If you want me to be a cannon fodder mistress, I’ll climb a higher branch instead

Historical household intrigue / sweet romance / the male lead is deeply in love

In The Beloved Concubine Ruyi, the heir Xie Yunzhi is brave and battle-hardened, a dazzling young man in fine clothes and on a spirited horse, unmatched on the battlefield year-round. Unfortunately, he is only a supporting character, and at the very start he is already in a vegetative state, leaving behind three adopted sons.

Xu Qingyi discovers that she has transmigrated into the foil to the pampered-romance heroine. On her wedding day, she refuses to marry the story's male lead Xie Huai'an, a man who dotes on his concubine and neglects his wife. Instead, she asks to marry the male lead's elder brother, Xie Yunzhi, the heir.

So what if he's in a vegetative state? Still better than a scumbag!

From then on, Xu Qingyi admires flowers, teases birds, raises the children, and by the way tries to secretly get the heir's child so she can have a darling little daughter. Once the heir wakes up, she'll ask to leave the marriage.

But by accident, she raises all three stepsons into affectionate little sweethearts. As the countdown to the heir waking up approaches, Xu Qingyi tells the children: when your father wakes up, your mother here is going to leave the marriage. You know what to do, right?

The three children nod. Spend father's money, grow up well, and earn money in the future to be filial to mother!

Having long since regained consciousness, Xie Yunzhi knew he had acquired a bride meant to bring him good fortune, and he felt nothing inside.

However, Madam Xu loved him as if her life depended on it, clinging to him every night with endless demands, and she cared for the children with complete devotion. He thought he could more or less accept it; in the future they could simply treat each other with mutual respect.

Then he suddenly overheard that?

When he officially woke and met her face-to-face, Xie Yunzhi fell in love with his wife at first sight. But remembering her words, his expression turned uglier than when he'd taken an arrow wound on the battlefield.

Xu Qingyi wants to find a chance to talk things over with the heir, but time and again the conversation goes nowhere. In the end, somehow, while "talking," they even end up sharing a bed. Heavens!

What's going on? Surely the cold, taciturn heir can't have fallen for her?

No way?!