After Ten Years as a Widow, I Was Forced to Become a Concubine and Marry the Regent

【Brooding, sinister man + divorce + demoted from wife to concubine + fake eunuch + remarriage】 To repay a life debt, Princess Ning Zhao concealed her identity and married into a once-noble but now impoverished marquis's household. Her husband left to fight soon after their wedding. Ten years later, with the war over, the Marquis of Pingxiao returned to the capital with another woman and forced Ning Zhao to give up her place as his wife. Her once-kind mother-in-law turned against her. Ignoring all the years Ning Zhao had cared for her through illness, she demanded that Ning Zhao step down and accept the status of a concubine! The younger sister-in-law Ning Zhao had doted on for years had gone from timid to haughty, mocking her to her face as a merchant's daughter who was unworthy of her soon-to-be-decorated brother. Her father-in-law watched coldly from the sidelines. Her second brother-in-law, still resentful that she had withheld his gambling money a few days earlier, spread rumors about her. He claimed she had neglected her in-laws for ten years, taken control of the household finances, and committed one of the seven grounds for divorce! Her third and fourth brothers-in-law were still young, yet they hurled filthy insults at her and told her to ask for a divorce herself. The woman her husband had brought back looked down at her. “I have no interest in this household business. If you're willing to lower yourself to a concubine, I don't mind letting you stay!” Her husband was even colder, his gaze stripped of the warmth he'd shown her ten years ago. “A Yue is a commandery princess, and she has compassionately treated our border soldiers for years. How could you ever compare to her?” Oh, a commandery princess? Ning Zhao was so furious she laughed. Never mind that she was of noble birth: even if she really were a merchant's daughter, she had done nothing to wrong him! She should ask for a divorce herself? Be forced to become a concubine? Ning Zhao had repaid her debt. She was done being the marquis's wife. She wanted to see how this dilapidated marquis household would feed everyone on its pitiful stipend without her, the “merchant's daughter”! But just after the divorce, she ran into that damned eunuch, who once again stepped in front of her to protect her.