Favored Concubine of the General was open and it made her really angry.
The chapter had been building toward this moment for weeks. The Autumn Hunt. The startled horse. And now
General Huo Lingfeng caught Lin Yourou before she could fall. His arms wrapped around her waist, steadying her, and for a moment, neither of them moved. The world seemed to hold its breath. She looked up at him, her eyes wide and wet with unshed tears, and something in his chest cracked open.
"Are you hurt?" His voice was low, rough.
She shook her head, a single tear finally escaping down her cheek. "The General... you saved me."
He did not let go. Not immediately. When he finally released her, his hand lingered at her elbow, as if unwilling to part. As if she were something precious.
Su Yuxiao made a sound somewhere between a groan and a scream.
She knew exactly what came next. The comments section would explode with squealing readers. The forums would be flooded with threads about how "romantic" this scene was. How the General was perfect. How Lin Yourou was so lucky.
But Su Yuxiao's mind was already elsewhere. Already cutting to the scene the author would inevitably include next the scene where the narrative would pan away from the happy couple and land, as it always did, on the woman watching from the shadows.
Princess Murong Qian.
She could picture it without even reading it. Murong Qian standing at the edge of the viewing pavilion, her face a mask of porcelain calm, her hands hidden in her sleeves. The other court ladies would be whispering about her cold heart, her ambition, her unnatural stillness. They wouldn't see the way her fingers curled into fists. Wouldn't see the tiny tremble in her jaw that she had spent years training herself to suppress.
They didn't know.
Su Yuxiao knew. She had read every chapter, every side story, every scrap of backstory the author had ever released. She knew about Murong Qian's mother, the favored consort who grew too powerful and died screaming while the court physicians stood by with their useless medicines and knowing eyes. She knew about the seven-year-old girl who held her mother's hand as the life drained out of her, who learned that day that tears were a luxury she could not afford.
She knew about the night when Murong Qian was fifteen. She had been investigating her mother's death, following a lead that took her to a warehouse in the capital's outer district. Someone had betrayed her. She walked into a trap—three men with swords, hired by the remnants of Consort Liu's faction. She fought, but she was alone, and she was losing.
Then a young captain appeared. Huo Lingfeng. He cut down two of the men, took a wound on his arm protecting her from the third, and dragged her out of the warehouse before the guards arrived. He didn't ask for thanks. He didn't report the incident to anyone. He simply bandaged his own arm, looked at her with those steady eyes, and said, "Your Highness, you should not be investigating alone. If you need information, there are safer ways. I can help."
That was the beginning. For months afterward, he fed her intelligence about the court, about the people who had been involved in her mother's murder. He never asked for anything in return. He never tried to leverage her position. He simply helped. And over those months, she came to trust him the first person she had trusted since her mother died.
She loved him not because of a single sentence, but because of everything those months represented. He had saved her life. He had worked beside her. He had seen her at her most vulnerable and had not used it against her.
And now, seven years later, he was going to marry Lin Yourou.
Su Yuxiao had read that backstory in a flashback chapter. It had lodged itself in her chest and never left. Because she knew what was coming. In ten chapters, Murong Qian would be accused of scheming against Lin Yourou. In twenty, she would be stripped of her title. In thirty, she would be confined to her palace, alone, while the General married his favored concubine and the empire celebrated their happy ending.
And somewhere in between, there would be a scene. Murong Qian, sitting alone in her chambers at night, pulling out a jade hairpin she had commissioned years ago a hunting eagle in fight, a gift she had never been brave enough to send to the General. She would hold it in her palm, tracing the sharp edges with her fingertip, and she would think about the young captain who had saved her life, who had worked beside her, who had made her believe she was not alone.
And then she would put the hairpin back in its box. Because that was what Murong Qian did. She tucked her hopes away where no one could see them. She learned to want things quietly, privately, in a way that could never be used against her. She survived.
Su Yuxiao's eyes stung.
She grabbed her phone and scrolled down to the comments section. Her fingers were shaking. The first few comments were exactly what she expected.
**fluffylover99:** OMG THE GENERAL IS SO DREAMY 😭😭😭 TRUE LOVE
**history_drama_fan:** Lin Yourou is the luckiest woman alive. The General is everything.
**swoon_queen:** When he didn't let go right away... I DIED. THIS IS THE CONTENT I LIVE FOR.
Su Yuxiao's jaw tightened. She typed with the fury of a woman who had spent six months of her life invested in a character the author was determined to destroy.
**Yuxiao_is_reading:** Are you all reading the same book I am? Do any of you remember Murong Qian? The princess who watched her mother die at seven? Who survived an assassination attempt at fifteen and only lived because the General saved her? Who trusted him because he was the first person to help her without asking for anything in return? And now he's going to choose Lin Yourou, and the author is going to turn Murong Qian into a villain for being heartbroken about it. She deserves better. She deserves to be chosen. She deserves someone who will fight WITH her, not make her fight alone. I wish I could go into that book and make that stupid General remember what she sacrificed for him. I'd make sure she gets the happy ending she deserves.
