Marry First, Fall in Love Later, but My Husband Is Dead [Book Transmigration]

[Clear-headed, radiant, and unconventional woman who transmigrates into a book] x [outwardly upright, inwardly dark and unhinged powerful official]. They save each other. They marry first, then fall in love.

Ji Qiongru transmigrates into an old-fashioned, melodramatic tragedy, where the plot has reached the point of her forcing the original male lead to marry her in front of everyone at a palace banquet attended by envoys from four kingdoms.

"I have long since given my heart to someone, and I swear I will marry no one but him. That person is..."

To keep the tragic romance with the original male lead from happening all over again, she grits her teeth and resists the plot, swallowing his name and replacing it with someone else's.

"...Cheng Yihong."

At the mention of Cheng Yihong, the entire court falls silent.

Who is Cheng Yihong? Once the foremost gentleman of Ying, he single-handedly held together a nation battered by storms.

In the end, all he got was a ruler's suspicion and a cup of poisoned wine.

In the melodramatic original novel, Cheng Yihong is merely a versatile background character, a prop who exists in the backstory and in quotations from the classics.

The world holds him up as a legend only to exploit his reputation, both in life and after death, for its own ends. If that's the case, she might as well make use of him too.

"Your daughter has already privately exchanged vows with him before Heaven and Earth. My devotion to him is as clear as the sun and moon, witnessed by Heaven and Earth. I am willing to remain faithful to him as his widow for the rest of my life!"

When she made this grand declaration, Ji Qiongru never imagined that one day she would accidentally stumble into a graveyard and, by an unlikely twist of fate, awaken the man inside a coffin.

A cold hand clamps around her wrist. His tone is almost amused, yet utterly devoid of a living person's warmth.

"I hear that Your Highness the Princess has privately pledged herself to me and exchanged vows before Heaven and Earth?"

...This is the end! Her deceased background-character husband has climbed right out of his coffin!

*

Cheng Yihong's life was a tragedy written in the words "loyal subject."

He stood by the young emperor from humble beginnings and helped his sovereign make a name for himself in a chaotic age.

He commanded armies, quelled rebellions, and secured the borders. He excelled in both civil and military affairs, and believed he had fulfilled his duties as a minister without the slightest ambition to overstep his place.

Yet all he received in the end was a cup of poison and a handful of earth. Even his posthumous reputation became a tool for others to advance their own interests.

After coming back to life, Cheng Yihong still appears to everyone as the loyal general whose "steadfast virtue shines like the sun and stars."

No one suspects the tremendous resentment and madness burning beneath his radiant, honorable exterior.

He hates the treacherous officials who framed him, the ruler who sentenced him to death, the warlords who carved out territories in his name, and this cold, unjust world most of all.

Dragged back to the world by this hatred, he is determined to make everyone in it share his pain and descend with him into hell.

Until the girl in the flame-red dress sees right through him with a piercing gaze.

But she doesn't expose him, try to stop him, or distance herself from him. She simply tells him, "Of course you can hate, Cheng Yihong."

The selfish desires of the world have raised Cheng Yihong to an altar for far too long, until everyone has forgotten that he is only human.

Only she tells him that he is allowed to be selfish, resentful, and furious. These feelings are perfectly normal, because...

"In my eyes, you're just a mortal."

Cheng Yihong still hates this world, but he no longer intends to burn it all away in the flames of his hatred.

Because...

Looking at the woman before him, resplendent in her red dress, Cheng Yihong tightens his grip.

...Even in this nauseating world, there is still someone worth protecting at any cost.

Reading Guide:

1. A clear-headed, radiant, unconventional woman who transmigrates into a book x a powerful official who appears upright but is dark and unhinged inside.

2. The male lead is not reborn. He simply comes back to life after being presumed dead for three years. (Call it a medical miracle.)

3. Before his resurrection, the male lead was a genuinely loyal subject. Afterward, he's a black-hearted, unhinged madman. He's truly insane and retaliates against everyone indiscriminately except the female lead. He's extremely possessive, and once he falls in love, he also gets a bit dark and obsessive.

4. Marriage first, love later; the aloof paragon falls from his pedestal; a seemingly innocent man reveals his dark side and stops at nothing; they save each other.

Blurb screenshot dated May 30, 2022.

Theme: The time will come to ride the wind and cleave the waves.