“This is ridiculous! So her own son dies in battle, and they blame the new wife who just married into the family? Is she supposed to have some kind of remote control that makes him go get himself killed? Or does she somehow have influence over what happens at his military unit from all the way at home?”
“If she could do that, she wouldn’t even be human—she’d be a god! Seriously, I can’t even. The female lead and her mother keep targeting this sister-in-law, too. Did the author deliberately make her look bad just for the sake of it? Did she get bullied by her own sister-in-law or something and decide to write her personal grievances into a novel?”
Tang Tang was lying in bed, reading a period novel she had just picked up.
She had been reading for quite a while, but the ridiculous plot had infuriated her so much that she couldn’t take it anymore. She stopped halfway through, exited the book, and immediately went to the comments section, where she unleashed a furious stream of complaints.
After getting everything off her chest, she closed the app and decided she was done with it.
“Forget it. I’m going to sleep.”
She glanced at her phone. It was already one in the morning.
She was too annoyed to read another novel, so she turned off her phone and went straight to sleep.
“Wake up. Wake up.”
Tang Tang was sleeping soundly when suddenly someone began calling out beside her.
At the same time, her body was being shaken repeatedly.
The disturbance instantly brought out her worst morning temper.
“Who is it? Why are you shouting? You’re so annoying!”
Still half-asleep and irritated, she swung her hand without even looking, not knowing what she had hit.
Then she abruptly sat up and reluctantly opened her eyes.
Before she could make sense of her surroundings, a sweet, tearful female voice sounded beside her.
“Mom, look at her! She acted all meek and obedient in front of my brother before the wedding, but now that she’s married into the family, she actually hit me! Am I going to be bullied by her every day from now on? Sob… my face hurts so much.”
Huh?
Who was this woman?
Tang Tang narrowed her eyes. She still couldn’t see the woman’s face clearly, but her mouth was already moving faster than her brain.
“I was swatting a mosquito! It was buzzing right next to my ear and driving me crazy. I wasn’t hitting you.”
“And besides, you said I hit you. Did I tell you to stick your face in front of my hand? You came that close on your own. Who knows if you deliberately wanted me to hit you so you could frame me?”
“You two just going to stand there and stare at me to see whose eyes are bigger? What are you glaring at me for?”
“Oh, I get it now. You’re trying to intimidate me, aren’t you?”
After that entire tirade, Tang Tang finally woke up properly.
That was when she got a good look at the people standing in front of her.
She froze.
Then she looked around the room.
And froze again.
What… what was this place?
Wasn’t she sleeping at home?
Where was her comfortable Simmons mattress and her modern bedroom?
The house in front of her was actually a mud-brick house.
There was even a hole in the roof, through which she could see the stars outside.
And the two women standing in front of her…
The older woman looked to be in her fifties. She had a thin, gaunt face and an unmistakably sharp, unpleasant look about her.
The younger woman looked about seventeen or eighteen. She had a round, baby-fat face and wore her hair in two long braids, each tied with a red ribbon.
At that moment, the older woman was glaring at Tang Tang through clenched teeth, while the younger one had her eyes wide open in disbelief.
“How can you make up such nonsense?”
Han Meifeng was completely dumbfounded.
How could this new wife be so good with words?
Hadn’t the matchmaker said she was timid and meek?
And what did she mean by intimidating whom?
Her face was still hurting!
Who was intimidating whom here?
“What nonsense?”
Just as the women were arguing, a man’s voice came from outside.
Tang Tang’s ears perked up.
She had always been a sucker for attractive voices, and this one was exactly her type.
As the voice drew closer, the door was pushed open from outside.
Tang Tang turned her head.
The man who walked in was tall and broad-shouldered, with strong, handsome features, sharp brows, and bright, expressive eyes. He looked strikingly heroic in his military uniform.
Oh, no.
She was not only a sucker for good looks—she was also helpless against men in uniforms.
And this man checked both boxes perfectly.
“Why are all of you looking at me?”
Han Zecheng noticed the three people staring at him as he closed the door behind him. He looked puzzled.
Then, almost instinctively, he walked over and stopped beside Tang Tang.
Now that he was closer, Tang Tang noticed a red flower pinned to the front of his uniform.
She immediately looked around again.
There were large red paper characters for “Double Happiness” pasted on the walls.
