Two couples: cheerful little sister x gentle young doctor (brother-in-law romance) // fiery cannon-fodder wife x amnesiac prince
Wan Li stayed up all night reading a popular serialized novel on a certain website, The Crown Prince's Wife.
The Crown Prince's Wife was packed with every trope imaginable: uncle-and-sister-in-law romance, an injured amnesiac, a substitute, forced love... Wan Li was so hooked she read over a hundred chapters in one sitting.
The refined and radiant male lead had a cannon-fodder ex-wife. In the latest chapter, the author revealed that after losing his memory, the male lead had actually lived as husband and wife with his ex-wife for six months. Only after recovering his memories did he divorce her.
Many readers couldn't accept this, feeling that their unattainable idol had been sullied.
Haters chased the author all over the internet, and the author had a breakdown. They couldn't even be bothered to write the ending, simply announcing that they were leaving the internet and stopping updates.
When Wan Li woke up the next day and learned what had happened, it felt like a bolt from the blue. She spent ages cursing, devastated and annoyed that she'd gotten hooked on a novel like this. Then she skipped her meal, lay back down, and went straight to sleep.
When she opened her eyes again, she was shocked to find that the world had changed completely. She had transmigrated into the novel.
However, Wan Li hadn't transmigrated into the beautiful and delicate Crown Prince's wife, the male lead's one true love, nor into his cannon-fodder ex-wife.
Instead, she had become Wan Ning's cousin. Wan Ning was the male lead's cannon-fodder ex-wife, and her cousin was an insignificant extra who had no lines at all. Because she was beautiful, she was abducted and taken as a concubine, only to die horribly that very night.
Wan Li's timing was perfect. Her cousin Wan Ning had just saved the male lead, and the two had privately pledged themselves to each other. They were planning to break off her engagement.
*
Xu Jianqing was refined and handsome, with an exceptionally gentle and modest nature. He had learned medicine from his grandfather since childhood, and his superb medical skills cured patients time and again.
Xu Jianqing was the dream man of many young women in Qingsang Town.
The younger generation of the Xu and Wan families had been betrothed since childhood, and would marry when the time was right. With his grandfather gravely ill, Xu Jianqing personally came to the Wan residence with a matchmaker, hoping to marry his fiancée as soon as possible.
But the Xu family suddenly arrived to discuss the wedding date.
Wan Ning refused to marry him at any cost. As the two sides reached an impasse, the matchmaker suggested that someone else take her place.
That someone was Wan Li, from the Wan family's second branch.
Wan Li had privately called Xu Jianqing "brother-in-law" for five or six years, and he had always answered to it.
She thought, How could I marry my own brother-in-law?
To her surprise, Xu Jianqing agreed.
And so, in a daze, Wan Li took her cousin's place and married Xu Jianqing, the male character in the book whose fate left readers most frustrated, her brother-in-law...
Reading guide:
1. Two couples: cheerful little sister x gentle young doctor (brother-in-law romance) // fiery cannon-fodder wife x amnesiac prince (substitute trope, groveling pursuit, original male lead goes crazy for love)
2. Both couples marry first and fall in love later. Single-couple relationships, happy ending. Romance and plot move forward together.
3. The surname Wan is real, not something the author made up.
4. Only after the rain on Min'e do we know how steep it is; only after frost and snow do we see the clear beauty of wind and moon. - Xu Jianqing
Theme: Love can carry you through all the world's hardships.
