A Concubine's Survival Handbook

A noble-born young man who seems dignified and reserved but secretly falls hard for love and spirals into dark obsession × a common-born woman who seems cool and delicate but is quietly strong, resilient, and unyielding

[1]

Her father was bedridden with a lingering illness, her mother was timid and helpless, and her older brother had borrowed from loan sharks at exorbitant rates to pay for medicine.

The day the creditors forced their way in, they threatened to tear down the house and sell the family, and said they would send her to a brothel to settle the debt.

Just as Song Jiayi was at her wit's end, someone offered her a way out: become a concubine in the Xue household, and her father's debt and her family's troubles would be wiped clean. She had no choice but to agree.

The Xue clan had been an eminent family for generations, a household of high rank and influence. Song Jiayi was merely from a modest family. She spent ten years married to Xue Lanzhou, and though she appeared to live in luxury, surrounded by wealth, every step was fraught with danger, like walking on thin ice.

Her mother-in-law's contempt, her sisters-in-law's open and covert attacks, and the controlling husband who held power over her all left her exhausted. Even the son and daughter she risked her life to bear were beset by misfortune.

In the end, grief consumed her, and she died of exhaustion.

Yet in her final moments, she saw Xue Lanzhou stumble toward her. The noble young master who had once worn brocade robes and a jade crown, so aloof and dignified, now had dust on his clothes and disheveled hair, with not a trace of his former poise.

She had thought death would set her free, but only after dying did she learn the truth: someone had lured her brother into taking the loans, someone had deliberately disfigured her daughter, and her son's lingering illness concealed a sinister plot. The misery of her entire life had been an elaborate trap from beginning to end.

When she opened her eyes again, she had returned to the third year of her marriage into the Xue household. Her children were by her side, and none of it had happened yet. This time, she would never again let others carve her up or drift wherever the current took her.

[2]

Xue Lanzhou had enjoyed smooth sailing throughout the first half of his life. Born into one of the capital's most powerful clans and strikingly handsome, he was the ideal match sought after by the capital's noblewomen.

Yet he had little luck in marriage. For three years after coming of age, every match proposed for him had fallen through.

He paid the matter no mind, but his stepmother, Madam Pei, used the need to continue the family line as an excuse to take Song Jiayi as his concubine.

She was exceptionally beautiful and talented, with a gentle, considerate temperament. She also bore him a son and a daughter.

At first, he saw her only as a spy his stepmother had sent to keep watch on him. But as time went by, he came to love and cherish her deeply, wanting only to lavish every luxury upon her and raise her above the clouds.

But he had never imagined that the seemingly harmonious household concealed endless cruelty and intrigue, or that the gentle concubine he held dear was not nearly as devoted to him as he believed.

Then one day, he saw her lower her eyes and smile softly at a strange man. The tender warmth in her expression was something she had never shown him.

The usually composed and reserved Xue Lanzhou snapped the jade pendant at his waist. Years of reason came crashing down, and he went mad in an instant.

Theme: Learn to love yourself even in adversity.