Then she looked down at herself.
She was wearing red clothes, and pinned to her chest was a red flower that looked exactly like the one on Han Zecheng’s uniform.
In an instant, something flashed through her mind.
It happened so quickly that she couldn’t quite catch it.
Tang Tang frowned.
“Brother! You’re finally back! If you hadn’t come back, I would’ve been bullied to death!”
The moment Han Meifeng saw her own brother return, she knew her protector had arrived.
She shot Tang Tang a smug look before hurrying over, slipping her arm through Han Zecheng’s, and leaning against him as she began to complain.
“Meifeng, what exactly happened? Who could possibly bully you at home? I’d believe it if you were the one bullying someone else.”
Han Zecheng knew his younger sister’s personality and didn’t take her complaint seriously.
When he saw her clinging to his arm and acting spoiled, he immediately pulled his arm free.
“Stand properly. What kind of posture is that? Straighten up!”
“Brother! How can you talk to me like that? I’m your sister!”
Han Meifeng stomped her feet angrily after being scolded.
“It was that woman who bullied me just now! You have to teach her a lesson!”
She pointed at Tang Tang, who was sitting nearby.
Han Zecheng immediately looked over.
His newlywed wife had her head lowered and wasn’t saying a word. She looked quiet and docile.
There was no way she looked like someone who would bully Han Meifeng.
What he didn’t know was that Tang Tang was currently being hit by the full force of reality.
Meifeng?
Wasn’t that the name of the female lead in the period novel she’d just been reading before bed?
Could it be…
Had she transmigrated into the novel?
“Han Zecheng?”
She suddenly raised her head and looked at the man in front of her, cautiously calling his name.
From Han Zecheng’s perspective, his wife was looking up at him with a pair of innocent, wide eyes.
Her voice was soft and timid, and with her small, delicate face, she looked like the kind of woman who could easily be bullied.
Something inside him immediately stirred.
He felt an inexplicable urge to protect her.
His expression softened as he lowered his voice.
“I’m here.”
This woman was his wife now.
From this day forward, he had to protect her.
Tang Tang, on the other hand, felt like the world had gone black the moment she heard his answer.
Her face nearly turned green.
It was over.
This really was Han Meifeng.
And the man standing beside her was her older brother, Han Zecheng—the man who was supposed to die young.
There was no need to guess who the other woman was.
The sharp-faced woman glaring at her had to be Wang Guijuan, the cruel and spiteful mother-in-law from the novel.
She had definitely transmigrated into the book.
And now she had become Han Zecheng’s brand-new wife.
According to the plot, it wouldn’t be long before her husband died.
After his death, her mother-in-law, her sister-in-law, and the other sister-in-law who would later marry into the family would all take turns bullying her.
Absolutely not.
Was she really supposed to put up with that?
When Tang Tang had been reading the novel earlier, she had already been furious because the abused sister-in-law happened to have the same name as her.
And now she’d actually become that woman?
Was she seriously expected to let them bully her all over again?
If that was how things were going to be, she might as well write her own name backward!
Then she remembered what Han Meifeng had just been doing.
She’d been complaining to her brother, hadn’t she?
Tang Tang suddenly stood up.
She grabbed Han Zecheng’s hand and immediately turned the accusation back on them.
“Han Zecheng, before I married you, the matchmaker kept telling me how wonderful you were. She said you were handsome, well-built, and a soldier—the best catch in the entire village.”
“And now look at what happened! I just married into your family, and you’re already trying to intimidate me?”
“Did you all think I was easy to bully? Did you think that once you’d gotten me married into the family, you could stop pretending and finally show me your true colors?”
“Let me tell you something, Han Zecheng. We’ve only just gotten married. If you’re unhappy with me, just say so. This marriage can still be called off. There’s no need to humiliate me like this!”
As she spoke, Tang Tang deliberately glanced at Han Meifeng from the corner of her eye.
Han Meifeng was so furious she nearly tipped backward.
She was completely stunned.
What was wrong with this woman?
How had she managed to turn everything around and accuse them instead?
Her brother definitely wouldn’t believe her.
Thinking this, Han Meifeng hurriedly looked at Han Zecheng.
“No. The marriage has already been completed. You’re my wife now.”
Han Zecheng’s firm response made Han Meifeng even angrier.