After Being Reborn, I Swapped Out My Husband

[Updates at midnight] [Please add my upcoming novels, He Ying and The Teacher’s Wife, to your reading lists~~~] Tang Suqi was born into a high-ranking official’s family. At seventeen, she married a celebrated palace graduate in the capital. Rising from a commoner’s wife to a titled lady, she enjoyed boundless prestige. Sadly, years of overwork left her chronically ill. By forty, she was already old and worn down. In this life, she had wronged no one. The only person she owed was Li Chengan, who had grown up with her. She should have had no regrets. Yet as she lay dying, she heard her husband, Gu Zhichen, giving instructions to their son. He told their son, who was about to be sent to Suzhou, to take good care of Su Yun, a widow with an orphaned child, and bring them back to the capital when he was transferred. Su Yun was his childhood sweetheart of more than twenty years. She shouldn’t have heard those words. Perhaps Gu Zhichen thought she was about to die, so he didn’t bother to hold back in front of her. She remembered that many years ago, on the eve of her wedding, Li Chengan had climbed over the wall to find her and said, “Gu Zhichen is a villain in fine clothes. He has a childhood sweetheart, and he’s marrying you only because he covets Minister Tang’s influence. Don’t be foolish and let that scoundrel deceive you!” So those hadn’t been angry words. The belief that she had no regrets had been nothing but wishful thinking. Tang Suqi died in the twenty-third year of her marriage. When she woke again, she had returned to the day she first met Gu Zhichen. * Li Chengan was born into a marquis’s family of the highest rank. His maternal relatives were a distinguished scholarly clan in Huai’an. Handsome and elegant, he shone like a luminous pearl. He passed the imperial examinations at the age of twenty, placing second in the top tier. His future seemed as bright and open as the midday sun. Since childhood, he had loved Tang Suqi, the girl next door whose father was a vice minister. The two had grown up together. After three years of careful planning, he intended to seek her hand as soon as she came of age, bearing his academic honors as proof of his worth. But the person he cherished had already begun choosing a husband. She had never even considered him. First it was the young top graduate from Jishui, Jiangxi, then the palace graduate from Yuyao, Zhejiang… By the rules of propriety, he ought to have kept his feelings to himself and not interfered with her choice of husband. But at the thought of watching her marry another man in a splendid wedding dress, while he sat among the guests and forced a smile as her elder brother to send her off, his heart felt pierced, his sorrow cutting to the bone. He had never been her elder brother. Why couldn’t he be the one? *Reading Guide* 1. The blurb contains a misunderstanding trope, but the male lead is Li Chengan. 2. The romance has some emotional complications. It isn’t purely sweet; expect angst, mainly for the male characters, and some melodrama. 3. Several supporting male characters have feelings for the female lead. 4. All the characters have flaws. The Teacher’s Wife Xu Xianru was the daughter of a ninth-rank clerk in the Court of State Ceremonial. In Shuntian, a city teeming with nobles, her father was an insignificant low-ranking official. Her mother taught her from childhood to be cautious and keep her head down. Xu Xianru took those lessons to heart. After her mother died and her father remarried, bringing home a daughter two years younger than her, she became even more careful to keep a low profile. So when her father told her to become the second wife of Grand Secretary Zhou, she happily married him. She was respectful to her mother-in-law and treated her stepson, who was about her own age, with sincerity. Her mother-in-law and stepson, who had originally disliked her, began to warm to her. But her good fortune didn’t last. Grand Secretary Zhou died, and since she had no children, her mother-in-law drove her out. Her maternal uncle took her in. In the second month of her widowhood at his home, her aunt arranged a marriage for Xu Xianru. Her match was Zhou Zhanyan, a Court of Judicial Review vice minister from a distinguished clan. Though timid by nature, for the first time she said no. She had two secrets. First, that vice minister had been a student of her late husband, so marrying him would violate proper relations. Second, she had accidentally spent a night with her cousin, but he didn’t want to marry her. No matter how much she hinted, he pretended not to understand. Everyone said Zhou Zhanyan was gentle, modest, self-disciplined, and proper, with outstanding character and looks. He was the finest young nobleman in all of Shuntian. But she couldn’t accept. She was pregnant, and if she married him, she would be doomed. When she finally resolved to leave her uncle’s family behind and pack her things for her hometown in Suzhou, that highborn young noble intercepted her on the Grand Canal. The man, straight-backed as a bamboo stalk, walked through the bitter wind toward her, bent down, and laid his pale hand over her belly. His voice was clear and melodious. “Ru Niang, where are you going with my child?” He was clearly smiling, yet Xu Xianru was terrified. She thought he had gone mad. How did he know? And how could this child be his? Theme: Do what you want to do, and live without regrets.