After Being Forced to Marry an Ugly Husband

Pre-release: After I Was Forced to Marry a Memorial Tablet. The blurb is at the end.

Blurb:

A steady, insecure gong who sees through everything yet remains doting X A healing, mischievous shou who pretends to be delicate and sweet

The ugly blacksmith of Liu Xi Village had just taken a beautiful, delicate young husband.

The morning after their wedding, Qing Yan was sore all over and so fragile he could barely stand. He clung to the man, tenderly stroking the scarred half of his face with his soft, pale fingers.

Qiu Henian stiffened and turned away evasively. "Wipe your face first..."

Qing Yan leaned against him, his breath sweet as orchids. "I want my husband to wipe it for me."

His little husband was so innocent and sweet that Qiu Henian worried he would be bullied. He practically wished he could tuck him into his waistband and carry him everywhere.

That is, until one day, he hurried home early, eager to see his husband.

Qiu Henian heard his timid little husband, who was afraid to speak loudly and trembled at the sight of strangers, shouting at a neighbor over the fence.

"You must've done something awful in your past life to end up married to such a useless, ugly man!"

"Go to hell! Your man is the useless one! Mine can go seven rounds in one night. I'm so happy I could die!"

Crash! Qiu Henian tripped and slammed headfirst through the door.

Qing Yan turned around, looking guilty.

Qiu Henian strode over, scooped up his husband, and carried him into the house.

Qing Yan asked nervously, "What are you doing?"

Qiu Henian replied, "We're going back to our room for seven rounds. It's getting late, so we don't have much time."

Qing Yan: "..."

When Qing Yan transmigrated, he was lying in an unfamiliar bed.

In the darkness, a man's hot breath brushed his face. Rough fingers rested on the buttons at his collar, and the man's low, husky voice asked one final time, "Your father said you agreed. Is that true?"

Qing Yan's breathing quickened. Heat coursed through his body, and his mind raced through the brief, tragic future of the body's original owner.

On the night before the original owner was due to travel for the prefectural examination, his wicked stepmother drugged him and sent him to the bed of a poor blacksmith as ugly as a demon. He had no choice but to marry the man. Though the blacksmith was blameless, the original owner could never accept what had happened. He turned a blind eye to his husband's tenderness and care, and even repaid his kindness with treachery, falsely accusing him to climb the social ladder. The blacksmith knew his husband had plotted against him, but still silently went to the executioner's block as his husband wished. The original owner himself enjoyed no glory for long and met a terrible end.

Qing Yan, whose heart had been shattered after being cheated out of love and money in the modern world, felt tears sting his eyes. He thought, "If you don't love him, I will. If you don't cherish him, let me cherish him instead."

He struggled to lift his arms, wrapped them around the man's thick, rough neck in the darkness, and pulled him down. Pressing his lips close to the man's ear, he meekly replied, "Mm."

Reader notes:

1. The gong is ugly at first, but regains his normal appearance later on.

2. A slow-paced rural-life story about working, earning money, raising a family, and having children.

3. The shou transmigrates into the original owner's body and switches places with him, but the main story doesn't cover what happens to the original owner afterward.

4. Although the shou comes from the modern world, he's just an ordinary liberal arts student from a modern city and has no specialized knowledge beyond basic modern-day common sense.

5. The gong and shou are each other's only love, emotionally and physically.

After I Was Forced to Marry a Memorial Tablet, blurb:

Lian Dan's husband was dead. He had already died before Lian Dan married into the Chen family.

Lian Dan married a memorial tablet.

Lian Dan was forced to sleep every night clutching a cold memorial tablet. After a while, his warm body heated it through.

There was a temple at the eastern end of Longevity Village, famous for granting prayers for children.

The Chen family's matriarch wanted Lian Dan to bear her a grandson, so she sent him to stay at the monks' temple for a few days and pray for a child.

When Lian Dan went to burn incense at the temple, he overheard the head monk telling his mother-in-law that he could bring her dead husband's ghost back to sleep with her.

He was terrified and naturally didn't want to go.

But his mother-in-law beat him mercilessly, and appealing to his parents was no use.

With nowhere else to turn, Lian Dan had no choice but to go.

On the first night in the temple, in the pitch darkness, Lian Dan watched in terror as the locked door opened and a white figure floated toward him. The stench of blood and rot washed over him.

Lian Dan was so frightened that tears filled his eyes. His trembling lips parted, but no sound came out. He could only mouth the word, "Husband."

The white figure looked down at him for a while. Cold fingers, dry as bones, touched Lian Dan's vulnerable neck and pulled open his clothes...

Lian Dan gritted his teeth and endured that night.

A month later, Lian Dan really did become pregnant.

The Chen matriarch was overjoyed. She treated him especially well from then on, never beating or scolding him again, and even cooking him delicious food.

But Lian Dan wasn't happy at all. Instead, he was anxious and unsettled every day.

Only he knew that his husband had become an evil ghost.

That night, the temple had been full of bloody, severed limbs. It had been like hell.

The monks had been slaughtered like animals.

After giving birth to a plump baby boy, the Chen matriarch was overjoyed. While showing him off outside, she tripped over the threshold and fell, leaving her bedridden.

A doctor passing through the village came to examine her and prescribed some medicine.

Lian Dan asked when his mother-in-law would get better. The young doctor, handsome and refined but tall and powerfully built, stared at him with hawk-like eyes. When Lian Dan began to feel uneasy, the doctor's gaze shifted to the child in his arms. Fixing his eyes on the baby, he said slowly and coldly, "She won't get better."

The next day, the Chen matriarch's son, who had been dead, came back to life and returned home.

Notes:

1. This is not a supernatural story.

2. The romance is the main focus, with lots of rural life and a little martial-world adventure.

Theme: A good life is created through hard work.