A Concubine's Daughter Marries Up

Also known as: How to Train an Outstanding Husband

Marriage first, love later

[Gentle, perceptive, and slightly scheming heroine] vs. [Sensitive, innocent, and unruly hero]

As an unpopular concubine-born daughter, Yuan Qingrong has spent her whole life walking on eggshells. Her stepmother dislikes her and her father neglects her, making life in the household difficult. Even servants who have risen in status dare to give her dirty looks.

Hoping to secure a good marriage and avoid being bullied at will, Yuan Qingrong takes a desperate risk and carefully lays her plans. But who could have guessed that her ruthless stepmother would arrange a marriage for her, turning the brilliant top scholar she had chosen into a dissolute young wastrel with every vice imaginable?

Yuan Qingrong is thunderstruck. She could just die.

Second Master Xie is infamous throughout the capital as a hopeless case, spending every day eating, drinking, visiting brothels, gambling, and causing trouble.

The only reason he has made it this far without being beaten to death is the Xie family’s power and his family’s love and protection.

But even they cannot save Xie when he brings disaster upon himself. He loses a horse race with someone, falls, and cracks his head, ending up unconscious. With no other option, Madam Xie thinks of a marriage to bring him good fortune.

Second Master Xie is no suitable husband.

But life must go on, and she has no choice but to marry him.

Yet on the very first day after she marries him under the pretense of bringing him good fortune, he wakes up...

A little scene:

Newlywed Xie Tingqing (hostile and furious): “I hate women like you who put on airs and act all delicate! You’d better stay away from me!”

Xie Tingqing, six months into the marriage (shy and bashful): “If I really finish reading this book, On Learning, will you teach me how to solve that Luban lock? You’re so nice... Don’t get the wrong idea. I-I-I don’t have any romantic feelings for you!” (bristles)

Xie Tingqing, a year into the marriage (unapologetic): “My wife is beautiful, talented, and understanding. There’s no one in the world who wouldn’t love her, but my wife only has eyes for me!”

Upcoming: My Reborn Life as the Chief Eunuch’s White Moonlight (Both Leads Reborn)

Blurb:

Nan Lu saw someone shortly before she died.

Chang Ying, the powerful chief eunuch, personally brought her a cup of poisoned wine.

Nan Lu couldn’t remember ever meeting him. She didn’t know why his eyes were red with tears, or why he would arrange for her body to be buried.

Wearing the deep-blue brocade robes of a eunuch, Chang Ying said nothing.

He stared at the woman before him, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth as she hovered on the brink of death. In his heart, he was thinking of the first day he had met Nan Lu.

Nan Lu was a highborn princess, the only daughter of the Loyal and Brave Marquis.

He was merely a freshly castrated cripple, lying by the roadside, barely clinging to life.

After a dreamlike lifetime, Chang Ying wakes once more in his past. He gazes silently at the silkworm chamber, unsure whether to walk that blood-soaked road to power all over again.

But this time, a gentle hand reaches from behind and holds him back.

Nan Lu, panting, has cast aside the poise and dignity expected of a noblewoman and hurried over. With a radiant smile, she says, “Wait! Do... you want to come with me?”

(The full manuscript is complete. Feel free to add it to your collection if you’re interested!)

Premise: Take your life seriously and live it with purpose.