The Real Heiress Gets Rich by Raising the Chief Advisor, Reborn

[A super-strong, carefree female butcher who slaughters pigs x A sickly, scheming, devoted chief councilor she picked up]

^ ^ Does this look familiar? I wrote it in 2022. The other book is The Female General. Do the two books' openings, with a broken engagement followed by picking someone up, look familiar too?

Thank you for combining the plots of my two books and painstakingly revising the story. I'm grateful for your admiration and approval.

I'm off to work in real life, not dead.]

Yunniang grew up poor, and her lifelong wish was to eat well and live in comfort.

In her previous life, she learned that she was the daughter of the Lu family of Bianjing. She thought her hard days were finally over and that a life of endless riches and honor awaited her. But once she arrived in the capital, the Lu family doted on the fake daughter, who had already been promised a good marriage, while despising Yunniang as crude and uncouth. In the end, they locked her in the back courtyard and left her to die of illness in the dead of winter.

Reborn, Yunniang sees the people who came to find her again and rolls her eyes. Whoever wants to claim this family can do it themselves.

She turns around and picks up a frail young man lying in the snow by the doorway.

To her surprise, he's none other than the young chief councilor who will one day hold power over the entire court and wield ruthless methods.

So, this winter, Yunniang comes up with a new idea.

She plans to sweet-talk the down-on-his-luck Gu Yan into marrying her.

Once he comes top in the imperial exams and regains his status, he'll surely look down on a crude, impoverished wife like her. Then she can divorce him and get a big payout. She'll be rich!

With that in mind, Yunniang starts keeping a daily ledger of the cost of raising her husband.

Tuition and three strips of cured meat: one hundred cash. Kneeling in the snow at night to beg for a chance to study: one hundred cash.

Getting a doctor when he falls ill, going out in the rain to gather herbs: fifty cash.

Travel expenses for the exams, working hard in the capital to support the household: one hundred and thirty cash.

On the day the results are posted, Gu Yan regains his status and takes his place in the Fengge Council.

Yunniang slaps the ledger down in front of him and demands a divorce.

But Gu Yan, dressed in a purple court robe and sitting with one leg crossed over the other, reads it and simply smiles, raising an eyebrow.

"Wife, I don't think your calculations are quite right."

Yunniang hears this, puts her hands on her hips, and glares at him.

"Gu Yan, you're chief councilor now. Are you still trying to dodge your debts?!"

Gu Yan pulls her onto his lap, rests his chin on her shoulder, and says with a perfectly serious expression,

"I mean, I'm afraid I can't repay you. Why don't I pay you back another way?"

Yunniang looks puzzled. "How?"

His peach-blossom eyes smile at her.

"What about me?"

The Gu family falls from power overnight, and the entire household is convicted.

Who could have imagined that ten years later, Gu Yan would come first in all three imperial examinations, solve the Gu family's bloody case, and become chief councilor?

Everyone in the capital says the newly powerful Chief Councilor Gu has a crude, impoverished wife.

Many people wait for him to divorce her and remarry, hoping to send their own daughters his way.

But who could have guessed that Chief Councilor Gu wouldn't divorce his wife, and would even be henpecked?

A carriage passes through the eastern part of the city as passersby gossip.

"Did the chief councilor make his wife angry again? How many times has it happened this month?"

A frank, money-loving ray of sunshine x A sickly, scheming, devoted chief councilor

Theme: No matter how desperate the situation, bravely pursue love and keep fighting to the end.