[Dear readers, please add this to your reading list! My keyboard is smoking, and I won't let you down!]
Yu Fanjing was a well-born young lady of note in Yanjing. She had grown up with the third son of the Cheng family, a prominent family of officials, and they were betrothed.
But the third son of the Cheng family was short-lived. He painfully broke off the engagement and set her free.
On the day the engagement was broken, suitors nearly broke down the Yu family's gates.
After much careful consideration, she married Lu Guansu, a grand academician at the Literary and Historical Institute and a close aide to the emperor, as well as the third son of the Lu family, the Marquis of Zhangyi.
Only after their wedding did Yu Fanjing discover that her husband was sick!
Sometimes his face turned red as blood, sometimes it went black as Bao Gong's, and every so often he'd say something improper, leaving her thoughts in the gutter.
She reported the matter to her mother-in-law, who took her hand with tearful eyes and said, "Your willingness to marry this rascal of mine is a blessing our Lu family earned in a past life. As for the rest, you'll get used to it in time."
Yu Fanjing felt she had walked right into a wolf's den.
*
One night, Lu Guansu was drunk and cornered her. His warm, wine-scented breath brushed her nose as he murmured, "Call me Third Young Master."
Yu Fanjing played along. "Third Young Master."
Lu Guansu frowned, deeply dissatisfied. "That was so flat and dull. It sounded awful."
Yu Fanjing was speechless. "What do you want, then?"
Lu Guansu stared at her, thinking that if it were the third son of the Cheng family, her voice would surely be soft and sweet, full of affection when she called him that. But when it came to him, she sounded so impatient.
In a fit of anger, he left his wife behind and went back to his study alone, then sent someone to tell Yu Fanjing to reflect on herself.
In the middle of the night...
Yu Fanjing was sleeping soundly.
Lu Guansu tossed and turned on the bed, his thoughts in turmoil. They'd broken off the engagement, so she clearly hadn't loved him. Childhood sweethearts, indeed. She'd turned around and married someone else. Why hadn't she married the third son of the Zhang family or the third son of the Li family? Why marry him, unless she had feelings for him?
In high spirits once more, the man went back to her and fell asleep happily with his wife in his arms.
Reading guide:
1. A gentle, well-bred young lady who appears reserved and proper but is uninhibited within × A refined, competitive, sharp-tongued heir from a prominent family who fights to get what he wants
2. Both are each other's one and only; married-life romance
3. The historical setting is not intended to be rigorously accurate.
Theme: If you love someone, say it out loud.
So vicious. Why are you doing this? The heroine has no grudge against her. Maybe her husband's family found out what she did before divorcing her. Otherwise, she is usually not a widow. It does not rule out that her husband's family is pure evil. But it is really vicious. Her biological daughter, if she doesn't marry another, she will only have this daughter in her life. Just to frame the heroine. I don't understand.