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Blurb:
Xue Lianpei dies unexpectedly in the modern world and transmigrates into the body of a seven-year-old girl.
Fortunately, she meets Jiang Qing, another transmigrator. In this backward, feudal era, the two of them stick together and comfort each other.
Jiang Qing always smiles brightly and says she wants to follow the transmigration novels she's read, make a fortune here, and carve out a place for herself.
Xue Lianpei is reserved by nature. She smiles and stays by Jiang Qing's side, and even her heart, once dead as ashes, gradually begins to hope for something more.
But then a fire destroys everything.
When Jiang Qing is eleven, she is branded a demon and burned alive for her shocking, bizarre behavior, so unlike the original owner of her body.
*
From then on, Xue Lianpei buries her true nature and slowly adapts to the times, year after year.
She is virtuous, gentle, obedient, and famous as a beauty throughout the surrounding villages. At sixteen, her parents arrange her marriage to a poor scholar.
The scholar is handsome and gentle, and the couple are deeply devoted after their wedding. Xue Lianpei is grateful more than once for her good fortune, having found such a perfect husband in an arranged marriage.
Just as she gives him her whole heart, she is struck by a cruel blow: her husband wants to offer her to an Embroidered Uniform Guard who has come on official business, in exchange for a recommendation and promotion.
She swallows her tears and hatred, pretends to play along, gets a divorce agreement, and leaves without looking back under cover of night.
*
In the end, Xue Lianpei still can't get away.
She is bound and dragged into a mansion, then shoved to the ground.
She looks up in terror. A young man lounges on a soft couch, his robes loose and a string of white bone beads rolling between his fingers.
He looks at her too, his gloomy, wicked eyes narrowing as a malicious smile appears. "He'd already promised you to me before you got that divorce agreement. Didn't you know?"
*
Yin Yu is born to a powerful, noble family. He has had the finest clothes and food since childhood, and everything he could wish for has always been within reach.
Only after meeting Xue Lianpei does he learn that love cannot be bought with gold and jade or seized through power. No matter how great one's means, in the end, love cannot be forced.
[A transmigrator who seems meek and compliant but is tough to the core x a naturally vicious, ruthless nobleman]
Reader's guide:
1. One-on-one romance, female lead is not a virgin; male lead is a virgin. Happy ending. Alternate-history setting, with official and local systems modeled on the Han dynasty. Everyday customs are an approximate blend, so please don't scrutinize the details.
2. Coercive romance and overwhelming melodrama, with a touch of darkness. Both the female and male leads suffer. Please proceed with caution if this isn't your thing.
3. The male lead is ruthless. The female lead isn't truly meek or honest, and she is vengeful.
4. The female lead is no longer legally married to her former husband when she and the male lead sleep together.
5. Please don't offer writing advice. There's no need to tell me if you're dropping the story.
6. Comments that are unfriendly or disrupt other readers will be deleted. Other deletions are the work of bots or moderators and have nothing to do with me.
The original inspiration dates back to February 5, 2026, and has been documented.
Theme: Bamboo bows beneath the weight of the sea, then rises again; the wind shrouds the mountain, then light returns.
