After Fleeing Disaster, I Somehow Married My Brother's Husband

After his father died of illness, Zhu Anlan was taken in by the Chi family and betrothed to their eldest son. When the eldest son died in an accident, he was promised to the younger son, Chi Huan.

But Chi Huan pressed his lips together and said in a low voice, "I only think of him as my older brother."

-

Floods struck frequently, and disaster came without warning. As Chi's father lay dying, he held Chi Huan's hand and told him, "Listen to your brother and treat him well. Find him a good husband someday."

With red-rimmed eyes, Chi Huan tried to answer, but the words caught in his throat. At last, all he could manage was, "Okay."

After Chi's father was buried, Zhu Anlan traveled with Chi Huan from south to north, and they made a home in the north.

Just as he had promised his father, Chi Huan asked around for Zhu Anlan's relatives.

But after depending on each other for so long, Zhu Anlan had already developed feelings for Chi Huan that he couldn't quite put into words. He wanted to build a life with him, so he never agreed to leave.

Chi Huan was smug, and grew bolder by the day, convinced Zhu Anlan would never leave him.

But their family was so poor they could barely scrape by. Life was hard, and Zhu Anlan began to think about marrying himself off so Chi Huan could live more easily on his own.

Chi Huan bristled, anger flaring in his eyes. "You're going to abandon me?"

The young man stepped closer, his voice fierce. "A son inherits from his father, and a younger brother from his elder brother. My brother is gone, so you should be mine!"

Only then did he realize that he had fallen for Zhu Anlan from the very beginning.

-

After that, it was as if Chi Huan had suddenly learned how to love. He spent every day hovering around Zhu Anlan.

"Brother, you're all I have left. Don't leave me."

When Zhu Anlan went out:

"Brother, where are you going? Don't tell me you're sneaking off to meet some pretty boy again!"

"You've been gone so long. Don't you miss me?"

When Zhu Anlan spoke to someone else for a little too long:

"Anlan, stay away from them. No one outside is as good as family. Why not look at me instead?"

"You're not going to comfort me? Fine, I'll just die!"

Zhu Anlan couldn't take it anymore. "Are you ever going to stop?"

Chi Huan immediately quieted down, looking aggrieved as he dropped to his knees with a thud. "Brother, I'm sorry. Don't be mad at me..."

After they confessed their feelings, the two slowly built a home together, saved money, and made a life for themselves. They reclaimed land, farmed, raised livestock and poultry, took odd jobs, grew vegetables, and stocked up on grain, sharing every meal and every season for the rest of their lives.

Reader notes:

1. A native farming story, no golden finger.

2. Both leads are sexually inexperienced.

3. Includes childbirth.

Please add my upcoming novel to your collection! The Honest Man's Fierce Husband:

After Zhou Heman's father met with disaster while escorting goods, the family lost its source of income. Zhou Heman had no choice but to move with his mother from the county town to their old family home in the countryside.

People thought the widowed mother and her son would be easy to bully. Who could have guessed that the seemingly meek and helpless young man would have such a fierce temperament?

When a neighbor stole fruit from their yard, he went to their door with a rolling pin and forced them to pay for it.

When a hooligan harassed him, he went inside, grabbed a cleaver, and chased after him. The hooligan was so terrified he ended up on his knees, snot and tears streaming down his face, apologizing profusely.

When young men bullied girls and other young men, Zhou Heman chased them from one end of the village to the other and gave each of them a kick in the backside.

Before long, Zhou Heman had become the village's resident tyrant, and everyone shook their heads whenever his name came up.

Just then, Zhou's mother asked a matchmaker to find him a husband. No one in the village dared marry this fierce young man. They all hoped to send him somewhere else to cause trouble.

But who could have guessed that Liang Rui, the village's famously honest man, would marry Zhou Heman and bring him home?

The villagers gleefully waited for the show. The Liang family was so poor they could barely keep a roof over their heads, and every member of the family was famous for being spineless. Surely Zhou Heman would soon kick them out, bedding and all.

But to everyone's surprise, after Zhou Heman married into the Liang family, their lives got better and better. They built a new house and dug a new well, kicked out the younger uncle's family, who had been clinging to them and refusing to split up the household, and even made the greedy eldest uncle return everything he had taken.

The whole family of spineless men did whatever Zhou Heman said. Liang Rui most of all: he spoiled Zhou Heman rotten, went wherever his husband went, never talked back, never put off anything his husband asked him to do, and struck anyone his husband wanted him to hit.

With the village tyrant and his ever-obedient muscle at his side, who wouldn't be afraid? From then on, everyone who had ever picked a fight with the family wished they could avoid them.

Theme: Spending every day together and growing old side by side