Teacher by day, Farmer by passion - Chapter 23: Climbing the hierarchy.

Tang Qiu was a substitute bride–forced to take her half-sister’s place and marry the young master of the Jiang family, a deformed cripple with less than 6 months left to live.

“Who would have thought that even a sickly whelp like Jiang Shaocheng would find himself a bride?”

“I hear that he’s practically on his deathbed and he’s only marrying the Fengs’ daughter to improve his lifespan.”

Tang Qiu ignored the whispers around her and focused on her husband-to-be, who coughed violently in his wheelchair. At the altar, after they had said their vows, she lifted her veil and knelt in front of Jiang Shaocheng, pressing a hesitant kiss to his lips.

The marriage contract was signed. No matter his physical deformities, he was now her husband.

She wasn’t afraid of the scars that marked his face, nor was she repulsed by him being confined to a wheelchair. Every morning, she made him breakfast, attended to his needs, and thought of little else beyond her duties as a wife.

“Young Master Jiang is a cripple who can’t get it up,” her best friend argued. “When he dies, you’ll still be untouched. You should set your sights higher.”

“A sickly invalid like Jiang Shaocheng can’t give you happiness,” her ex-boyfriend insisted. “I’ll wait for you.”

But Young Master Jiang only scoffed. “I have plenty of time left to be with her.”

Later in their marriage, Jiang Shaocheng wanted to enjoy his little wife in all ways–the press of her lips against his, the brush of skin on skin; the way a husband and wife were supposed to. But Tang Qiu refused him, blushing. “No, we can’t. The doctor says you can’t exert yourself.”

Jiang Shaocheng’s desire was surging through him, a heat in his core that demanded to be satiated. He cursed, I should have gotten rid of that doctor and the wheelchair long ago.

But he yearned to make love to his little wife, and so he revealed his true identity. In the blink of an eye, the deformed cripple transformed into a powerful businessman–tall, dark, and handsome. He quieted Tang Qiu’s protests, his body positioned over hers, his arms caging her as she lay on the bed. His voice was low when he asked, “What about now?”

Shennugou is an old and infertile place. It’s hard to find a woman to marry here.

The Li family is extremely poor. With only four bare walls for a home, they don’t even have a woman to manage the household.

The Heavens had mercy today, Li family’s oldest son had saved a woman at the market and brought her back home.

Li Man was killed by her mother-in-law and transmigrated. She was almost hanged on the first day, but, fortunately, she was rescued by the Li brothers.

This doesn’t mean that her destiny is over.

The language didn’t make sense at first, she discovered that, here, standard Mandarin sucks.

- Description from Novelupdates

Aric Valerian, the fourth prince of the Valerian Empire, bears many titles: The Forgotten Prince, The Whore’s Child, The King’s Bastard—names that have been spoken more than his own. Born with a crippling illness and devoid of mana or ki, Aric was a disgrace, scorned by his family and the court. But when the gods cured him and gifted him the strength to fight, Aric dared to hope. He sought glory in battle, only to be betrayed by his brother and sent to die in a hopeless war. In his final moments, as death closed in, a mysterious text appeared before him… [Would you like to change your fate?] After being given another chance, Aric embarks on a ruthless journey to claim absolute sovereignty. [Ki Circulation Mastered: Strength +10] [System Upgrade: Advanced tactical planning unlocked] [Hidden Fortress Established: Stronghold security +15%] The forgotten prince claws his way through the treacherous landscape of imperial politics, he is forced to make impossible choices, each decision pushing him further down a path soaked in blood. He learns that true power demands sacrifice, and the price of vengeance may be his soul.

Lady Dawn expected to die.After casting her soul to the wind, taking a one-in-a-million chance to escape the wretched dungeons of Taegrin Caelum, the once-caged songbird of the Asclepius wishes nothing more than to find her Hearth and warn them of the coming danger. Instead, she’s found herself a shade, anchored to a young man who knows far too much—and with far less hope than she’d started with.Toren Daen, for his part, only wanted to make it home safely. Now he’s in a world taken straight from the page, questioning what is real and what is fiction, and scrambling to make something worthwhile. And with his foresight, there’s only one way that Toren can see to keep this new world safe: prevent the descent of the Legacy. But those in power will not make it easy: Nico Sever is in a league of power all on his own, and Arthur Leywin bears the burden of Fate a continent away. In this familiar-yet-not world of mana, monsters, and looming deities, any misstep along the roads of Alacrya and the High Sovereign’s Dominion could lead to a Fate worse than death.But what is death to a phoenix? With a burning secret in his mana core, knowledge of the future, and a maelstrom of fears and questions, Toren might just survive to be more than what Lady Dawn expected him to be. He might just survive to waylay the encroaching tide of death in the proxy war between raging asura clans.More than all of that, he might just live.