My Salted-Fish Musings Inspire Great Works, and My Husband's Family Spoils Me

The contrast in their identities: Her stepsister Wen Jiao schemed to steal the role of the commanding officer's wife, leaving the impoverished, disabled officer to Wen Zhan.

Wen Jiao thought she could rise above her station. Instead:

The first time she tried to assert herself at home... her stepson knocked her bowl away in front of everyone, and she suffered domestic abuse.

The second time she remarried... she married a senior cadre with a hidden illness and lived like a widow.

The third time she tried... folk remedies left her permanently disabled.

Meanwhile, Wen Zhan had been cast aside to fend for herself, and all she wanted was to coast through life.

She was simply too lazy to do the work herself, so she did the thinking instead.

She drew plans in her mind, and the whole army followed her lead in reforming. She devised medicine in her mind, and the plague receded throughout the disaster zone.

As Wen Jiao struggled through the mud with her broken body, she looked up and saw...

A medal-awarding motorcade of the highest rank!

The army's senior commanders lined up outside the Ji family's gate, begging Wen Zhan to take a look at their blueprints.

And the disabled officer she had once looked down on was now the commander of an entire military region, gently shelling peanuts for Wen Zhan.

Wen Jiao broke down sobbing. “No, really, she's just a country bumpkin who was sent as a substitute bride. Why are even the country's top officials fawning over her?!”

Wen Zhan shrugged helplessly. “I'd like to know too. Why is it so hard to just be a lazy fish?”

Ji Xu pulled her close and declared his claim: “The country belongs to the people, but Wen Zhan belongs only to me.”