A Guide to Surviving as the Principal Wife

Bad news: Zhu Mingli transmigrates into a book and becomes the matriarch of a feudal household. Her husband is cold and indifferent, and on their wedding night he receives orders to leave the capital. System: Host, please raise the male lead’s affection for you. You can exchange accumulated experience points for beauty pills and body-shaping pills to win his heart Zhu Mingli: Wait! Look at it from a different angle! This is clearly good news: the matriarch has power, her mother-in-law stays out of things, and her husband is rich and doesn’t interfere. With conditions like these, why bother raising the male lead’s affection? The servants are unruly, the accounts are a mess. Get everything in order. The fields are unproductive, the shops are losing money. Put them to work. Make friends with the neighbors and the wives of local officials. The orphaned children of loyal martyrs are unreasonable and ill-mannered. Set them straight. Her nephew at the Imperial College, the future heir of the Shen family, is in poor health. Shouldn’t she make sure he gets proper nutrition, then visit him again to earn a few affection points? The end of the year is coming. There are goods and banquets to prepare, and last year’s poor-quality grain to deal with. A maid with a head for business is wasted in the inner quarters. Shouldn’t she put her to work in one of her shops and let her earn some cash? She’s so busy! Who has time for all that romance? * Later, Shen Ji, exhausted from years of marching, returns home and finds the estate almost unrecognizable. His nieces and nephews are absurdly well-behaved, the servants are absurdly competent, and his colleagues are absurdly friendly. Even the food tastes amazing, and the quilts are soft and warm. Zhu Mingli: “Young General Shen, while you were away, I ran the shops belonging to the Shen estate. How should we split the profits? Also, your family owns too much land. Now the harvest has doubled, and there’s more grain than your family can eat. I’ve decided, ” Shen Ji: Wait, what? “Oh, and the pharmacy I opened is especially effective at treating external injuries. I don’t think the capital is the right place for it, so I want to expand sales elsewhere. Could you help me establish a foothold in Shuobei?” Shen Ji: ... Shen Ji: !! 1. A heroine who gradually grows into her role as household matriarch x a male lead who was supposed to follow a tragic, beautiful, villainous character arc 2. Keywords: daily life / farming / food / business management / possibly infrastructure development later Theme: Live well, strive for a better life