After the First Wife Awakens in a Second-Wife Novel

Highlight: The heroine isn't a virgin; the second male lead takes the spotlight; more details to come; seven-year age gap.

When she was gravely ill, Ruan Rong'an dreamed of a storybook. Her husband was the male lead, her stepsister the female lead, and she was the arrogant, domineering first wife who had died young, mentioned only in passing while people praised the emperor and empress's loving relationship.

When she woke, she heard her ever-loving mother-in-law discussing with her husband how they would bring her stepsister into the household as his second wife after she died. Her usually cold husband was worried that rushing things might make her stepsister feel wronged.

Ruan Rong'an knew Song Suichen didn't love her. He had no choice but to marry her because of the marriage contract arranged when they were children. He resented her extravagance and love of pleasure, her clinginess and childishness, her ostentatious, spoiled behavior. He scolded her for being completely unfit to manage a marquis's household.

But she still remembered how patiently he had comforted her when they were children. So for years, she had kept her temper in check and been obedient and considerate. But she still couldn't compare to Ruan Rongrong's gentleness, good sense, and thoughtfulness.

Ruan Rong'an struggled to survive, then resolutely left after divorcing him.

*

Song Suichen had always thought he didn't love Ruan Rong'an. He liked peace and quiet, but she was boisterous. His heart was set on imperial ambitions, while she only cared about eating, drinking, and having fun. She couldn't help him make connections with the noblewomen, or share his worries.

But he had never imagined that one day she would leave him in a way that nearly destroyed them both.

The residence suddenly felt empty.

His heart seemed to empty along with it.

When he heard that Gongye Hao had proposed to Ruan Rong'an, he rushed there like a madman and watched helplessly as she smiled and threw herself into another man's arms.

He stumbled and fell from his horse, but the girl who used to worry and ask after him whenever he got the slightest bump didn't even look at him again.

*

Everyone said the powerful chancellor Gongye Hao was kind-faced but ruthless, and uninterested in women. No one knew he'd always loved a young girl. Sadly, she loved someone else, so he could only watch from afar.

Later, the young girl got divorced.

Coming soon: Little Lover

Shu Yizhen was literally angered to death.

At her bedside, her husband held his beloved concubine and spoke of their childhood friendship and deep affection. He told her how furious and unwilling he had been when he was forced to marry her, and how he had secretly switched the concubine's biological child with another baby, passing the child off as the son of a collateral branch and adopting him as her legitimate son.

The child she had raised with such care, who had passed the county-level civil service examination at a young age, called that concubine Mother with affectionate devotion right in front of her.

Her entire life had truly been a joke.

Fortunately, Heaven took pity on her, and Shu Yizhen returned to the year she had just married into the Song family.

Her newlywed husband stood before her, cold-faced, saying he had grown up with his cousin and wanted to take her as a concubine.

In her previous life, Shu Yizhen refused to agree. She held out until three years of marriage had passed without a child, but in the end, she still let Song Jianzhi have his way.

This time, she lowered her eyes and calmly agreed.

Shu Yizhen had countless ways to get revenge on the Song family. The most important thing was figuring out how to walk away cleanly.

After thinking it over, she turned her gaze to her husband's eldest son by a concubine, Song Yong, who was only five years younger than her.

He was the sole descendant of the late Crown Prince. Before long, the emperor would find him, grant him the name Yin Zhang, and shower him with boundless favor. He would become the imperial grandson and the future emperor of Great Qi.

-

Without realizing it, Song Jianzhi began paying attention to his wife.

Her hair was as dark as clouds, her skin as white as snow, and her face as beautiful as a flower. But she was not only beautiful: she was dignified, courteous, virtuous, and chaste. No matter how much he doted on his cousin, she never got jealous and always took care of every household matter.

Perhaps spending the rest of his life with her wouldn't be so bad.

Just as Song Jianzhi was thinking this, everything changed overnight. The Song family was confiscated and fell into ruin.

His son by a concubine became an imperial grandson and obtained an imperial decree allowing Shu Yizhen to divorce him.

-

Yin Zhang didn't know when he had developed feelings he shouldn't have.

He was in love with his legitimate mother.

Madly and obsessively.

Later, when he finally had the power to control everything, he finally found the courage to kneel at Shu Yizhen's knees as he had once done, and plead softly.

"Yizhen, look at me. Look only at me, all right?"

Theme: Life is hard from the start. Don't settle for being mistreated.