After Breaking Off the Engagement to Her Stand-In, Lord Shaoqing Fell for Her

In her previous life, when she learned that her family was in the capital and that she had a mother, sisters, a grandmother, and a whole extended family, she was overjoyed.

But when she returned to the capital, she discovered that the reason they had been so eager to find her was to make her marry in place of her biological older sister.

Her elder sister, Kang Li, had secretly pledged herself to another man and refused to honor her betrothal, threatening to kill herself.

The Old Madam feared that anything might happen to her beloved granddaughter, so she made her take her sister’s place. The Old Madam couldn’t bear to part with her legitimate eldest granddaughter or give up the marriage alliance with the Cui family, so she wrung every last bit of value from the abandoned baby they had left behind as a child.

In her previous life, she had thought that at sixteen, she was old enough to marry, and that marrying into the Cui family would be a good match. The Cui family’s standing was even higher than the Kang family’s.

She had looked forward to a happy future, believing that if she worked hard, lived well, and gave her husband her true affection, they could live in harmony, devoted to one another.

But her ideas had been far too naive. The young master of the Cui family already had a childhood sweetheart of a cousin who kept him company with books and music.

After marrying into the Cui family, she learned that the young master could never love her. She then thought that she could live just fine without a man’s affection, and that her life would still be better than being all alone on Zhongli Mountain.

But she was still too optimistic. A young master of the Kang family schemed to sell her to the son of the Chancellor, all to buy himself a promising future.