The Maid Hides from the High Branches,

[Love grows over time + slow burn + maid rises to the top] The heroine is neither reborn nor a transmigrator, and there is no System. She seems like a little lamb on the surface, but in reality she’s as tenacious as a cockroach.

Xu Qiqi was born unlucky. Her parents died when she was young, her family was dirt poor, and she had a younger brother to support. To keep them alive, she got up early and worked late, running a stall to earn a few copper coins to feed him. She thought life would go on like that, until delivering a letter nearly cost her brother his life. Thankfully, a scholar who also ran a stall came to their aid, and her brother survived! The scholar was interested in her, too. He seemed like a promising prospect: educated, at least. All right, then, she’d pick him. Maybe if she invested in him, she could turn her life around.

But she hadn’t counted on everything going off track once she passed through the vermilion gates of the Duke’s manor…

They say you can’t force a melon to be sweet, so why is the heir to the Duke’s manor so stubbornly bent on her? She can’t beat him or talk him out of it. What is she supposed to do? Forget it. No more struggling. If she’s going to fall here, she might as well strike a pose and give up trying…