Brave, resourceful, and gentle woman who protects him x a sweet-on-the-outside, dark-on-the-inside man who doesn't realize he's in love
Mai Peng never imagined a person could get a second chance at life twice.
The first time, she got incredibly lucky and was born as a baby in a world where women held power. She thought dying in battle on the frontier would be the end of her story, but when she opened her eyes again, she had returned to the year she turned eighteen.
In her previous life, to repay Third Miss Shen for recognizing her talent, she had sacrificed her future and begged to marry Shen Shaowei, the Shen family's eleventh son, whose family had been implicated in a rebellion. They became a bitterly mismatched couple, and she died at the border before she was thirty-five. Even by the time she died, she had risen no higher than a ninth-rank Benevolent and Brave Commandant.
Reborn, Mai Peng decided to live differently. She would free herself from her slave status, pass the military examination, and earn a noble title and military rank through her own abilities, riding all the way to Yanran.
As for Shen Shaowei, she decided to stay far away from him. They had been an ill-matched couple in her previous life. There was no need to get entangled again in this one.
If possible, she would find A Qiu early, the man who had silently protected her for ten years and died for love of her.
But she never expected that A Qiu was actually Wen Xuanying, the young master of the Wen family.
She had only meant to keep him safe, but before she knew it, her heart had already fallen for him.
Shen Shaowei never imagined he would get the chance to be reborn. In his previous life, his youthful arrogance and a villain's instigation had cost him the only child he had with his wife. Then, out of spite, he had missed his last chance to see her.
The day he escorted her coffin home, he discovered that the wretched A Qiu was in his wife's coffin too. Their bodies had burned together in the flames, impossible to tell apart, as if they were made for one another. Shen Shaowei had been so overcome that he vomited blood.
Heaven took pity on him and gave him a chance to make amends.
Full of hope, he stumbled to the door and pushed it open. Red silk filled the courtyard, and servants hurried about, congratulating Lady Mai and Lord Wen on their wedding.
Lady Mai and... Lord Wen?
In the blink of an eye, the person he had longed for stood right before him.
But a handsome young lord stood at her side.
Shen Shaowei's heart bled with jealousy!
That was his wife. The woman he had spitefully missed in his previous life. How could she be standing beside someone else in this one?
And why did that Lord Wen look so much like A Qiu?
Reader's Guide:
1. A matriarchal world where men can bear children.
2. One-on-one romance. The male lead is Wen Xuanying, and the second male lead gets the crematorium treatment.
Written on October 10, 2026, lightly revised on October 21, 2026, and screenshots saved.
Theme: Sincerity should never be taken for granted.
