Loathing My Sister-in-Law

1.

Hua Zhongjin had always been deeply dissatisfied that his older brother married a man.

He absolutely detested his male sister-in-law, Xie Lanzhuo.

That foolish, clueless, sickly, delicate idiot, with nothing going for him but a pretty face, how could he possibly be good enough for his brother?

╰_╯

Later, his older brother died young, and Hua Zhongjin inherited everything he had left behind.

Time passed in the blink of an eye.

Then one day, he discovered his sister-in-law secretly learning forbidden arts through tear-filled eyes, hoping to defy heaven and bring his brother back to life.

That night, he took his sister-in-law to the brink of death and back. Licking away his tears, he said, “I will never let my brother come back to life. Give up on that... Sister-in-law.”

2.

Xie Lanzhuo wasn't originally called that. His birth name was Xie Xiaozhuo.

His family was poor and made a living fishing. His parents gave him that name in the hope that they would catch plenty of fat fish every day, so he could eat his fill and grow tall. Unfortunately, bad luck followed his birth. Everything went wrong, and life grew harder and harder.

In the worst year, when he was just seven, he was so thin and small he looked like a kitten. One day, a powerful figure from a family of cultivators came to their home. He said Xie Xiaozhuo had excellent natural talent and a promising destiny, and wanted to take him away to cultivate.

His parents naturally agreed.

From then on, he was renamed Xie Lanzhuo.

*

He was taken to Ta Sha City, the most prosperous city in Jiuchun Continent, and became a disciple of the Hua family. His daily task was to cultivate alongside the Hua family's eldest young master, but all he wanted was to eat his fill, grow tall, and save money.

He grew older day by day. Somehow, the older he got, the weaker and sicker he became. Sometimes he'd wake up feeling as if every bone in his body had been taken apart and put back together.

The eldest young master looked at him with ever-increasing pity.

Under that pitying gaze, he somehow agreed to form a bond with the eldest young master and become his male spouse.

*

He thought himself incredibly lucky.

The only downside was that his younger brothers-in-law were always picking on him.

The most overbearing of them was the Fourth Young Master, Hua Zhongjin, who had disliked him since childhood and was always telling him, “I hate you so much.”

Lanzhuo thought, It’s enough that your brother likes me. ∩_∩

Until one day, he discovered that everyone had been lying, and the Fourth Young Master most of all.

Telling a huuuuuge lie.

A miserly, stunning beauty of a sickly shou & a domineering, hypocritical, feudal, annoying dog of a gong

#Angst, angst, angst

#The three brothers secretly share one spouse early on; later, the Fourth Young Master gets furious and claims him for himself

#The shou is both universally disliked and universally adored

#(Other noble families from the Jade-Folding series)

(Orz, I might still revise this blurb.)

Theme: Maintaining good relationships takes patient communication