Marrying a Rough County Magistrate

[Contemporary slice-of-life sweet romance, Door to Door, complete]

[Rugged man and noble lady / marriage before love / daily life / sweet romance / occasional angst / career arc later on / from a poor county magistrate and a disgraced minister's daughter to the founding emperor and empress]

One night, everything changed. Shen Jingmo, the most beautiful woman in the capital, was about to go from being the daughter of a fourth-rank official to a prisoner.

The only way out before her was to marry at once.

Before the whole family was thrown into prison, Shen's mother begged everyone she could think of for help. But the young man who had grown up with Shen Jingmo, her childhood sweetheart and true love, did not show his face even once after the Shen family fell into ruin.

This peerless beauty was about to meet a tragic end.

In her desperation, Shen's mother suddenly remembered that seventeen years ago, in a poor backwater a thousand miles away, one family had made a verbal marriage agreement with the Shens.

So on the day the Shen family was imprisoned, Shen Jingmo's mother bundled her into a carriage and sent her to find the fiance she had never met.

*

Shen Jingmo had never imagined that her husband would be an uncultured, unkempt, rugged county magistrate whose only ambition in life was to have a wife and children and a warm bed.

On their wedding night, Shen Jingmo made a gentleman's agreement with him. She could not yet let go of her childhood sweetheart, and he loved someone else. They would only have to pretend to be a loving couple for three years, then part amicably and go their separate ways.

But she never imagined that this man, who had never in his life left the mountains, would climb from a poor county magistrate to the throne, all for her. He would clear her family's name and place the entire realm at her feet.

*

Chen Junqian, magistrate of Yongning County, never imagined that his childhood fiancee would be the woman he had pined for every day.

To marry the woman he loved, he renovated the courtyard, caught fish in the river, stole fruit and hunted birds. He tried every trick he could think of to make her happy.

Unfortunately, he loved her, but she did not love him. No matter how hard he tried, she still preferred that fair, refined young gentleman.

But it was all right. He would wait.

He would wait until he had led her out of the mountains, until her childhood sweetheart bowed before him, until he brought her family back to the capital from their exile in the north, until he placed the phoenix seal of the empress in her hands...

He would wait until she fell in love with him.

[Little scene:

There were rumors in the palace that after ascending the throne, His Majesty spent night after night in the empress's chambers. A month later, Her Majesty finally threw him out.

His Majesty flew into a rage and slammed the door of the imperial study, his face dark with anger. The palace servants were all too frightened to speak, and no one dared go in to disturb him.

In the dead of night, after Chen Junqian had worked himself to the bone and reviewed eighty memorials in the imperial study, he finally tossed aside his brush and happily slipped into the empress's chambers, sneaking into her bed.

"You told me to review sixty memorials. I reviewed eighty. Ten at a time, no credit."]

* Updated daily. Anti-piracy setting: 70%, 240 hours. The author loves callbacks, so skipping chapters is not recommended.

* They will not sleep together until their feelings have developed. If you want a marriage-before-love story with explicit scenes, this one isn't for you.

* Entirely fictional setting. Official ranks were drawn by lot, so please don't scrutinize them. Don't jump to conclusions about the plot, since it's still ongoing and anything could be turned on its head before it ends. If you think there's a plot hole, look for the answer in later chapters. Please stop asking why the county magistrate can't read when Chapter 26 already explains it!

* None of the characters are based on real people. Some events draw on historical sources because the author has limited intelligence. If a later plot point seems "ridiculous," "wild," or makes you think "he's practically Superman," chances are it really happened in history.

* Marriage before love, with a difference in status. The male lead is a little rough around the edges, the female lead a little pampered. They both grow, and there's a seven-year age gap.

* The female lead seems like a delicate flower, but she's secretly a master of all sorts of skills (exaggeration).

* The male lead seems like a rugged man, but actually has maxed-out initiative and emotional intelligence. He's a clingy fanatic who collects standees, cards, and badges of his wife (no exaggeration).

* Yes, the male lead will become emperor.

* The female lead and her childhood sweetheart had feelings for each other. The male lead's beloved is the female lead. Don't read if that bothers you.

* Romance + daily life + career, long-form.

* I just couldn't write the original planned story. Even after scrapping a 130,000-word opening, I still couldn't get it down, so I had to switch to another story. Sorry.

Upcoming: My Widowed Sister-in-Law and I:

[Sister-in-law romance / written to suit my tastes / completely unrestrained / buckle up]

Cui Fuwei was once the most envied noblewoman in all of Dayue, and is now the woman the emperor hates most.

She was once his fiancee, but abandoned him after he was wounded in battle, then shamelessly climbed into his elder brother's bed.

When he barely managed to survive and returned to the capital, all he saw was her wedding procession, stretching for ten miles, as she smiled radiantly on her way to marry the crown prince.

From then on, she became his imperial sister-in-law.

*

On the way to her wedding, a breeze lifted the sedan curtain. Cui Fuwei glanced outside and immediately spotted the man she thought she would never see again: her former fiance, the second prince, Fu Junhui.

Blood soaked the cloth wrapped around his wound, as vivid as her wedding dress. Yet the look he gave her was cold and desperate, as if steeped in poison.

He stopped Cui Fuwei's sedan. After a long while, he said coldly, "Congratulations, imperial sister-in-law."

*

But that very night, he pinned her before the crown prince's spirit tablet and took her without restraint.

