The peddler Ivan was in an exceptionally good mood today because his donkey cart had welcomed a distinguished guest.

It was a noble lady with elegant speech and a strikingly beautiful appearance. She was so gorgeous that Ivan dared not even look directly at her. Not only was she extremely good-looking, but she was also extremely generous. Having lost her way in the wilderness, she claimed to be Lady Castina, a viscountess, and was willing to pay Ivan ten silver coins to send her back to her territory.

Ten silver coins was no small amount. The annual income of an ordinary peasant household was about the same. Ivan was not just an ordinary peddler. Besides traveling from village to village to sell goods, he had done many immoral things like trafficking women and stealing children. He was extremely greedy for money. Now, this unexpected windfall of ten silver coins made him ecstatic. He smoked his pipe contentedly, hummed a little tune, and drove the donkey cart, shaking his head and looking full of joy.

Ahead, the outline of a bustling and lively town gradually came into view. Ivan turned his head and said to the noble lady inside the donkey cart with a big smile, "Excuse me, madam. We're almost at the place you mentioned!"

At that moment, the curtain of the donkey cart was gently lifted by a fair hand, and Castina quietly poked her head out, looking ahead. Her wine-red curly hair fell naturally, her skin was fair, tender, smooth and flawless. Her beautiful eyes had slightly upturned corners, exuding a somewhat coquettish charm. Under her delicate upturned nose was a plump and exquisite red lip. Although her appearance was charming, it was not vulgar but rather had an air of nobility.

She gave a charming smile and then said, "Thank you for your trouble, Mr. Carriage Driver." Then she changed her tone, "However... I'm so sorry!"

Ivan was taken aback when he heard this and asked in confusion, "Huh?"

Before he could react, a graceful figure suddenly darted out of the carriage compartment. Immediately after that, she was seen holding up her skirt with one hand and clutching a few pieces of paper in the other, running so fast that she disappeared into the woods by the roadside in an instant. The whole process took only a few seconds, and Ivan didn't have time to stop her at all.

Then Ivan suddenly remembered that when the noble lady Castina, who had suddenly jumped out of the cart and run away, was running, she was holding his special permit for human trafficking in her hand! That permit was worth one hundred and fifty silver coins!

"Damn it!" Ivan's expression changed instantly from shock to anger. He grabbed a dagger in a hurry, jumped off the cart, and rushed straight into the woods to chase after her.

Not long after, Castina actually came back first. Her coquettish and cunning eyes glanced back, and then she quickly and nimbly untied the harness of the donkey cart. She lifted her skirt, climbed onto the donkey's back, slapped the donkey's hindquarters, and rode the donkey galloping towards a fork in the road.

"Giddy-up! Giddy-up!" In an instant, the woman and the donkey disappeared into the fork in the road.

At this time, Ivan scurried out of the woods in a flustered and disheveled state. Looking at the back of the so-called noble lady riding his donkey away, he was on the verge of crying.

"My donkey!"

"My human trafficking permit!"

"That damn female swindler!"

From a distance came Castina's laughing shout, "They're all mine now!"

On the country dirt road, Castina was riding the donkey, counting the silver coins in the money bag one by one. These were the gains from her swindling today.

She had just been wearing an elegant dress, but now she was in an old and tight dress similar to that of a peasant woman. After deducting the cost of renting the dress and the ten silver coins she had given as a tip to the human-trafficking peddler Ivan, she had made a total of 40 silver coins today.

Looking at the shiny silver coins in the money bag, Castina couldn't help but shake her head slightly and click her tongue.

"If I hadn't been in such a hurry to sell it, that permit could have been sold for more money! By the way, if I had been a bit quicker just now, I might have even been able to steal the peddler's money bag too."

However, for this kind of business with no cost but huge profits, even if she made a little less, it wasn't really a loss.

She put away the silver coins and took out a piece of black bread mixed with grains from her side pocket. The little donkey was walking on the bumpy country dirt road, and Castina was tearing the bread and eating it while looking at the peasants working in the fields, and she couldn't help but let out a long sigh.

"This immoral life, I really don't know when it will end."

Just two and a half years ago, Castina, who was making ill-gotten gains by cheating and swindling, was actually a young man. At that time, he was called Li Si, a graphic designer in a small private enterprise, living an ordinary life like a corporate slave.

Due to staying up late and working overtime, he suddenly died of overwork. When he opened his eyes again, he had become a she.

Compared to becoming a woman, what troubled her more was poverty. She was so poor that she didn't know where her next meal was coming from.

Logically speaking, her new identity was the only daughter of a marquis. However, due to the continuous squandering of her ancestors from generation to generation, by the time it came to her and her father, the family property had been reduced to only a knight's fief.

Among the ranks of duke, marquis, earl, viscount, and baron, a knight's fief was a territory not included in the title system, only about the size of a village or town. And because of poverty, they couldn't afford to keep guards, so naturally they couldn't collect taxes. Not only did they have no income, but they also had a huge amount of debt.

The difficult situation of life made Castina have no time to dwell on the matter of her gender change. After all, if she couldn't pay off the debts, she would be caught by the debt collectors and sent to a brothel. That kind of life would be really thrilling and terrifying.

Castina rode the little donkey along the country dirt road. A continuous stretch of valleys appeared in front of her. Following the path into the mountains, she arrived at a fairly lively village and town.

