My Family Tried to Force Me to Become a Concubine, So I Became a Princess Consort and Wiped Them All Out

[Both leads are devoted to each other + sweet romance + winning back his wife + doomed to die young + young widow + rivalry for her affections] Shen Jingshu was the daughter of a former favorite minister of the emperor. Sadly, her parents died early. Before they passed, they entrusted her and the wealth the Shen family had amassed over three generations to their distant relatives, the Marquis of Zhenguo's household. They also arranged for her to marry Song Xunzhi, the eldest son born to a concubine, four years later. But just three years later, as soon as she had finished mourning her parents, Song Xunzhi was about to become engaged to the eldest daughter of the Chancellor's household. The marquis's family even denied that the engagement had ever existed, leaving Shen Jingshu disgraced and scorned by everyone. Unwilling to accept this, Shen Jingshu went to confront him, only to hear him say, “Jingshu, you can't be my principal wife, but you can be my favored concubine.” Still reeling from the shock, she watched the refined young gentleman continue: “As the heir's favored concubine, that is. I'm only doing this for your own good.” Her beautiful dream shattered. The principal wife she was promised had become a favored concubine, and her husband-to-be was a notorious playboy. Unwilling to accept her fate, Shen Jingshu found herself a powerful new match. In the Great Yan Dynasty, the emperor's legitimate son by the empress, the Prince of Yan, was a gentle and refined man. Sadly, he was crippled, unable to walk, and had been judged unlikely to live past twenty-five. The title of princess consort was alluring, but no noble young woman was willing to bet her whole life on becoming a widow in all but name. But then, at the Princess's banquet, the Prince of Yan publicly held a woman on his lap and stroked her cheek, smiling tenderly as he said, “I can make you my princess consort, but you must stay by my side when I die.”