The Emperor's Favor: The Charismatic Female Chancellor

Better to be a poor man’s wife than a rich man’s concubine. Her beautiful mother was forced to die in the snow by her grandparents because she refused to remarry as another man’s concubine. Her own relatives killed her mother, then drove the sisters out of their home with a single accusation that they were bastards, and seized the property their father had left behind. The sisters had nowhere to go. The thirteen-year-old elder sister was forced by the county magistrate’s assistant to spend three days with him in exchange for one tael of silver, enough to buy a cheap coffin for their mother. At just ten years old, she tried to seek justice for her sister, only to be kicked down the stone steps by a constable. When she woke up again, she was still herself, but in an instant she saw through the rules of survival in this world and became exceptionally clever and perceptive. No longer a member of the Duanmu family, her elder sister became a laughingstock in the village: unwanted by any prospective husband and disgraced after losing her virtue to bury their mother. She calculates every move and climbs one step at a time. She wants not only to bring those people to their knees, but also to find her sister a match worthy of a bright future. But the human heart is impossible to predict. When she tries to withdraw and return to a peaceful life in the countryside, she has already become a thorn in the side of some people. If peace and tranquility are destined to elude her, then let’s see who has the last laugh! She is Duanmu Xun! Excerpt One He advised her kindly, “A woman should be gentle as water. If you’re always so stubborn, how will your husband tolerate you taking concubines? If your husband doesn’t divorce you, he’ll put you aside.” She glanced at him coolly. “If I really do marry in this life, and he dares to take a concubine, I won’t divorce him, and I won’t let him put me aside.” Her voice turned cold and ominous. “I’ll just become a widow.” Excerpt Two His long fingers gripped her chin with brutal force as he warned her domineeringly, “If anything should happen to me one day, you must come to my tomb and kill yourself in the coffin beside mine.” She sneered. “You won’t let me enjoy wealth and glory, yet you open your mouth and demand that I be buried with you. Where in the world do you find such a sweet deal?”