She hit post and threw her phone onto her bed.
The instant noodles were cold now. The soup had congealed into a sad, greasy film on her desk. Su Yuxiao didn't care. She pulled her knees up to her chest and stared at her phone screen, watching the comment section scroll by, waiting for someone anyone to agree with her.
No one did.
More comments about how romantic the horse scene was. More swooning over the General's strong arms. Someone posted a meme about Lin Yourou being "wife material." Someone else started a thread about how Princess Murong Qian was "getting in the way" of the main couple and needed to be "dealt with."
"She's not in the way," Su Yuxiao thought bitterly. "She's just standing there, watching the only person she ever trusted fall in love with someone else. And you're all going to cheer when they destroy her."
Her eyes were getting heavy. The room was dark except for the glow of her phone screen. The cold noodles sat forgotten on her desk.
She closed her eyes, and in the darkness, she made a promise to a woman who didn't exist.
"I'll help you. I'll make sure you're never alone again. I'll make sure you get the ending you deserve"
She fell asleep with the taste of instant noodles and salt on her lips.
---
When Su Yuxiao opened her eyes again, the ceiling was wrong.
She stared at it for a long moment, her brain struggling to process what she was seeing. Her apartment ceiling was white, stained with water damage in the corner, with a flickering fluorescent light she had been meaning to fix for six months.
This ceiling was carved. Wooden beams painted with dragons and phoenixes, their wings spread across the ceiling in flowing gold and vermillion. Between the beams, the plaster was painted a deep, rich blue, like the sky at twilight, with tiny stars picked out in silver.
She blinked. The ceiling did not change.
Her head throbbed. A dull, pounding pain that seemed to originate from somewhere behind her eyes and radiate outward. She tried to lift her hand to her forehead and realized she was lying on something cold and hard.
Marble. She was lying on marble.
*What the fuck?*
She pushed herself up, her arms trembling, and looked around.
The room was enormous. Silk curtains hung from a four-poster bed in the corner, the wood dark and gleaming, carved with more dragons. A dressing table stood against one wall, covered in polished bronze mirrors and ivory combs and small porcelain pots that might hold makeup or medicine. A folding screen painted with peonies shielded one corner of the room. The air smelled like sandalwood and something floral she couldn't name.
This was not her apartment. This was not any place she had ever been.
A voice cut through her confusion, high and anxious. "Miss! Miss Su! You're awake!"
A young girl appeared at her side, dropping to her knees so fast she nearly skidded on the marble. She was maybe sixteen, dressed in simple robes of pale green, her hair pulled back in a style Su Yuxiao recognized from a dozen historical dramas. Her face was pale with worry, her hands reaching out as if to steady her.
"You fainted!" the girl said. "This servant was so scared! You hit your head, and you wouldn't wake up, and I was about to fetch the doctor, but then you opened your eyes, and"
Su Yuxiao stared at her.
The girl's words were washing over her without meaning. She was too busy trying to understand what was happening. Why was she in this room? Why was this girl calling her "Miss Su"? Why did her head hurt so much?
"Who are you?" she croaked. Her voice sounded strange. Thinner, maybe. Younger.
The girl's eyes went wide. "Miss! It's me, Chun Tao! Your personal maid!" She reached out and pressed her palm to Su Yuxiao's forehead, checking for fever. "You must have hit your head harder than I thought. Do you remember? You collapsed this afternoon, right in the middle of the courtyard. The Prime Minister was so worried, he wanted to call for a physician, but you woke up so he said to let you rest, and now"
"Wait." Su Yuxiao held up a hand, and the girl Chun Tao fell silent. "The Prime Minister?"
Chun Tao blinked. "Your father, miss."
Your father. The Prime Minister.
Something cold and electric raced down Su Yuxiao's spine. She looked at the room again. The carved ceiling. The silk curtains. The dressing table with its bronze mirrors. The robes hanging from a wooden rack by the bed, layer upon layer of silk in soft blues and greens.
This was not her life. This was not her world.
"No," she thought. "No, no, no."
"Chun Tao," she said, her voice coming out steadier than she felt. "What year is it?"
Chun Tao's confusion deepened, but she answered anyway. "It is the fourteenth year of the Jingyuan reign, miss."
Jingyuan. She knew that name. She knew that reign.
*The Favored Concubine of the General* was set in the Jingyuan era.
Her heart was pounding so hard she could hear it in her ears. "The princess," she said. "The most powerful princess in the court. What is her name?"
Chun Tao looked at her like she had grown a second head. "Miss are you sure you're alright? Perhaps I should call for the physician after all"
"Answer me."
