After Marrying a Husband Who Brings Misfortune to His Wives

Jiang Tao was a little orphan, blessed with skin as smooth as ice and features as lovely as a lotus.

Yet she was known throughout the surrounding villages for her terrible luck.

The chickens she bought never laid eggs, the seeds she planted never sprouted, and even the turtle she raised... died.

So, even though she was over sixteen, no one came to ask for her hand in marriage.

Jiang Tao knew her bad luck was unnaturally bad, but she kept her emotions steady.

If the chickens didn't lay eggs, so be it. If the vegetables didn't sprout, so be it.

The turtle had died... Well, she'd put up a headstone.

She kept trying to make a living, until one day, someone knocked at her door.

The first thing several elegantly dressed, distinguished-looking people in the courtyard said to her was, "Are you Jiang Tao? The Duke of Dingguo's estate is willing to offer 888 sedan chairs' worth of betrothal gifts, as long as you'll marry the heir."

Jiang Tao: ...?

An opportunity like this falling out of the sky really doesn't seem like the sort of thing that would happen to me, does it?

So Jiang Tao was very cautious. She said she'd have to discuss it with the old woman who had raised her, and sent the visitors away for the time being.

Then she went to town to ask around.

The Duke of Dingguo's heir, Xie Yanqing, was handsome and noble, with a distinguished family background.

By all rights, his marriage should have been settled long ago.

But who could have guessed?

The first time, the prospective in-laws were convicted of embezzlement and other serious crimes, and their family was confiscated.

The second time, his prospective bride's grandfather died, and she observed three years of mourning without discussing marriage.

The third time, the matchmaker had just stepped through the family's gates when the young lady fell from her horse and was left with a limp for over half a year.

The fourth time? They couldn't risk a fourth time!

The Duke's estate was in despair, fretting over the rumor that the heir was cursed to kill his wives.

Then one day, an itinerant master arrived at the estate and made a calculation, offering them a way out: "Find the unluckiest girl you can. She should be a good match for the heir."

Jiang Tao: ...

She sat leisurely beneath the peach tree in her courtyard, swinging Old Granny Tong's palm fan and biting into a peach bigger than her hand. To the handsome young man beside her, whom she had picked up in the mountains a few days earlier, she said, "Look at that. This master sounds just like a plant I hired..."

Xie Yanqing raised an eyebrow, his smile inscrutable. "Doesn't he, though?"

A sweet little story about opposites canceling out: an orphan with terrible luck but a steady temperament x a seemingly wife-cursed heir with no worldly desires.

Synopsis captured on 23.9.10

Theme: Keep striving to live, even in adversity