After Becoming His Substitute Bride, I Toyed with the Cold and Aloof Minister, Until He Lost Control

【Substitute Bride and Groom + Marriage Before Love + He Chases His Wife Later + The Whole Family Chases Her + Feel-Good Revenge + Wicked Woman Rises to Power】 Su Shuangqing lost her mother when she was young and endured constant bullying from others at the marquis’s estate. She never fought back or competed for anything, asking only that she and her little brother grow up in peace. Who could have guessed that an imperial edict would force her to marry in her younger sister’s place, because her sister refused to wed into the rough-and-tumble family of a military general? Only on her wedding day did she learn that the Pei family, having heard that she was hideously ugly and ill-mannered, had also decided on a substitute bride. Her groom was the ailing eldest son of the Pei family, who was not long for this world. Pei Xuanli was twenty-six and had never planned to marry or have children. Being forced to take a wife was the last thing he wanted. A sickly man born into a military family was useless. On their wedding day, he knew the woman before him was fake and scheming, and he disliked her even more for it. The Duke of Zhenguo’s household was a den of vipers, rife with endless infighting. Her mother-in-law and aunts-in-law made things difficult for her, and her sisters-in-law set traps, yet Su Shuangqing always handled it all with ease. She even personally tended to his every need, and fell deeply in love with him, making him feel ashamed of himself. But one day, by chance, he saw a letter she had written to her little brother: “Young Master Pei won’t live much longer. Once the flowers bloom along the road, your elder sister can marry a good man again.” Only then did Pei Xuanli realize she had been pretending all along. He was so furious that he could no longer keep up the act. “Thanks to my wife’s thoughtful care, my health has greatly improved. It seems you won’t be able to marry again after all.” From that day on, Pei Xuanli would ask her in a sinister tone every night: “Why do you want to marry again, madam? Have you been keeping a lover behind my back?” The road to winning his wife back was long, but Pei Xuanli fought for her every step of the way and never gave up. Before long, everyone knew that the new dynasty’s powerful Pei family had a virtuous wife at home, a jealous and fierce woman whom Pei Xuanli feared. Su Shuangqing looked at the man who had deliberately ruined her reputation and sent him off to the study. “Jealous husband, give me back my good name!”