A Thousand Years Later, the Tyrant Is Still Waiting for Me

At sixteen, she’s a bounty hunter.
One wrong step and—

She sneaks into the imperial palace to steal a “wine cup,” only to discover
it’s a national treasure taller than her legs—the Four-Ram Bronze—and she’s just earned herself a double bounty from both the emperor and the richest man in the empire.

First priority: run for her life with her childhood sweetheart.
Step one: sell out her teammate.

To stay alive, Pu Boyan slaps a label on Wu Yao, claiming she’s a spirit summoned from the Four-Ram Bronze,
and sells her to Zhao Zishou—the sickly, sharp-eyed tycoon whose wealth can rival the throne—

From that moment on, she becomes the “cure” to a thousand-year-old curse.

The problem?

She’s not a spirit, knows zero magic, and her only real skills are arguing, running, and stealing.

Yet Zhao Zishou laces his fingers through hers, his voice low and cold:

“I’ve been waiting for you—for a thousand years.”

Chapter One

Yao hooked the noose around her neck.
She could not have made her wish to die any clearer.

Bo sat off to the side with a cup of tea, watching.
He did not try to stop her.
He only pushed the beads of his abacus back and forth with his long, scallion-thin fingers and counted the last few silver coins in their ledger.

Yao stood there with the rope for a long time before she finally heard Bo’s half-hearted advice.

“If you die now, I don’t even have money to buy you a coffin. I can only wrap you in a straw mat and toss you outside. If you refuse to rest in peace, do me a favor and don’t come back to haunt me.”

Yao slipped her neck out of the loop and said coldly, “We are already at the end of the road. Where we die does not make much difference.”

Bo slid the abacus beads back to their starting place.
His fox-like eyes curved with a smile.

“Who said we are definitely going to die?”

---

Yao and Bo had grown up together.
They spent half their childhood tricking each other and the other half refusing to let go of each other.

To stay alive, the two of them became bounty hunters.
As long as the client paid enough, they would even try to steal the emperor’s underwear.

Of course, no one would ever put up real money for the emperor’s underwear.

There were always people who wanted treasures from the palace instead.

The Four-Ram Vessel, a bronze ritual piece from the end of the Shang dynasty, was one of them.
Zhao, a rich boss, offered a fortune for it.
Blinded by the number, Bo agreed before he even weighed his own chances.

The vessel sat inside the imperial palace.
Getting in was not the hardest part.
The palace was crowded and messy, and there were always a few servants with thoughts they should not have.

Up to that point, everything had gone fairly smoothly.

The problem was that these two broke kids had never seen the world.
They thought a “ritual vessel” was just some kind of wine cup.
Even if it was made of bronze, they pictured something they could tuck under an arm and slip away with.

The real thing was standing there, taller than their legs and wider than their waists, solid as a stone vat.

Yao used every bit of strength she had.
It did not move at all.

She let out a long breath. “Looks like we came for nothing.”

“Not just that,” Bo said.

He lifted his head slowly.
His eyes were already empty.

Before accepting the job, he had signed a life-and-death contract with Zhao.
Either he brought back the Four-Ram Vessel and got his gold, or he carried his own head over to apologize.

Zhao’s fortune could rival a kingdom.
Cross a man like that and it did not matter how wide the world was, there would be nowhere to run.

Yao was sixteen.
She had not lived nearly enough.

When she heard this, her knees went weak and the future went dark.
She grabbed Bo by the throat, teeth clenched.

“If you want to die, die on your own. Why drag me with you?”

Her voice came out louder than she meant.
The noise alerted the guards outside the hall.

They fled in a panic and, in the rush, showed their faces.

The royal family wanted them dead.
Zhao wanted them dead as well.
Wolves in front, tigers behind, and the last of their savings already spent.

Yao could not see a way out.
She decided she might as well hang herself.

Yet the moment her neck slipped into the noose, her legs began to shake.

Deep down, she still did not want to die.

After a few rounds of bickering with Bo, Zhao arrived with his men.

Yao had never met him before.
She had pictured a man in his forties or fifties.

Instead, the person who walked in was fine-boned and pale, his features almost too delicate, with a constant hint of sickness between his brows.
He did not act like an important boss either.
He dragged over a random chair, sat down, and asked in a mild voice, “Bo, did you find what you promised me?”

Bo’s heartbeat did not even speed up. “Of course. It is already in my hands.”

Zhao glanced around the shabby hut. “It does not seem to be here.”

“No,” Bo said, “the Four-Ram Vessel you asked for really is inside this hut.”

Yao’s toes curled in her shoes when she heard that.
Bo might be good at talking nonsense, but this was the kind of lie that would fall apart in a heartbeat.
It could only make Zhao angry and bring them no benefit at all.

She quietly backed away, looking for a good angle to run.
If things turned violent, she planned to turn and bolt.
As for Bo, his fate would have to sort itself out.

She did not expect Bo to grab her wrist, drag her forward, and shove her in front of Zhao.

“She is the Four-Ram Vessel.”

Bo really had lost his mind.

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