The Delicate Stepsister of the Female Lead in a Period Novel

★The first new novel in my author page, The Era-Novel Side Character Aunt Becomes Prosperous and The Frail Beauty Is the Era Novel's Beloved White Moonlight, are looking for favorites! There are four completed novels of the same type on my page, all nice and long, ready to binge!★

Blurb:

Lin Ran wakes up in the 1970s as the stepdaughter of engineer Song Wei.

On the surface, Song Wei treats his stepdaughter even better than his biological daughter. He raises her so that she never has to lift a finger, indulging her until she's spoiled and demanding. In reality, he is only trying to motivate his own daughter to excel, while also raising his stepdaughter to be useless so she can't compete for the family fortune. Even the man he picks for her blind date is meant to help him build connections and pave the way for his biological daughter.

Lin Ran: "..."

So she's nothing but a tool, someone who gets sold off and even helps count the money?

Realizing what is about to happen, Lin Ran decisively turns down the blind date and voluntarily heads to the countryside to find her biological father.

Even if her biological father is less capable, at least he won't scheme against her at every turn like Song.

*

Everyone thinks Lin Ran will be disliked by the Lin family once she returns to the countryside, because she's spoiled and demanding. Who could have guessed that, as the family's only granddaughter, she would be doted on by everyone, from her grandparents to her cousins!

Grandparents: Our Ranran is so beautiful. What's wrong with being a little willful?

Male cousins: There are so many of us in the family. What's wrong with my little sister/older sister not wanting to work? We'll support her!

Even her biological father, whom her mother in the original story had dismissed as poor and useless, turns out to have quite the background. He looks exactly like the tycoon Lin Ran met in her previous life when he was young!

Lin Ran: With family like this, who'd want to go to the city and be a tool?

She just never expected that, besides the family who love and cherish her, there would also be a "fierce wolf" in the countryside, who sets his sights on her when she isn't looking.

The man himself: After all that effort to marry my sweet wife, of course I'm going to spoil her rotten!

+++++*

Song Siyu is reborn. In her previous life, she resented her father's favoritism and impulsively volunteered to work in the countryside. There, she met a scumbag and contracted a serious illness. Only in her final moments did she learn from her father the truth about his years of "favoritism": it had all been for her sake.

She also learns that the world she lives in is a book, and she is its heroine.

According to the plot, after being reborn, she will follow her father's arrangements and get a job at a factory. Through her stepsister's in-laws, she will be promoted with ease, become a cadre, fall in love with the factory manager's son, marry into his family, and enjoy success in both her career and love life.

Song Siyu decides to follow the plot obediently. But when she opens her eyes, she learns that her stepsister has gone to the countryside!

Song Siyu doesn't think much of this change. Conditions in the countryside are harsh, and the spoiled Lin Ran is bound to be unable to take it and come back to get married. The plot can still be put back on track then.

But she waits and waits. Lin Ran doesn't come back, miserable and humbled, to play the tool. Instead, Song Siyu hears that Lin Ran has married in the countryside, and her husband is an army officer. Her biological father has even made a fortune!

Blurb for The Era-Novel Side Character Aunt Becomes Prosperous:

Only after her death does Qiu Lianyi learn that she is the side-character sister-in-law in an era novel.

The sister-in-law relies on her good looks to be spoiled and arrogant from childhood. She looks down on everyone and never respects her elders. She has no regard for her poor sister-in-law and makes life difficult for her family at every turn, leaving her crying at night. Her elder brother feels sorry for his wife and turns around to lecture her. Their parents also plead with her, saying they're all family and she should let go of her prejudices.

But the sister-in-law refuses to listen and keeps stirring up trouble, making the whole family miserable and unable to live in peace. In the end, she's abandoned by everyone and spends her life alone.

Meanwhile, the sister-in-law leads the whole family toward prosperity through her frugality and hard work, and they live happily ever after.

That's the story from the hero and heroine's point of view.

But from Qiu Lianyi's perspective, her sister-in-law is the one who keeps sticking her nose where it doesn't belong.

