Daily Life in the Great Ming

My new novel, Marrying a Minor Banner Officer (Qing Dynasty Transmigration), starts updating on August 13. I hope you'll support it and add it to your collection. Thank you.

[Marriage first, love later; affection grows over time; farming + imperial examinations]

Xie Jiujiu is the eldest child in her family. Her father gave her this name because he hoped to have nine children.

Unfortunately, Old Xie lacked the strength to make that happen. Before he died, he left Xie Jiujiu with only a sickly younger brother and a younger sister with a runny nose.

Her widowed mother is fiery-tempered but easily swayed, and can't protect the family business her father spent his life building.

Xie Jiujiu has no choice but to give her birth details to the matchmaker herself.

"I want a strong, shrewd man, someone who'll risk his life and fight back when he's wronged! A live-in husband!"

Blinded by the matchmaker's fee, the matchmaker offers her Pei Yuan, a well-known down-and-out man in town.

Pei Yuan was born to a concubine. His granduncle, the head of the Pei family, had no sons, so he chose Pei Yuan to inherit the family line. In return, his granduncle gave up the family's only hereditary military post.

Pei Yuan is stuck with a huge mansion he can't sell but can't afford to maintain. The money he earns in a year isn't enough to cover repairs.

Any money he earns disappears before he has time to warm it in his hands, so he steels himself and sells himself to Xie Jiujiu as a live-in husband.

[One-line synopsis]

Xie Jiujiu marries a husband.

Pei Yuan rolls himself up, bundles himself off, and marries into her family.

A perfect match of two thoroughly ordinary people, making their way together to the pinnacle of life.

A slice-of-life story. The hero will pursue success in the imperial examinations.

Affection grows over time; a story of personal growth.

One-on-one romance; the male lead has no prior sexual experience.

A partly fictional setting, with lots of author-created details.

The hero remains a live-in husband from the beginning to the end.

Theme: Grow toward the light