What imperial sister-in-law?

She was always meant to be his woman!

Upcoming: She Said Her Love for Me Was an Act:

On the night of Prince Yan Qing of Jin's eighteenth birthday banquet, someone cursed him with a parasitic spell. If it was not lifted before he came of age, he would die after enduring unbearable torment.

There were two ways to remove the curse.

One: Find the person who cast it and remove the parasite.

Two: Within three months, unite yin and yang with the person he loved, once every other day. After two years, the parasite would die on its own.

But the sorcerer who cursed Prince Jin had already been executed on the spot, and Prince Jin had always kept himself pure, with no woman serving him in his chambers.

The empress had no choice but to send someone to find him a woman.

She had to be carefully chosen: not of prominent birth, not ugly, but also not too beautiful or scheming.

Ideally, she would be a clever, sensible, healthy, decent-looking commoner.

They would bring her into the prince's estate and find a way to make Prince Jin fall in love with her. Once his curse was lifted two years later, they would give her a thousand taels of gold and send her far away.

By coincidence, Song He was just such a woman.

*

Song He, a laundry maid with no parents, had one great dream in life: to get rich overnight, own a country estate and farmland, and find herself a live-in husband.

But laundry paid too slowly.

So when someone approached her and offered her a fortune to serve Prince Jin, who was said to shun women, for two years, she jumped at the chance. After two years, she would be free, with a hundred taels of gold. She could buy as many estates, fields, and men as she wanted!

Song He: This is actually a thing?

Song He: I'm in!

*

The day Prince Jin's curse was lifted, Song He got what she wanted and left the prince's estate that very night with her banknotes in hand.

She didn't want to serve that bastard for another day!

When they recruited her, the matron said Prince Jin was in poor health and needed her devoted care.

But as she rubbed her waist, now a whole size smaller, she felt someone else was the one who needed nourishment.

Never mind. She'd consider the hundred taels of gold compensation for nursing herself back to health.

Song He happily used her gold to buy an estate and farmland, then bought herself a mute with a fantastic physique to be her live-in husband.

He was clumsy at work and had scars on his face that he had to hide behind a mask, but his service was excellent.

Song He contentedly ran her hand over his sweat-slick chest and sincerely praised him: "You're so much better than that brute of a prince."

The mute suddenly leaned close to her ear. "That means I've improved quite a bit."

Song He: ?!

Upcoming: My Husband Was Pursued by a Reborn Woman. Synopsis:

Everyone in Dayue knows that Luo Jinghang loves me, loves me so much he can't bear to be away from me for even a moment.

When we were young, all the noble young masters preferred talented and beautiful ladies. He alone spent every day following me around.

I loved to sleep in and often missed breakfast, so he would keep my favorite baked buns warm against his chest until I got up. Then, grinning foolishly, he would hand me the steaming buns, even though the heat had left his chest bright red.

I was afraid of mosquitoes, so he sewed me a mosquito-repellent sachet with his own hands. And when I accidentally fell asleep outside, he would carefully fan the mosquitoes away for me.

Everyone knew he loved me. I knew it too.

So on the day I came of age, I couldn't wait to marry him.

From then on, he became the fan I gently waved on summer nights, and the warm chest I nestled my feet against in winter.

Even when he went to war in the north, he took me with him.

For the next three years, blinding snowstorms swept across the frontier, but he kept me safe and comfortable day and night.

Yet that very man, who had promised me a lifetime together, fell in love with someone else the year he returned victorious to the capital.

She knew his past and his future, and understood his joys and sorrows.

She seemed able to predict his every move, every frown and smile.

The capital's officialdom was full of hidden dangers, yet time and again she saw what was coming and helped him rise through the ranks until he held the highest position in court.

At last, on a winter night, Luo Jinghang told me he didn't want to force her to be his mistress.

So the next day, while he was away receiving her at the residence, I wrote a divorce agreement I had thought I would never write in this life.

From now on, the mountains and rivers would lie between us. We would never meet again.

He loved me without reservation when his heart was at its most sincere.

As for the rest of his life, whoever he chose to love

would have nothing to do with me.

*

On a later snowy night, the world-famous general Luo Jinghang suddenly woke from a dream.

There was no one beside him.

He seemed to have dreamed again of the woman he had wanted to spend his life with.

But they had gone their separate ways long, long ago.

Upcoming: The Grand Princess's Eternal Reign. Synopsis:

"You want me to return power to him, but how do you know I am not the one chosen by fate?"

At first, Shen Chongning thought she would serve as regent princess for only a few years. Once the young emperor came of age, she would hand power back to him.

But after traveling across mountains and rivers, subduing the wolf king, reclaiming lost territory, reforming the bureaucracy, and bringing the flood under control, she restored peace and prosperity to a Dayue on the brink of collapse with her own hands...

She suddenly no longer wanted to give up the throne.

She was the late emperor's eldest daughter, with exceptional intelligence and ability. Was she barred from wielding imperial power and ruling the realm just because she was a woman?

No!

She would not only become Dayue's first empress, but its greatest ruler!

She would make the name Shen Chongning shine through the annals of history and endure for all eternity!

* I'll reward myself with a sweet story after writing an angsty one, and an angsty story after writing a sweet one. I'll keep alternating between sweet and angsty.

* For more upcoming stories, visit my author page! Please add them to your reading list!

Theme: There is always a way forward.