The Concubine's Daughter Rises to the Clouds

(Completed. An old-school story of household intrigue and family life, with a slow-burn, everyday feel. Ming Dynasty setting.) She transmigrates to the Ming Dynasty and becomes an unloved concubine-born daughter. Gu Yizhao clenches her fist: Keep your head down and quietly build yourself up. We can win! First, she takes her mother out of their cramped courtyard and moves her into a grand residence. Then she uses her wits to win the favor of her legitimate mother and helps manage the household. She even opens shops outside the home: buying dried bamboo shoots in the countryside and selling them in the city, selling Jiangnan's Suzhou embroidery and silk fans to merchants from the north, sorting through flawed blue-and-white porcelain pieces destined for overseas trade and selling them cheaply at retail, and collecting the essays and policy papers of talented students to sell to academies... She does whatever makes money. Before long, she is living a leisurely life in the inner quarters: Today she takes her sisters to enjoy chilled melons and plums in a waterside pavilion. Tomorrow she checks the accounts at her own shops. In her free time, she takes her maids to catch river shrimp and fry them. Life is blissfully carefree. The first time Xiao Chen sees Gu Yizhao, she is just a little concubine-born girl. A few years later, she is already enjoying flowers in a famous garden, living a life of ease. Xiao Chen decides this little concubine-born girl must be quite capable. Later, when she can't find a suitable marriage match, Xiao Chen asks,