In her previous life, Su Mian used her dowry to pave the road for a scumbag to rise to the top. In return, she got a divorce decree, her entire family was exiled, and her younger brother died defending the frontier.
Reborn at sixteen, she finds the scumbag has just passed the palace exam and placed third. He puts on a tender expression and says, "Mian'er, wait for me to marry you."
Su Mian promptly tosses him a ledger. "Pay me back first. Principal and interest: thirty-eight thousand taels."
Everyone laughs at her for being crazy. What could a discarded widow possibly do out in the bitterly cold frontier?
She opens a steamed-bun shop, builds a sled team, and sets up a cold-chain logistics business. She drives an enemy princess's cosmetics shop into bankruptcy and gets provisions to a million-strong army half a month ahead of schedule.
When the court orders her back to the capital to give an account, she neither pleads poverty nor complains. Instead, she produces an entire chest of ledgers and starts collecting her debts on the spot. "My lords, frontier special bonds are available. Subscribe now while you can."
The court officials grind their teeth in frustration, but they can't touch her, because the man behind her, lounging in a wheelchair and lazily shelling peanuts, is Marquis Huo Ci of Zhenbei.
The whole capital is betting on this: who will bring the other down first, the good-for-nothing marquis or the mercenary widow?
Until enemy forces invade, and Huo Ci rises from his wheelchair, knocks the enemy's command flag away with a single spear thrust, then turns to her with a smile. "Wife, leave the front line to me. You handle the money."
In this life, I won't rely on men or tears. I'll rely on a contract and a whole tray of counting beads.
No matter how heavily the snow falls at the frontier, it can't freeze a reborn heart determined to make money.
