Weaving Silk and Tilling Fields: Leaving You for the Green Mountains

In her previous life, Shen Mi was a laughingstock. She rescued the impoverished scholar Gu Yuan, supported him and paid for his exam preparations, ruining her eyesight and bending her back with hard work. Just as she finally hoped to wear a phoenix coronet and bridal robes, all she received was a letter of divorce. The aloof, refined top scholar left her with nothing but the words, “You and I are not of equal standing. Taking you as my concubine is already a kindness,” then turned to marry a noblewoman from the capital. Shen Mi was so enraged she fell gravely ill and died in a ruined temple in the depths of winter.

When she opened her eyes again, she was eighteen. Gu Yuan had yet to sit the exams, and was holding her hand, promising her a future together. This time, Shen Mi merely smiled in silence. She took all the silver she had saved over the years and invested it in her third brother, Shen Yan, a village hunter, joining him to reclaim wasteland, grow fruit, and open a dye workshop. When Gu Yuan once again asked to borrow money for the exams, Shen Mi turned around and married Shen Yan, who could only blush and treat her kindly.

She thought they could part ways for good and each find happiness. But who could have known Gu Yuan had been reborn too? He watched Shen Mi, who should have been his woman, laughing brightly at another man, and the thorn in his heart grew wildly. He shed his gentle facade and used his power to relentlessly pressure Shen Family Village. He thought that if he held himself above her as he had in his previous life, Shen Mi would come back and beg him. But this time, standing in his way was Shen Yan, a rough, dirt-poor man holding a hunting fork and shielding Shen Mi like an iron tower. Behind her stood a dye workshop that grew ever larger, a village that flourished more with each passing day, and the heart she could never give back to him.