A Poor Scholar's Comeback: My Wife Is Truly Wonderful

Lin Wei, an anesthesiologist, is born into this world as Su Wan, the concubine-born daughter of a wealthy merchant. She spends fourteen carefree years as a sheltered young lady, until her father mentions the man she is to marry, a poor scholar named Chen Yan. She is struck as if by lightning: isn’t he the man from The Poor Scholar’s Chief Minister, the male-oriented novel she used to complain about before bed? The short-lived first wife who dies young?

In the original story, “Su Wan” is frail and unlucky. She dies in childbirth before the male lead passes the imperial examinations, a speck of dust used to set off the glorious love story of a later generation. And in Lin Wei’s memories, Chen Yan’s younger brother’s childhood nickname, A Niu, matches the details of the book she complained about perfectly.

The engagement is settled, and there is no changing it. Gritting her teeth, she marries into the impoverished Chen family, only to discover that her “reborn” husband, who should be quiet and gloomy, with his mind set on studying, looks at her in a way that seems deeply off. He seems to be scrutinizing her, wondering why the wife who died young of illness in his previous life not only knows medicine, but can casually point out that the little jars of pickles his mother makes could sell out at the market in town, and even...

Lin Wan only wants to quietly improve their lives, stay healthy, and keep herself alive. If necessary, she’ll “step aside.” But after she deftly saves his young brother from drowning and uses strange symbols to work out the household accounts, the guilt he once felt over her, a wife he had mourned in his previous life, gradually ripens into intense curiosity and possessiveness. One night, when he runs his fingertips over the strange simplified-character notes beside her medical texts and asks with a low laugh, “Wan’er, who exactly are you?” the two people carrying scripts finally find themselves in the same story.