After Becoming a Substitute Bride, I Used an Abacus to Blow Up the Capital

Shen Zhizhu, the adopted daughter of a merchant, was the least valued “money-loser” in the wealthy Shen family of the capital. When the legitimate daughter refused to marry a disfigured, disabled prince dismissed as a good-for-nothing, Shen Zhizhu was set up by her stepmother and her white-lotus stepsister and sent to take her place. On their wedding night, she discovered that Xiao Linyuan, the crippled prince everyone thought they could bully, was in fact a revenge-seeker wielding enormous power from the shadows. With the Shen family closing in and enemies watching from every corner of the prince’s residence, Shen Zhizhu drew on the extraordinary business acumen she had honed at the abacus and her meticulous scheming to launch her counterattack, wielding account books like blades and playing people like pieces on a board. First, she overhauled the household and turned its losses into profits. Then she secretly opened shops and built a business empire of her own, crushing underfoot everyone who had once bullied her. Along the way, she and her “crippled prince” husband went from wary allies who used one another to the only confidants willing to entrust their lives to each other. In the end, she used her wealth to set the capital in turmoil and helped her husband purge corrupt officials from the court. She not only won herself a life of glory, but also became a legendary businesswoman famous throughout the realm.