Everyone in the Harem Has a Cheat Except Me - Chapter 1

My name is Sheng Lianyi.

In this year’s selection, I was made a Palace Beauty.

The emperor, Qin Jun, was my childhood friend. On my first day in the palace, he chose my name tablet for the night.

After I had been bathed and brought to his bedchamber, he pounced on me the moment the attendants left.

“What took you so long? The gossip’s going cold,” he complained.

I looked at him in confusion. “What does eating melons mean? And why must the melons be hot?”

My question seemed to choke him. He gave me a complicated look, pulled me onto his dragon bed, and said, “I should explain a few things first. Come on. Let’s talk in bed.”

His dragon bed was enormous. It could hold several people; the two of us could roll around on it without any trouble. We lay down, and Qin Jun even fetched fruit and melon seeds.

“Eating melons means watching other people’s drama,” he explained.

I nodded. “Whose drama? And didn’t you call me here so urgently because you were in trouble?”

“It’s all the same thing,” he said with that complicated expression.

“Oh.” I waited for him to go on.

“I can read minds.”

I nodded again.

When Qin Jun was ten, lightning struck him. From then on, he could hear other people’s thoughts. His mother, then the empress and now the empress dowager, thought he had developed some strange illness and came to my family for help.

My father served in the Imperial Astronomical Bureau, though he was just a country bumpkin making a living there. His master—my grandmaster—actually knew what he was doing.

After examining Qin Jun, Grandmaster declared, “This is the destiny of an exalted man.”

“Will it harm him?” the empress asked.

“He must not have relations with a woman before he turns twenty,” Grandmaster replied.

Looking back, I’ve always suspected Grandmaster was fooling the empress. I have no proof. But he gave Qin Jun a bracelet, and once Qin Jun put it on, the jumble of voices really did fall silent. The empress dowager believed every word Grandmaster said.

Qin Jun’s twentieth birthday was two months away. He was still a virgin.

Ah, I’ve wandered off topic.

“One day, I heard the empress’s thoughts,” Qin Jun continued. “That’s how I discovered she’d been reborn.”

I blinked in surprise. “Reborn?”

“She died once and returned to several years earlier. Her thoughts also told me…” His voice turned strange. “In her former life, you were the woman I could never have. I used the Virtuous Consort as a substitute for you, then fell in love with my substitute. For her, I dismissed the entire harem. The empress died during her struggle with the Virtuous Consort.”

I stared at him. “I was the woman you could never have?”

“What? Do you think you’re not good enough for me?”

I smiled. “No. I think that’s an insult to me.”

Qin Jun went silent.

“Stop changing the subject!” he snapped.

I kept smiling. “But I want to hear more about this great love of yours.”

“I’ve got a whole harem of wives and concubines, and I can’t touch a single one. Was I supposed to tell them I can’t get it up?” he said, flustered.

“I see. So you claimed I was your one true love, and you’ve been keeping yourself pure for me?”

“Can’t get it up?” He gave a haughty snort. “You’re going to help me keep up the lie.”

The corner of my mouth twitched. I let out a couple of dry laughs.

He waved a hand. “That’s not important. The empress is reborn, and the Virtuous Consort seems to be heaven’s chosen daughter. She has some sort of aura, like the protagonist of a storybook.”

“The empress is delirious,” I said with a nod.

Qin Jun fell silent again. “I haven’t finished.”

“Go on, then.”