I Work as an Entrusted Teacher in the Harem - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I take commissions.

And I transmigrated into an imperial harem.

Disguised as a man, I can, depending on the client’s needs, professionally become someone’s unattainable first love.

The nights in the harem are long.

I have no shortage of work.

But the job isn’t without its risks.

For example, right now, just as I was about to put on men’s clothing, I met the unfathomably dark, amorous eyes of the current emperor, Li Zun.

Right.

I forgot.

I was stealing women from the emperor.

Worse yet, I was the female supporting character who was supposed to be tormented by him in body and soul, fighting for his favor until the day she died and still never beating the heroine.

Chapter 2

Li Zun had once been an unfavored prince.

My elder sister refused to marry him, so she pushed “me” out in her place.

In the spring of our first year of marriage, assassins attacked at the hunting grounds, and “I” took a blade for him.

I lost a child.

He held the blood-soaked “me” in his arms and said, “One day, we’ll have a home of our own.”

In the spring of the sixth year, Li Zun secured his throne.

The day he conferred the title of consort was blessed with beautiful weather.

He rose from the bed, stroked “my” hair, and said, “Be good. It’s time for you to return to Yeting Palace.”

The consort he wanted to ennoble was my elder sister.

She was the one he had wanted to marry most when he was young.

Tonight was the night before my elder sister entered the palace.

He thought of “me.”

But he didn’t know.

A quarter of an hour ago, the female supporting character’s heart had gone utterly still. She had ended her own life with one slash of a blade, making way for my transmigration.

I turned around.

My hand, in the middle of fixing my makeup, paused.

Who knew how long Li Zun had been watching me? His gaze was deep and unreadable.

He seized my wrist and shoved me down onto the bed.

Layer after layer of bed curtains enclosed us.

Only, as he looked at my face, the space between his brows kept twitching.

The longer he looked, the more wrong it seemed.

“Oh, oh.” I scrambled up and said to him, “Sorry, teach.”

I was too used to doing adult male looks. Occupational hazard.

Just now, while doing my makeup, I’d accidentally made myself look like a man again.

“I…” I pressed a hand to my forehead and smiled bitterly. “I can’t go back.”

Li Zun didn’t understand. He asked, “Teach?”

“Which man is Teach?”

I couldn’t explain, so I tried to get off the bed.

He caught my ankle. His eyes were pitch-black as he said slowly, “There is no need for these little tricks.”

“I will still come to you every few days.”

“It is only that from now on, you will have no official status, and you cannot overshadow your elder sister.”

“She is innocent and simple. You are not allowed to bully her.”

He thought I was still that female supporting character who had given him her whole heart.

Chapter 3

Everyone in the palace sneered that I would never have a day to rise again.

No one was willing to follow me.

Only Little Mute Girl remained.

I sat before the mirror, carefully studying the absolutely perfect hair she had arranged for me.

Little Mute Girl thought she had done poorly and dropped to her knees with a thud.

“Ah!”

I swept her into my arms.

“Teacher Maoniang, is that you? My long-lost Teacher Maoniang!”

It was the first time Little Mute Girl had ever been hugged like this.

Her parents had no money. To trade for a mouthful of rice for her younger brother, they had sent her alone into Yeting Palace when she was four.

No one had ever hugged her.

They couldn’t. If they hugged her, she would grow dependent.

Her hands had nowhere to go. She didn’t even dare move.

But from that day on…

In the morning: Little Mute Girl, in the courtyard, pinching hairpieces.

At noon: Little Mute Girl, in the kitchen, pinching hairpieces.

At night: Little Mute Girl, by the bed, pinching hairpieces.

I rubbed my eyes, lit one of the few red candles we had, and walked over to her.

“Maoniang, why aren’t you asleep yet?”

Arranged in a circle on the table were false hair buns and hairpieces, tall and gorgeous.

Little Mute Girl looked at me timidly, as if waiting for something.

After hesitating again and again…

She reached out with both hands and hugged my waist.

I froze.

Then I stroked her head.

“You’re a good treasure. The best good treasure.”

The back of my hand went cool. It was her tears.

That day, my elder sister entered the palace to receive her investiture edict. The ceremonial music went on from morning until night without stopping.

The people who had rushed off to collect rewards came back, hoping to laugh at me.

Instead, they saw only two figures huddled together, tirelessly making false hairpieces day and night.

“Ah!”

The person who had collected a reward promptly ran to the Noble Consort to tattle.

“Reporting to Your Grace, someone in the palace is carrying on a forbidden palace romance!”

The Noble Consort propped her head on one hand, slowly waving a fan as she looked at the bowl of sterilizing tonic before her.

Li Zun had sent it.

He wanted her to find an excuse to make me drink it.

Because I had taken several years of loving married life from my elder sister, making my elder sister unhappy. This was the debt I owed.

“Which palace’s eunuch and which palace’s maid is it this time?”

There was not a ripple in the Noble Consort’s long, seductive eyes.

“It isn’t a eunuch.”

“It’s the one in Yeting Palace and her Little Mute Girl maid!”

The Noble Consort’s fan barely paused.

Her eyes turned toward the senior nanny beside her. She blinked and blinked.

She looked as if she wanted to say something, then thought better of it.

The nanny had seen plenty of the world and knew what her mistress wanted to ask.

“Your Grace, that can be done too.”