I Hear the Top Scholar Is in Love with Me

My new story next door, What Does It Matter If I Marry a Eunuch?, is now open. Please add it to your collection!

Couple: Brave, battle-hardened, straightforward female general vs. cross-dressing, scheming, tea-green top scholar

Blurb:

Chi Jian was reborn, returning to the second year after she married the young marquis.

Remembering how her parents-in-law had found her manners uncouth and unrefined after the wedding, how her husband only cared for the woman who had taken her place as his ideal love and treated her as invisible, and how she had eventually died in misery, she resolved to change her fate.

Her husband wanted to take his ideal love as a concubine. Chi Jian readily agreed. "Fine. I'll divorce you and step aside right now."

Her birth parents wanted her to remarry. Chi Jian made a quick escape. Wasn't it better to earn glory and make a name for herself? Who needed a trash husband?

Later, Chi Jian returned victorious, spirited and valiant, admired by countless people. She rose to court as a woman, and her former husband, who had fallen in love with her all over again, came asking to reconcile with betrothal gifts.

Chi Jian thought for a moment, then asked around. "Since we're colleagues, what do you think of Jiang Wenge, the new top scholar?"

Her former husband: "???"

Chi Jian smiled. "I think he's as elegant as a noble orchid, and very handsome. He's a good match for me."

Jiang Wenge, the second son of the Jiang family, had been frail and sickly since birth. A master at a temple advised that he be raised as a girl until he came of age, so he could enjoy a long life and lasting good fortune.

So, at the insistence of his parents, Jiang Wenge had his ears pierced and wore skirts and hairpins. He wasn't expected to learn embroidery or weaving, but he had to stay indoors and never leave the house. Yet he had a wish of his own: to find the young lady who had saved him when he was little and repay her kindness.

One dark and windy night, he finally climbed out of his home to travel in search of her. But an accident befell him, and he was rescued by none other than the very girl he'd been thinking of all this time.

The young lady had been hurt in love and had just divorced her husband, crying like a rain-soaked pear blossom. Jiang Wenge, determined to repay her kindness, immediately switched into tea-green mode. "You're a remarkable woman. You're so wonderful, so it must be that man who's blind. Unlike me, I think you're the greatest heroine in the world!"

Everyone at court knew the newly appointed top scholar had someone he loved, and that he had turned down countless families seeking a marriage alliance. Yet Chi Jian kept catching him sneaking glances at her.

Thinking about how his face was identical to that of her sworn younger sister, who had gotten separated from her, and recalling all the strange things her younger sister had done when they traveled together, Chi Jian began to suspect the truth.

After court, right in front of her former husband and a crowd of ministers, Chi Jian boldly pinned Jiang Wenge, who was a head taller than her, against the palace wall. "I hear the top scholar has someone he loves. Could that person be me?"

Little Scene:

On a court holiday, Chi Jian had a sudden idea and dressed her husband in red women's robes herself. Jiang Wenge looked cool and gorgeous once he was dressed, making Chi Jian's heart race. "Husband, how do you look even better than me when you dress up?"

Little tsundere Jiang Wenge: "You have no idea how many years I've been cross-dressing..."

1. One-on-one, happy ending

2. An imaginary setting with many personal headcanons. Please don't overanalyze.

3. Note: The male lead is a man through and through.

Theme: Women are just as capable as men