Female Lead: Lin Er, a young woman of marriageable age, lives at home awaiting a match. Her father is a prominent merchant in Linzhou City, and the Lin family has been in business for generations. Now, in her father's generation, he wants to change the family's fortunes.
Because the court bars the children of merchants from taking the civil service examinations, her father even had his legitimate son adopted by a distant cousin from their clan, dead for many years and beyond the fifth degree of kinship, just so the boy could sit the exams.
He also promised his eldest legitimate daughter to a middle-aged successful candidate in the provincial examinations as his second wife, providing her with both farmland and a shop. Even so, her life after marriage was miserable. She had to use her dowry to support her stepchildren and her husband's concubine.
Lin Er had seen her own mother grovel before her stepmother and constantly abase herself. She swore that in this life, she would rather be the wife of a poor scholar than a concubine in a noble household!
When she suddenly heard that her father meant to give her to the county magistrate as a concubine, her blood rushed to her head and she collapsed!
When she opened her eyes again, she had arrived in a new world. Here, she had both a father and a mother. To her delight and dismay, she also had natural, unbound feet. She was glad that her large feet helped her stand firmly, but worried that no one would marry a woman with such big feet!
Male Lead: He is Lu Yi, a peerlessly handsome young nobleman from the capital, as well as a distinguished fourth-rank Vice Commissioner of the Embroidered Uniform Guard. Yet he wakes up as a sent-down youth.
Apart from having the same face, he has no other redeeming qualities. Worse, the original owner used his looks to flirt with everyone. Thinking of this, Lu Yi can only sit at his desk and rub his brow. He, Lu Yi, had once been filled with righteous virtue and regarded the capital's countless young ladies as monsters. And this original owner would make a move on even a few village girls. How embarrassing!
Theme: Strive hard and keep pushing forward through your own efforts.
