Surviving the Tyrant with My Dog Blood Stories - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I transmigrated.

I transmigrated into a chaotic age where warlords vied for supremacy. Right out of the gate, I became the princess of a small kingdom. Before I could even feel happy about it, my trashy, deadbeat father sent me into the emperor’s harem to be cannon fodder.

The emperor to the north, Fu Beichen, was a famous Tyrant. Rumor had it that any woman who could survive a month in his harem could make it to the finale of The Legend of Zhen Huan.

So I kept an extremely low profile in the harem. Every day, I claimed to be ill and refused to go out. After hiding for a few days, forget Fu Beichen-I didn’t even know the other beauties who had entered the palace with me.

Because of that, it wasn’t until the first banquet held for the entire harem that I discovered there were other transmigrators among the beauties who had entered the palace in the same batch as me.

At the time, I was diligently eating pastries when Zhao Meiren at the next table suddenly stood up. She said that after witnessing the might of Great Zhou, inspiration had struck her, and she had a poem to present to the emperor.

Damn it.

Can’t you just eat in peace? Why are you sucking up?

Say no to workplace rat races!

Fu Beichen, seated at the head of the hall, seemed to be in a decent mood. His long, narrow eyes lifted slightly at the corners, and he gave a careless nod.

Zhao Meiren stood up. First, she swept her gaze around the room with an expression that said, Everyone here is trash. Then, with a free and easy air, she loudly recited her poem.

“Northern lands, what a scene-thousands of miles sealed in ice, ten thousand miles of snow drifting…”

Me: …

Wasn’t this the must-have transmigrator classic, Qinyuan Chun: Snow?

Oh my god. A fellow countrywoman.

But this was an alternate dynasty. Qin Shi Huang and Emperor Wu of Han didn’t even exist here!

After Zhao Meiren finished reciting, she looked at Fu Beichen with a smug expression.

The hall was deathly silent. No one spoke.

Fu Beichen began to laugh softly. His laughter echoed low and hoarse through the vast palace hall, making my skin crawl.

“The poem is good, but We do not like it.”

The Tyrant’s eyes were utterly indifferent. “Drag her out and behead her.”

???

Why?

Zhao Meiren didn’t even have time to speak before the guards covered her mouth and dragged her away.

Everything happened so suddenly that I hadn’t reacted at all.

But a brave soul had already spoken up first.

“Your Majesty, although Zhao Meiren has committed a grave error, Your Majesty is broad-minded. Why not pardon her and teach her to properly reflect and amend her ways?”

The one who spoke was the Princess of Shu.

At that moment, her pretty face was tense. Her voice trembled, yet remained firm. She looked exactly like a kind and courageous young girl.

“Oh?” The Tyrant lifted his gaze and glanced at her. “Then tell Us, what error did she commit?”

The Princess of Shu’s hands were trembling beneath the table, but she still raised her fair neck and met the Tyrant’s eyes.

“Zhao Meiren failed to avoid taboos in her poem, and the allusions she used made no sense. But that only proves her learning is shallow. It is not a crime worthy of death.”

Fu Beichen gave a derisive laugh, then rose from his seat and slowly walked down from the head of the hall.

His footsteps were very light. In that tense atmosphere, every step felt as if it landed directly on my heart.

Everyone’s eyes moved with him.

He stopped in front of the Princess of Shu and lowered his gaze, studying her for a few moments.

“You have great courage. Very good.”

The moment he said that, the jealous gazes of the assembled beauties swept toward her one after another.

Me, eating the drama at point-blank range: What? Is this some Meteor Garden love story?

The Tyrant falls in love with a consort who refuses to bow to power?

The next second-

Before the fleeting delight in the Princess of Shu’s eyes could even fade, the Tyrant spoke in an unhurried tone.

“Since you pity her so much, you can share her punishment.”

On his pale face, his pitch-black lashes fluttered lightly like wings, whipping up a violent storm in the quiet palace hall.

The Princess of Shu’s eyes widened so much in terror that her eyeballs looked ready to fall out of their sockets.

When the guards stepped forward, she finally came back to herself and began to struggle. She cried and screamed until her exquisite makeup smeared into a mess.

“Your Majesty, this consort was wrong! This consort should never have spoken out of turn!”

She whipped her head aside and pointed viciously at Zhao Meiren. “Your Majesty, just kill her! Kill her right now!”

Fu Beichen looked down at her expressionlessly, without the slightest tender pity for beauty.

As the Princess of Shu struggled, she knocked over the low table in front of me.

Pastries scattered all over the floor. I didn’t dare pick them up at all, terrified that he would notice me and drag me away too.

Fu Beichen’s gaze fell on the pastries that had rolled across the floor. Suddenly, he gave a laugh and personally set the low table upright.

The screams of the two beauties came from far away, yet he still had the leisure to pick up the fallen pastries as if nothing had happened.

I was trembling all over with fear and stammered, “Th-thank you, Your Majesty.”

But Fu Beichen was not satisfied.

“Your voice is so soft. Are you thanking Us sincerely?”

This psycho.

I could only muster my courage and say it again.

That night, after I returned, I had a nightmare.

In the dream, Zhao Meiren crawled toward me, her whole body smeared with blood. “Why didn’t you save me?”

I wanted to run, but I couldn’t move. All I could do was keep explaining that I had never had the ability to save anyone in the first place.

When I woke with a start, I was drenched in cold sweat.

I stared out the window at the pitch-black night. I truly hadn’t expected that right at the start, my fellow transmigrator would die.

In this damned life, even if the Tyrant didn’t kill me, I was afraid I would eventually snap, go psychologically twisted, and die sooner or later anyway.

But before I died, I still had one most important wish.

I wanted to go to Tianlong Temple and see if there was any chance I could transmigrate back.

I had transmigrated inside Tianlong Temple. Back then, I was about to graduate and had gone to pray for a good job. I had just drawn a top-tier fortune slip promising a “brilliant future” when I transmigrated.

Thinking about it carefully, working in the harem did count as a stable government job. The commute was short, too. For now, it seemed like I didn’t need to clock in, let alone work overtime.

It was just that 996 came with the risk of sudden death. In the Tyrant’s harem… the risk was getting violently killed.

Maybe overtime was better!