She quietly criticizes Qiu Lianyi for being wasteful when she sees her putting face cream on her neck. When Qiu Lianyi adds an egg to her noodles, she laments that it could have been sold for money. When her own family visits, she bundles up the old clothes Qiu Lianyi had kept for making cloth shoes and gives them away, then acts innocent and frightened when questioned, saying she thought Qiu Lianyi didn't want them...

Did Qiu Lianyi do anything wrong? She doesn't think so.

If her sister-in-law hadn't interfered with her way of life, would she have picked a fight with her?

Fortunately, Qiu Lianyi has the experience of her previous life. She knows that the whole family will eventually be influenced by her sister-in-law's "hardworking and thrifty" lifestyle, while she herself will be branded "stubborn and incorrigible" and become estranged from her family.

Qiu Lianyi, whose heart has gone cold after ten years of cutting fish at Xrunfa: If I can't afford to offend her, I can at least stay away, right?

In the 1990s, business opportunities are everywhere. Qiu Lianyi puts on her best clothes, armed with ambition and a silver tongue, and heads for Guangzhou.

Some time later, the Qiu family has built a three-story house in their hometown and bought an apartment in the county seat. They have become the most envied family in the area.

Thinking of the sister-in-law who left home to work, the eldest sister-in-law decides to put their grievances aside and ask her husband to call her back. She'll arrange a job for her in a shop, sweeping and looking after the place. That way, she'll have done her last duty as family. But then a newspaper falls into their hands.

"The Wedding of the Century! Hong Kong's Richest Man's Son Courted His Girlfriend for Three Years, and Finally Won Her Hand! The Girlfriend Is a Self-Made Female Tycoon..."

And the bride in the photo, wearing a diamond tiara whose name they don't even know, is none other than the long-lost sister-in-law...

ps: This should be a no-brain, feel-good story. The heroine is beautiful, strong, and never miserable. Lots of made-up details, in a semi-fictional setting.

Blurb for The Frail Beauty Is the Era Novel's Beloved White Moonlight:

Only after her death does Bai Ruyi learn that she's the doomed early-death supporting female character in an era novel, a tool for providing her cousin with a job, a house, savings, and men at her beck and call.

In her previous life, her cousin egged her on to take the factory entrance exam despite her poor health. She stayed up all night writing and traveled thousands of miles to enter competitions, pouring her heart and soul into her work and earning considerable acclaim. Her father was promoted thanks to her, her fiance often borrowed money from her, and her cousin even offered to manage the household for her since she was so busy with work.

She thought everything was settled, but she didn't know that her father thought she wasn't attentive enough, and was as close as a father and daughter with her cousin instead. Her fiance also thought she was too aloof, and was secretly having an affair with her cousin.

When she learns the truth, she drops dead from overwork. Everything she exhausted herself to earn is taken over by her cousin after she dies.

Bai Ruyi: "..." So what on earth was I working so hard for in my previous life?

Living a second life, Bai Ruyi decides to go completely off the rails and give up!

Her father's promotion isn't going well?

In one ear and out the other: Oh.

Her cousin doesn't have a job?

She rolls her eyes: What does that have to do with me?

Her fiance wants to get back together?

Get lost!

After she stops working herself to the bone, Bai Ruyi discovers that not only is she happier, but her health is improving and even her luck is getting better.

Otherwise, why would Yan Ze, the most outstanding young man in the whole district and every girl's dream husband, propose to her?

The male lead's story:

Yan Ze is the most outstanding young man in the compound. Handsome and with a bright future, he also comes from an excellent family. Yet he's well into his twenties and still unmarried. People speculate that he has some hidden ailment, and his family is at their wits' end. They give him one final ultimatum: find someone, or they'll arrange a match for him.

A few days later, he returns holding Bai Ruyi's hand in one hand and their marriage certificate in the other.

Everyone, including the Yan family, assumes he just picked someone at random to get out of having a match arranged.

But only Yan Ze knows...

how many years he's waited for this day.

(The male lead has been in love with the female lead for years. The heroine is a delicate beauty, and the male lead is a cool, devoted romantic. He'll spoil her, spoil her, spoil her!)

Theme: Only self-reliance can change your fate.