Adoptive Mother

A mad yet gentle, sickly beauty & an energetic little beast (They're both a little crazy 🥵)

Wen Ru Li was the most striking beauty of the Taiyuan Wen family. She had suffered from a chill illness since childhood, leaving her frail and delicate, and she spent her days immersed in the bitter fragrance of medicine.

When the Hu tribes invaded, the Wen family turned the tide and married her into a collateral branch of the Langya Wang family. Fortunately, her husband cherished her after their wedding, and their life together was quite happy.

A year later, her husband died in battle. Overcome with grief, she grew ever quieter and more obedient.

Then one day, she hit her head, and a flood of memories surged into her mind. Only then did she realize she was merely a minor villainess in a legendary tale.

According to the story, the Wen family would soon be defeated, abandon their armor and flee, betray the Huan family army, and drag her south to Jianye in a miserable retreat.

In Jianye, the Wen family would be like stray dogs, mocked by everyone. She would be unwelcome in the Wang family and leave in disgrace, only to later attract the attention of a puppet emperor and be confined within the palace.

Later, her "dead" husband would join the Huan family forces and return in glory, surrounded by the new head of the Huan family and their followers.

The Huan family would become unstoppable, fabricate an imperial edict, and massacre the palace. She would die beneath the blades of the soldiers caught up in the chaos.

This tale was the Huan family's legend, and she was no more than a grain of sand.

She was only named because, when the Wen family fled in defeat from north of the Yangtze, she had been too timid and self-serving to let Huan Ruo Zhao, who came in the dead of night, cross her threshold.

In the legendary tale, she was ignorant and vulgar, fickle and faithless, a fleck of dust on Huan Ruo Zhao's road to fame, a complete and utter joke.

Wen Ru Li, who had been gentle and sweet all her life, suddenly felt sick.

A clown... a clown. She couldn't accept it.

As luck would have it, a knock came at the door right on cue. Ten-year-old Huan Ruo Zhao was shouting outside.

Wen Ru Li walked out slowly and opened the door to the night.

She refused to be that clown. She would rise with the wind and enjoy every pleasure the world had to offer.

First, she would tame this fierce dog that knew how to bite.

But she never expected that this game of feigned affection for true love would end with her falling into a trap...

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At ten, Huan Ruo Zhao lost her family and was forced to call her enemy mother.

She was frail and taciturn, her faint tenderness seeming like a charitable gift. The jade ornament in her hair, her charm pouch, and her longevity cord all swayed gently with every cough.

She had no shortage of money. Her business was thriving, and those who once looked down on the Wen family now flocked to beg her for help.

She had no shortage of men, either. Her late husband's older brother from the Langya Wang family and the puppet emperor alike were both made to dance like dogs at her whim.

He scorned them. His heart held nothing but hatred. But...

He never imagined that one day, while she was bedridden, he would use the excuse of giving her medicine to slip into her bedcurtains, kiss her fever-flushed cheeks in a daze, and demand to know whom she truly loved.

Even more unexpected was the truth: all those years of tender, attentive care had been one complete and utter deception. His dear mother, his beloved Ru Li, had been playing him in the palm of her hand all along...

A side character awakens | Female lead is devoted; all male leads are physically pure | Age gap (female lead 27, male lead 17)

The male supporting characters include, but are not limited to, the ones mentioned in the blurb. The female lead will share her affection around in the early stages, with one partner at a time; she ends up with the male lead.

A fictional setting inspired by the Wei and Jin dynasties.

Theme: Moving forward together