After the Neighbor's Canary Took a Liking to Me

Sly, fiery-tempered, poor tofu seller ✕ ruthless, cold-hearted young lord from a noble family

One-on-one romance, both leads are each other’s first. Everyday life in the common streets. The female lead is not a player and has a moral baseline.

Yu Miao, the beautiful tofu seller on Pingyang Street in the western suburbs of the capital, is twenty years old and already considered a spinster by matchmakers. Yet she still has impossibly high standards. She wants to outwit poverty and marry a good man who can afford a three-courtyard residence.

There are plenty of men who can afford a three-courtyard residence, but finding a good one is hard.

So she secretly flirts with her childhood sweetheart, the scholar, while accepting the advances of the honest blacksmith across the street, and also finds herself drawn to the male lead.

At first, the neighborhood gossips say that Bai Hongzhou, a pampered songbird, is the plaything of a high-ranking official. Unaware of the truth, Yu Miao peeks over the wall out of curiosity and is scorned by Bai Hongzhou. Then Yu Miao gets caught up in the fire at Fahua Temple and is rescued by him, binding their fates together in an unbreakable bond.

Later, just as their feelings are growing, Yu Miao weighs the pros and cons and parts ways with Bai Hongzhou. She plans to stake her future on the scholar’s path to success.

After that, Bai Hongzhou uses a scheme to send the scholar back to his hometown, bringing the matchmaking to an abrupt end. Yu Miao considers the realities and decides to choose the scholar, but Bai Hongzhou sees right through her. Knowing she has no right to complain, Yu Miao plans to move away from the western suburbs.

Unexpectedly, determined to create every possible opportunity and pursue her with all he has, Bai Hongzhou clings to her until she willingly falls into the net he has woven.

Bai Hongzhou, the eldest son of the Minister of State, was born to his father’s beautiful concubine from the Western Regions. His mother died young, and his father never valued him. At seven, he was taken in by his master. At nineteen, he was brought back to the Bai family as a whetstone for its heir.

To earn a place in the family genealogy, Bai Hongzhou willingly became a pawn in his father’s schemes and settled in the western suburbs.

But next door lived a tofu seller who was fiery-tempered, capable, and fond of peeking over the wall. Yet whenever she was bullied, she would curl up on a chaise longue and cry. So, to stop her from climbing over the wall and twisting her ankle, he had it raised. To keep her from crying, he rescued her in a snowstorm. When floodwaters swept through Pingyang Street, he even helped fish her uncle out of the water. Bai Hongzhou believes that after all these bonds between them, she must like him, and she does not disappoint him.

But when her childhood sweetheart, the scholar, returns, all she can think about is him!

Bai Hongzhou uses every trick he can to send the scholar, who has passed the imperial exams, back home. He risks his life serving the Crown Prince, earning himself fame, fortune, and a grand bridal procession.

At last, on their wedding night, he can formally claim her as his, soothing the humiliation of having once been treated like a donkey.

Bonus scene:

Beneath the setting sun, Bai Hongzhou pins her firmly in a corner and makes her choose.

If she chooses Shi Zhuxi, he’ll kiss her. After several kisses, when she’s dizzy and confused, she has to choose between poverty and wealth. She chooses the male lead, who isn’t accepted by his family, and chooses poverty!

Theme: The right person is right by your side.