Master, Please Stop Competing

Advance Notice: The blurb for Reborn with My Ex-Husband's Whole Family Reborn Too is below.

Meng Yutong lost her mother when she was young and was raised by her grandmother. She grew into a cautious, careful girl who was always eager to please.

After marrying into the Ji family, all it took was one compliment from her husband, calling her "gentle and virtuous," for her to devote herself to serving her mother-in-law and managing the household. Even though she knew her husband shared a close relationship with his childhood sweetheart, she pretended not to notice, taking that offhand compliment to heart and living up to it to the utmost.

She thought that if she endured and gave enough, she would earn her happily ever after. Instead, she met an untimely end. Even on the day she died, her husband was in the palace treating his childhood sweetheart with acupuncture and medicine...

Looking back on half her life, Meng Yutong suddenly felt utterly exhausted. She could no longer see what all that painstaking effort had been for.

When she opened her eyes again, she had been reborn in the year her marriage was being arranged. Meng Yutong resolved to live differently this time.

She called off her engagement to the Ji family and opened a medical clinic.

*

Ji Yun was born into a family of physicians with a century of history. He was like a lone crane above the clouds, aloof and otherworldly. From childhood, he had always followed the rules, never showing his emotions, and he disliked anything beyond his control.

Because he owed the Meng family a favor from long ago, he became engaged to Meng Yutong, whose family were merchants. She came from an ordinary background and was quiet and reserved, but gentle and serene, making her an excellent choice for a household mistress.

One day, his family discussed his marriage and seemed to be considering another match. Ji Yun said, "The original arrangement will do. Why make things complicated?"

Unexpectedly, his mother said sarcastically, "She's a fine girl, but it makes our Ji family look downright heartless."

His father rarely sighed. "Marriage cannot be forced."

Even his younger brother, who had always looked up to him, shook his head. "Wake up, Brother. She's already sent the betrothal papers back."

Ji Yun's brow twitched. Something seemed off.

*

The broken engagement caused a citywide stir. Everyone said Meng Yutong was ungrateful, and that she would never find another match as good as this one.

Yet a year later, Meng Yutong's clinic had become famous. Many nobles clamored for her treatment, and proposals piled up on the Meng family's desk.

For some reason, though, when Meng Yutong was ready to choose a new husband, her suitors all seemed to back away one after another, as if they had planned it together.

Then the Ji family's young master, usually so aloof and cold as snow above the clouds, unexpectedly showed up at her door. The frost in his eyes melted into warm spring water. "I hear Miss Meng is looking for a suitable match. Would you still consider an old acquaintance?"

Reading guide: [Soft and gentle, radiant and carefree] * [Scheming and brilliant, an aloof beauty]

A story of a lonely, sensitive people-pleaser who finds herself again after being reborn. The career and romance storylines are equally important. The husband pursues his wife to win her back, and the whole cast is reborn.

----- Begging You, Master, Stop Competing -----

As a disciple of Lingxu Sect, the foremost immortal sect, Xu Huanzhu had never stopped striving forward.

She cultivated diligently and aspired to the Great Dao, believing she would eventually reach perfection.

But she accidentally glimpsed the secrets of Heaven and learned that the course of fate had long since been set.

The world was boundless and the universe vast. People were like grains of sand in the sea, unable to escape their ordained fate no matter how hard they tried.

From then on, Xu Huanzhu stopped living and breathing the sword. She left her sect, found a small school, and picked up the useless title of master.

She spent her days drinking and tending flowers, carefree and content, thinking she would simply enjoy the rest of her life in peace.

Then, during an immortal sect tournament, she inexplicably took on a disciple, shattering her quiet, aimless life.

Her disciple was handsome, exceptionally talented, thoughtful, and wonderful in every way, except that he was far too diligent, just like she had once been.

She should have been glad to have such a self-motivated disciple who required no effort from her.

But...

Her disciple kept day and night upside down, rising before dawn to practice.

While she slept soundly in her room, he swept in on a sword gust. His power was clearly terrifying, yet he looked at her with wide, helpless eyes.

"Please teach me, Master," he pleaded, and she was forced to get up and practice swordsmanship with him every day.

Her disciple took first place in a secret-realm trial. While she tended flowers and played with birds in the courtyard, he piled a basketful of treasures in front of her and excitedly said, "Master, hurry and praise me!" Xu Huanzhu was forced to attend the sect gathering and give a speech.

At the year-end rankings, her disciple took their crumbling sect all the way to first place on the immortal sect list, and dragged her up to the top of the Immortal Venerables list along with him. The other sects that had once looked down on Xu Huanzhu were pushed to the bottom and did not dare utter a word.

Xu Huanzhu finally could not take it anymore. Pointing at the young man's nose, she yelled, "I beg you, stop competing so hard!"

*

Shi Ji was the youngest child of the Shi family, one of the four great families of the immortal sects, and a treasured jewel cherished by his loved ones.

Then disaster struck in his youth. He endured cold stares and lost everything overnight.

When Shi Ji first met Xu Huanzhu on Liuxian Slope, he had endured nine heavenly punishments and was battered and covered in mud.

A downpour washed away all his pride and self-respect.

In a muddy pool of blood, Xu Huanzhu held an umbrella over him, sheltering him through all those dark, constricted years.

At the time, she was a disciple of the foremost immortal sect, with a limitless future ahead of her. He was a criminal whose entire clan had been wiped out, no more significant than a speck of dust.

Ten years later.

Grinding his teeth, Shi Ji walked step by step from the Thorn Platform to Lihua Heaven, becoming the first person to ascend from the Lower Nine Provinces to the celestial realm.

At the immortal realm tournament, the radiant young man was unstoppable. No one could stand against the point of his sword.

Now, he was the rising star everyone in the immortal realm was talking about, while she was a useless master, scorned even by her own little sect in a forgotten corner.

He watched her tower rise, then watched it fall.

The peerless man pointed to the weary-eyed woman, lost in thought in a corner of the high platform, and spoke in a voice as clear as jade. "I want to be her disciple."

Later, the useless master told Shi Ji more than once, "You deserve someone better."

The young man's eyes were clear, his voice bright as jade. "You are the best there is."

Message: Strive to improve yourself and be independent and strong.