Something in Su Yuxiao's voice must have been convincing, because Chun Tao's mouth snapped shut. She swallowed, then said, "Her Highness, Princess Murong Qian. But miss, you know this. Everyone knows this. She's dangerous. Your father always says to stay far away from her. They say she watched her own mother die and didn't cry. Can you imagine? A child with no tears. They say she's unnatural."
Su Yuxiao stopped listening after the name.
Princess Murong Qian.
She was in the novel. She had somehow, impossibly, transmigrated into "The Favored Concubine of the General".
She looked down at her hands. They were her hands the same small fingers, the same chipped nail polish on her thumb but softer. Unworked. The hands of someone who had never washed a dish or typed a word in her life.
She touched her face. The same bone structure, she thought, but her skin was smoother, her cheeks fuller. She looked like herself, but younger. Like a version of herself that had been born into wealth and never known want.
She was Su Yuxiao, daughter of the Prime Minister. A character so minor she barely remembered her from the novel. A footnote. A name mentioned once or twice, never given any lines.
Perfect.
A slow, terrified, exhilarated smile spread across her face.
Chun Tao made a small, worried sound. "Miss? Miss, you're scaring me. Should I really go get the physician?"
"No." Su Yuxiao pushed herself to her feet, swaying slightly. The room tilted, then steadied. "No physician. I'm fine."
"You collapsed! You hit your head! You forgot what year it is and who the princess is and"
"I remember now." Su Yuxiao turned to look at her reflection in one of the bronze mirrors. Her face stared back at her, familiar and strange all at once. The same eyes. The same mouth. But the girl in the mirror had never spent all night crying over a fictional princess. Had never argued with strangers on the internet about character arcs. Had never wished, with her whole heart, that she could jump into a book and save someone who wasn't real.
Well. That girl was gone now.
Su Yuxiao touched the cool surface of the mirror, watching her own reflection do the same.
"I'm here," she thought. "I'm actually here."
She thought about the promise she had made before she fell asleep. *I'll help you. I'll make sure you're never alone again.*
She hadn't known, then, that she would be given the chance to keep it.
"Chun Tao," she said, turning away from the mirror. "Tell me. The General. Huo Lingfeng. Is he in the capital?"
Chun Tao's eyes went round. "The General? He returned from the northern border three days ago. There's to be a welcome banquet tonight. All the important nobles will attend. Even Her Highness, Princess Murong Qian. But miss, why would you"
A banquet. Tonight.
In the novel, this was the banquet where Murong Qian would see the General for the first time in months. Where she would watch him accept the Emperor's praise, would watch him smile at Lin Yourou across the hall, would watch him not look at her even once. It was one of the first cuts. One of the small wounds that would eventually bleed her dry.
Not tonight.
Su Yuxiao smoothed the front of her robes—silk, expensive silk, the kind she could never afford in her real life and smiled at Chun Tao's anxious face.
"Help me get ready," she said. "We're going to a banquet."
Chun Tao's mouth fell open. "But miss! Your father said you were to rest!"
"My father," Su Yuxiao said gently, "doesn't know what I'm capable of."
She looked at her reflection one more time. The girl in the mirror looked back at her, young and soft and utterly unknown to this world.
She was going to change everything.
She was going to find Princess Murong Qian. The woman who had held her mother's hand as she died. Who had survived an assassination attempt at fifteen and had been saved by a young captain. Who had trusted him, worked with him, loved him for seven years. Who had been surviving alone for so long she had forgotten what it felt like to have someone beside her.
She was going to be her friend. She was going to stand beside her. She was going to make sure she never fought alone again.
And she was going to help her win the General's heart. Because that was what Murong Qian wanted. Because she deserved to be happy. Because Su Yuxiao had read her story and believed, with everything she had, that this lonely, fierce, complicated woman deserved an ending where she was chosen.
The thought made her chest tight, but she chalked it up to excitement. Nerves. The weight of what she was about to do.
She took a deep breath and turned away from the mirror.
"Chun Tao," she said. "What do you know about Princess Murong Qian? Not the rumors. The real things. What does she like? What does she dislike? What are her hobbies, her favorite foods, her habits?"
Chun Tao stared at her like she had lost her mind. "Miss... why would you need to know any of that?"
Su Yuxiao smiled. "Because," she said quietly, "I'm going to be her friend. And friends should know these things."
Chun Tao looked like she wanted to call for a physician even more urgently now. But Su Yuxiao just laughed and pulled her toward the dressing table.
"Come on," she said. "We have a lot to do before tonight. And I need to know everything about this world if I'm going to survive it."
She paused, looking at her reflection one last time.
"Don't worry, Murong Qian," she thought. "I've got you."
She had no idea that somewhere in the palace, a princess was looking out a window at the same moon, thinking about a general who had once saved her life and then slowly drifted away.
She had no idea that the friendship she was about to build would grow into something she never expected.
But that was still a long way off.