The cart driver driving the ox cart to transport forage, the village woman carrying goods to sell in the city, and the children competing to see who could pee the farthest under the town wall, all showed the vitality of this village and town.

Since this village and town didn't collect taxes, it was naturally full of life and vitality.

Along the way, the villagers greeted and teased Castina one after another. Castina, with bread in her mouth, casually responded to them.

"Miss Castina, you had a good harvest today, hehe..."

"Yes, the donkey and the money bag, tsk tsk tsk"The donkey looks a bit familiar to me! Ah, I remember now! It's that human trafficker Ivan's!"

"Ivan? I remember now. He's that scoundrel who specializes in cheating little kids!"

"Miss Castina, you've done a good deed this time. Little Bona from the neighboring village was cheated away by this bastard!"

"Ah, Miss Castina has finally done something good. Congratulations!"

Hearing the villagers' remarks change from teasing to praise, Castina didn't have the heart to respond. At the moment, all she wanted was to go home, tie up the donkey, and then catch up on some sleep.

At this time, a nosy village woman said to Castina, "Miss, I have some good news for you."

"Your father, Lord Hall, has found you a foreign adventurer knight to be your husband! He's already at your home now, and he's quite wealthy!"

Castina was startled when she heard this.

Immediately, her beautiful face changed color, and she couldn't help but blurt out a curse, "Damn it! Isn't this old fool trying to get me into trouble!"

With that, she quickly slapped the donkey's rump and urged it to gallop home.

Rushing home in a frantic hurry, after turning a few corners, an old and dilapidated courtyard building that looked like a haunted house came into view. That was her home.

She quickly tied up the donkey and pushed open the creaking door with a shove. She saw her father, Lord Hall, who had been sitting and waiting at the door for a long time.

Seeing her return, Lord Hall immediately beamed with joy and stood up to greet her at once.

"Tina!"

"Our hard days are finally coming to an end!"

"This foreign adventurer knight doesn't know your true situation. After hearing about my marquis title and our family's circumstances, he's willing to marry you, marry into our family to inherit the marquis title, and use it to do business!"

"He even offered ten gold coins as the betrothal money for this marriage!"

Looking at her father, Lord Hall's excited and elated appearance and the old, worn-out noble robe he was wearing, Castina couldn't help but show an angry expression on her face.

She glared at her father with her coquettish eyes and said unhappily, "Didn't we agree that no matter how we swindle and cheat, we would never do anything that would harm or kill others?"

"You're making him marry me. Isn't this going to cost him his life?"

"I won't agree to this no matter what!"

Lord Hall wanted to explain further, but Castina had already thrown a bag of silver coins onto the table and walked away angrily, heading straight for her bedroom.

In fact, the reason she didn't agree to this marriage alliance wasn't entirely because of her memories of being a man in her previous life and her inability to accept being intimate with a man.

The main reason was another trait of hers besides being poor - being extremely unlucky for her husbands!

The social customs in this world are roughly equivalent to those in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance period on Earth.

Here, women, especially noblewomen, marry very early. It's quite common for them to get married at the age of twelve or thirteen, and there are even some who get married at the age of nine. So it's not surprising that she's called a lady even though she's nearly twenty.

As the daughter of a down-on-their-luck noble family, she should have gotten married and lived a good life long ago according to reason.

Her first marriage alliance was when she was eight years old. The betrothal gifts were received, and the wedding date was set. However, on the eve of the wedding, her first prospective husband was accidentally killed while playing with his playmates. He was only six years old at that time.

That marriage naturally fell through.

After that, her subsequent prospective husbands either died at the hands of robbers while being robbed, drowned in the river, were kicked to death by horses, or even died of overeating eel pies.

In short, every time she signed the marriage contract, her prospective husband was soon to die.

At the age of only twenty, she had already caused the deaths of more than a dozen prospective husbands, ranging from older to younger.

This has led to the situation that even though she has a beautiful face and a great figure, and even though her title is valuable, no one dares to marry her.

Fortunately, there is no witch-hunting movement in this world. Otherwise, with her "talent" of being extremely unlucky for her husbands, she would probably have been tied to the stake and burned long ago.

Nowadays, she is a terrifying legend passed around in the noble circles, a living death goddess for husbands.

Castina was sitting in front of her old and shabby dressing mirror, staring blankly at herself in the mirror.

She had long wine-red hair, alluring coquettish almond-shaped eyes, a delicate upturned nose, and a plump red lip. Her facial features and temperament were extremely charming.

The tight peasant dress she was wearing outlined her voluptuous and graceful figure clearly. Her chest was full and prominent, so much so that when she stood up, her feet could hardly be seen.

Looking at herself in the mirror, Castina couldn't help but think in her heart.

If I didn't have this trait of being unlucky for my husbands, would I have already been living a life of luxury?

But when she pictured in her mind the scene of being bullied by a blond-haired, blue-eyed foreigner, she couldn't help but shiver all over and feel nauseous in her heart.

She helplessly rubbed her forehead and let out a soft sigh.

Being extremely unlucky for her husbands, for her who was reborn as a woman with the memories of a man from her previous life, was probably a good thing in a way, right?

She looked down at her crotch area and couldn't help but show a helpless expression on her face.

Being unlucky for her husbands, here, it was indeed bare and white, with nothing there.