Redeeming the Sickly Heir

[The author is ill and taking a break from updates. I'll continue when I'm better.]

[Reborn + mutual redemption + family life + slow-burn romance + female awakening + girls helping girls]

Also known as: "Tu Bi," "The Daughter's Monument," and "After Becoming the Legitimate Daughter of a Prestigious Family". ★ The plot-focused blurb is below.

--- Romance-focused blurb ---

Huo Yaoguang was originally named Zhaodi. Born into poverty, she was treated like a weed by her parents simply because she was a girl.

The year she fell into a river, a young man rode up and rescued her. He told her, "A lovely girl like you shouldn't be called Zhaodi. From now on, your name is Yaoguang."

Later, her parents sold her to a trafficker for a few taels of silver, and she became a maid anyone could bully.

When a cruel whip came down, that young man once again caught it with his bare hands. Blood seeped between his fingers, and his eyes flashed with fury. "Does being a maid mean she deserves to die?"

It turned out she didn't have to be called Zhaodi. It turned out she deserved to be loved, too.

*

Yet that spirited young man was crippled in an accident and afflicted with a cold illness. In the eyes of everyone around him, he became a gloomy madman. In the end, after his entire family was convicted of crimes, he was sentenced to be cut in half at the waist for attempting to assassinate the emperor.

That day, Huo Yaoguang stood on the city wall. Blood poured down, staining her eyes red.

She climbed over a mountain of bones to become empress dowager and take her revenge. At last, she learned that Yaoguang meant a star.

But she could no longer hold on to the only light she had ever known.

Reborn, she was sold into the Chengyuan Earl's residence to marry in someone else's place. But the man she was to marry was not that young man.

After exhausting every scheme, she finally broke off the arranged marriage and married Mei Shaoyuan, heir to the Jingxuan Marquis household. Everyone said she had lost her mind: she was turning down the Chief Councilor's legitimate grandson to marry the gloomy, violent, sickly man known as the living King of Hell. She only smiled calmly.

What others saw as poison was the honey she had prayed for across two lifetimes.

.

Mei Shaoyuan was solitary and gloomy. Even after they married, he paid Huo Yaoguang no mind.

Gradually, he realized that a faint, delicate fragrance always chased away his nightmares, and whenever his illness flared up, someone held him tight and said, "Don't be afraid."

Later, he found in a secret box the things he had casually thrown away. From then on, the way he looked at Huo Yaoguang began to change.

"I'm nothing but a useless man. What are you scheming so hard to gain from me?"

A glimmer flickered in Huo Yaoguang's eyes. She leaned close to his ear. "You."

Since you made me a star, I'll be the brightest one, and shine on you.

-- Huo Yaoguang

--- Plot-focused blurb ---

In her previous life, Huo Yaoguang spent twenty-eight years going from a farm girl to an empress dowager, only to watch her light go out. Reborn, she was sold into the Chengyuan Earl's residence to marry in someone else's place. The original bride's cousin and aunt schemed to get something they could use against her, her future in-laws did everything they could to frame her, and the women coveting her marriage all wanted her dead...

As one plot against her followed another, all she wanted was to protect her light. Until she saw them:

A daughter abandoned by her parents, who told her, "Why couldn't it have been you who died?"

A daughter treated as a stepping stone for her mother's adopted son, whose mother told her, "The only thing you did wrong was being born a girl. You were born to serve your elder brother!"

A young woman sent to the emperor's bed by her father and brothers, who told her, "Since you bear the name of a daughter of the Shen family, you should offer your body for the Shen family."

A woman forced to part from her child, whose in-laws told her, "Since you married my son, your husband's family must come first. You can even abandon your own flesh and blood."

It turned out that women who fought among themselves were also victims of this cruel, cannibalistic world.

*

At that moment, Huo Yaoguang, once an empress dowager, finally decided to do something.

She established schools for girls, opened charitable clinics, and taught women trades, carving out a path of their own.

Many years later, women officials were everywhere, able to advise the emperor above and govern the people below.

Someone asked her, "What was your original reason for establishing schools for girls? Was it so we could reach this point today?"

Huo Yaoguang shook her head and smiled wistfully.

In truth, she had never dared to hope for much. She only wanted to tell the women of the world: there is nothing wrong with being born a girl.

"At first, I only wanted to save one person. Then I wanted to save tens of thousands, millions."

The blurb was screenshotted on July 25, 2022.

Revised March 14, 2024, and again on April 2, 2026.

★ Chapter comments are open. Everyone is welcome to join in!

Reader's guide:

1. One hero and one heroine, both each other's first, happy ending, mutual redemption, serious tone.

2. The second female lead has transmigrated, so this is categorized as transmigration. She and the heroine help each other; in a sense, she is another heroine.

3. The central theme of this story: there is nothing wrong with being born a girl.

4. Family life and a slow, everyday pace. The heroine's career storyline takes center stage later. The plot-to-romance ratio is 6:4.

5. Set in an alternate history, with a mountain of invented details. Please don't nitpick historical accuracy.

Theme: There is nothing wrong with being born a girl.