My Heart Is Bright as the Moon - Chapter 1

My name is Gu Qingqing, and I picked up a fish.

Not just any fish. The heroine.

Shen Jiaojiao was one of the merfolk—and my ticket to staying alive.

As long as I didn’t go looking for trouble, I could hitch a ride on her protagonist halo and sail straight to the top.

Shen Jiaojiao had a peculiar beauty. You couldn’t tell whether she was a boy or a girl. Fortunately, she hadn’t grown into it yet, or who knew how many hearts she would have wrecked.

I took her hand and led her home. Her big eyes flickered uneasily as she bit her lip.

“Why did you save me?”

“Because you’re pretty.”

“Where are you taking me?”

My mind wandered, and nonsense came out of my mouth.

“To sell you to Dummy as his child bride.”

“…”

The male lead was the demon race’s second prince, so I wasn’t exactly wrong.

I seemed to have frightened Shen Jiaojiao. She didn’t say a word the entire way.

Once we reached my thatched hut, she suddenly dropped to her knees and started crying. Pearls fell one after another, and I stared, dumbfounded.

“Don’t sell me. I have pearls.”

My heart softened. I went over and picked her up.

“Stop crying. I was joking earlier. I’m not going to sell you.”

Her tears stopped on command. Before she was done, she even reminded me to collect the pearls.

I took the pearls she’d cried to the market and bought plenty of food and fabric, then brought the cloth to a tailor to have several outfits made for her.

A little girl deserved to look pretty.

It was already dusk when I returned. Shen Jiaojiao was sitting blankly on the bed, and I called her over to eat.

She ignored me, motionless as an exquisite statue.

I sighed and went to sit beside her.

“Don’t you want dinner?”

Instead of answering, she asked, “Do you want to eat me?”

My eyes widened. “Why would I eat you? Do I look crazy?”

She lowered her head and gave two quiet laughs.

“Eating merfolk flesh grants eternal life…”

I gave her head an unceremonious pat.

“In a few days, I’m going to join a cultivation sect and find a master. Once I cultivate properly, I’ll live a long time anyway. I’m not some freak who has to eat a little girl. Stop thinking all that nonsense. Since I fished you out, this is your home. Come on. Let’s eat.”

She gazed at me for several seconds, then spoke in a voice barely louder than a mosquito’s hum.

“Can I… call you Sister?”

“Of course.”

The heroine wanted to call me Sister!

Wasn’t that even better than a wish-fulfillment novel?

After dinner, I took her to bathe. At first, she squirmed and went bright red. Only after a scolding did she settle down and wash properly.

The little girl had pretty pale skin.

When she was finished, I had her put on the clothes I’d bought that day. They fit beautifully.

The corners of her eyes tilted upward, and she smiled happily with her lips pressed together.

“Thank you, Sister.”

In the novel, nobody rescued Shen Jiaojiao after her people were slaughtered. Members of the Heaven Ascending Sect brought her back with them, where she met the second male lead, Xingzhi, and became his disciple. The female disciples who secretly loved him then bullied her for seven whole years. Xingzhi saw it all and never once intervened.

That was also part of why, starved of affection, she let the male lead manipulate her and willingly offered up her merfolk body for him to eat.

I’d never understood how a book this depressing could possibly end happily.

But luckily, Shen Jiaojiao had met me.

The corners of my mouth lifted. I told her earnestly, “Jiaojiao, your kindness needs an edge.”

She didn’t understand, but obediently nodded anyway.

As the villainess, I couldn’t be just an ordinary person either.

My true identity was the illegitimate daughter of the Heaven Ascending Sect’s master. After using a keepsake to prove my identity and return to my father’s family, I joined in bullying the heroine.

I stood out from the other bullies, though, so the male lead killed me particularly horribly.

Classic. He could do whatever he wanted to his woman. Anyone else who touched her had to die.

After resting for a few days, I took Shen Jiaojiao to the Heaven Ascending Sect’s cloud stairs.

Three steps, one gasp.

Twenty-odd steps later, I collapsed.

I cursed whoever had designed these inhuman stairs. Had it never occurred to them to wonder whether ordinary mortals like us could actually climb them?

Shen Jiaojiao couldn’t stand watching anymore.

“Sister,” she offered timidly, “shall I carry you on my back?”

I looked at her little frame and sensibly refused.

“What if I squash you?”

She said nothing more. She simply laid my arm over her shoulder. My body suddenly felt weightless, and the next thing I knew, she’d scooped me up bridal-style.

The scene was so ridiculous you’ll have to picture it yourself.

Once there was Lin Daiyu uprooting a weeping willow; now there was Shen Jiaojiao carrying a person, steady as a rock and with stamina to spare.

I honestly couldn’t imagine how that useless male lead had ever managed to manipulate her.