How Bewitching She Is

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A sincere, down-to-earth heroine who gets things done x a gentle but ruthless young man

[Blurb]

Wen Yushu was beautiful, but people didn't like her.

Her mother had once been a Yangzhou singing girl, later sent to the Wen family as a concubine. She lived timidly and meekly until she died of illness. With a mother like that, her daughter had been raised without much backbone and was nothing like a respectable girl. No proper family would ever want her.

Qiao Yuan, the nephew of the matriarch's family, was a remarkable talent. He passed the provincial examination at fifteen and came first in the metropolitan examination at eighteen.

So when Qiao Yuan took one look at Wen Yushu's face and liked what he saw, the Wen family handed her over without a second thought.

Qiao Yuan looked down on her background and temperament, too, but she was just right as a bedchamber attendant.

Wen Yushu did her job well. She never got jealous or tried to take the position of principal wife.

Seeing this, the Qiao family condescendingly praised her as "a sensible girl" and promised that when a new bride entered the household a few years later, they would allow her to have a child of her own.

But they forgot: yes, she was meek, and yes, she was soft-spoken.

So when the emperor's seventh son, Prince Xiang, deigned to visit the Qiao family that year, fell for Wen Yushu at first sight, and swore to take what he wanted, she gladly went along with him and ran away.

From then on, she became the lifelong torment of the legitimate son of the Qiao family.

Wen Yushu's mother had lived a hard life. Before she died, she told her:

"Don't try to be strong. Don't stand out. Just stay alive. If you can live well, then fight with everything you've got to keep living. Why should people born into good families get to live, while we don't?"

Wen Yushu took those words to heart and never forgot them.

So when the matriarch's distant nephew loved only her face, she wasn't heartbroken.

So when Prince Xiang later brought her into his household and made her face countless wives and concubines every day, she didn't feel troubled.

She was weak, but she wasn't stupid. She didn't want love, only favor. Whoever treated her badly, wherever there was a higher mountain, she would run there.

Later, someone else told her, "I'm younger than my royal uncle, the legitimate son of the Eastern Palace, and loved by my imperial grandfather. Will you marry me?"

He became the highest mountain she had ever seen.

She gladly said yes.

Mother, look. I'll do my best to live, and I'll live well.

*Both former husbands will get their comeuppance. The heroine doesn't care much about them; she only cares about living well.

*The limits of the era mean not everyone can be strong. The meek have their own ways of winning.

Plot idea recorded in 2024

Theme: Even within the limits of one's time, everyone should live a life of their own making.