After the Female General Is Reborn as a Frail Village Girl

(Stuck on this, and it doesn't feel quite right. My thoughts are a mess, so I'm setting it aside for now.)

Blunt, outspoken female general x cool, reserved, secretly passionate pretty scholar | marriage first, love later

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Qin Shu was the only female general during the Yuankai era. After earning countless military honors, she died in battle on the northern frontier at the age of twenty.

When she opens her eyes again, she is the eldest daughter of the Li family in Yuexia Village.

Her father doesn't care for her and her mother doesn't love her. Her grandparents enslave and abuse her, leaving her frail and sickly. After falling into the river to save someone in winter, she dies of a high fever. Yet the Li family still intends to wring the last bit of value from her and sell her to the village's notorious old widower.

To save herself, Qin Shu goes to the only son of the person she rescued in the middle of the night, a gentle, bright-faced scholar.

She knows nothing about love between men and women. She only wants to escape her living hell, so she confronts him directly: "It's time for you to repay your debt. Marry me, and we'll be even."

-

Pei Yunjian's family has fallen into ruin. His father is dead, his mother is ill, and he has ended up in Yuexia Village to rest.

He has remained there for years, gentle and courteous, never once losing his temper with anyone.

He has already planned everything: pass the provincial exams, travel to the capital for the imperial examination, take first place, enter the court as an official, then use marriage as leverage and every scheme at his disposal to rise to the position of a powerful minister, securing wealth and safety for his mother.

But Qin Shu throws his plans off course.

Bound by his debt for saving his mother, he has no choice but to marry her. Still, he coolly makes a pact with her: they must divorce within a year.

Later,

Qin Shu packs her things and leaves in the middle of the night, but Pei Yunjian blocks the road. "A divorce must be filed at the county office. Our verbal agreement doesn't count."

So she waits and waits, but he always has an excuse for why he can't go.

Qin Shu, furious, provokes him: "You keep putting it off. Could it be that you have feelings for me?"

The man who has always been so eloquent falls silent.

Qin Shu speaks with rare seriousness. "But we want different things, and I can't be a virtuous wife and mother. We can't be husband and wife."

His heart roils, and his palm nearly draws blood from clenching. "Then who are you going to marry?"

Theme: Women can stand on their own and grow strong.