Ying'er

[The fallen daughter of a prime minister's family vs. the son of Huainan's richest man]

After the Jiang family falls into ruin,

Jiang Ying'er, with nowhere else to turn, begs at the door of the Wen family, the richest family in Huainan. She has been forced into a corner and needs to repay her parents' debts and buy back their freedom.

Wen Yan initially looks down on a woman willing to sell her body so readily for money and profit, especially one who is the legitimate daughter of a prime minister's family and has received a proper upbringing.

But to appease his family, he has no choice but to put on a show of marital harmony with her.

It doesn't matter. Once they have a child, he can divorce her, and his family will no longer be able to control him.

After the wedding,

he is glad to find that she is proper and polite, respects her elders, takes care of the household inside and out, and is so obedient and sensible that she never oversteps or asks where he has been.

Even when he has no choice but to bring home the younger sister of an old flame from the past, a woman who has suffered greatly, and asks to keep her close so he can look after her,

she smiles, makes all the arrangements, and shows not the slightest displeasure. She is so obedient that no one could find fault with her.

Wen Yan thinks that since she is so compliant and so willing to go along with him, once they have a child,

he might even let her stay by his side for the rest of their lives.

What he never expects is that just after the child is born, he is sent away to handle business on the grain route for three months.

When he returns home, his usually obedient wife has vanished, leaving behind only a divorce letter.

All that remains are him and the swaddled baby, staring at each other in speechless silence.

Reader's guide: HE

The male and female leads are both physically and emotionally pure (this involves spoilers, so details are omitted here).

A clear-eyed, beautiful heroine vs. a hero who says one thing and means another, then gets his comeuppance and falls hard (marriage first, love later / no running off while pregnant / a long road to winning his wife back). The hero falls first, the heroine falls later.

Theme: Seeing beyond appearances takes more than just your eyes.