Reborn in a Time of Splendid Beauty

In her previous life, Yuan Pan'er, reborn under the name Xia Wanqing, was the legitimate daughter of the Yuan family of the capital. After her mother died young, her stepmother and younger half-sister smothered her with false affection, leaving her timid and naive. She followed her family's arrangements and married into the respectable-looking Chen family, whose patriarch was a Hanlin scholar, believing she had found a good husband. Little did she know that her husband, Chen Wenyuan, the villain, loved someone else and married her only for the support of the Yuan family and her dowry. After their marriage, she dutifully served her cruel in-laws, treated her difficult sister-in-law kindly, and even volunteered to take in her husband's beloved cousin as a concubine. In return, she received only her husband's indifference, her in-laws' exploitation, and the concubine's schemes. In the end, someone tampered with things while she was giving birth, and both she and her child died, full of resentment.

After her soul returned to the underworld, she unexpectedly was reborn at the age of thirteen, on the eve of the Chen family coming to propose marriage. This time, she would no longer be the Yuan Pan'er everyone could manipulate. She took the initiative to expose to her father her stepmother's abuse and plot to ruin her reputation. With the advantage of knowing what was to come, she averted the crisis and secured a new identity and name for herself: Xia Wanqing. She was to be raised under her grandmother's care as a distant relative, giving her a brief chance to catch her breath. At the crossroads of fate, Xia Wanqing made a decision that shocked everyone: she would still marry into the Chen family. (A difficult choice: escape her fate and gain freedom, or return to the tiger's den and take control of her destiny?) But this time, her goal was entirely different. She knew full well that (the stakes of fate) if she refused to marry, her stepmother and half-sister would persecute her and her younger brother even more viciously. With her family's reputation in tatters, it would be even harder for her to find a suitable match, and she might even be married off to anyone at their whim...