After My Husband Died, I Married His Younger Brother (Matriarchy)

Blurb

In the second year after her husband died, Shen Boyan couldn't bear the thought of her young daughter growing up without a father's love. After much deliberation, she asked to marry her late husband Xie Lianzhou's younger brother.

The young man she remembered as gentle, obedient, and warm-eyed, who would shyly call her "Sister-in-law" whenever they met: Xie Lanhe.

Lanhe was already promised to someone else. He and his childhood sweetheart were mutually in love and had planned to marry the following year, but Shen Boyan tore them apart for her daughter's sake.

He must hate her.

Yet for some reason, after their marriage, Xie Lanhe did not treat her with the icy distance Shen Boyan had expected.

Instead, he made several of her favorite dishes every day, mended her clothes and shoes, and waited up for her by lamplight every night until she came home from court.

Just as her late husband had treated her when he was alive, if not even better.

One day, Shen Boyan got drunk and mistook Xie Lanhe for her late husband. Fortunately, she came to her senses at the crucial moment and nothing terrible happened.

But who could have guessed that late the next night, he would climb into her bed with reddened eyes, dressed in Xie Lianzhou's clothes?

In the wavering golden candlelight, the young man's eyes held deep emotions she couldn't understand.

For once, he looked straight at her. He was clearly smiling, yet his expression seemed on the verge of breaking into tears.

At last, he gently tugged at her sleeve and begged her not to leave.

"If you wish, you can think of me as my older brother."

From the first moment Xie Lanhe saw Shen Boyan, he had fantasized about it countless times.

If only I were the one who married her.

PS: 1v1, happy ending. (The so-called childhood sweetheart is only the female lead's assumption. The male lead has always been devoted to the female lead, body and soul.)

The male lead's secret love comes true; the female lead falls in love after marriage.

Warnings:

1. The female lead was married before and has a child, so she is not a virgin. (Don't read if this bothers you.)

2. Male pregnancy. The male lead is a virgin. (Chastity is a man's finest dowry.)

3. The female lead is imperfect and has a bit of a magnet-for-everyone quality. She truly loved her late husband at first, and genuinely intended to find a reliable stepfather for her child. She only comes to love the male lead later. (Don't read if this bothers you.)

4. Younger brother-in-law romance; the male lead is a lovesick fool. (If anyone should be a lovesick fool, it's a man.)

5. After marrying her, the male lead will become a stepfather. (If this bothers you, don't read it! Don't read it! Don't read it!)

6. I'll add more if anything else comes to mind.

Theme: Love can make people better.