Chapter 1

It had been ten days or so since I crossed over, and I barely dared say or do a thing. One wrong move, and this houseful of men and women, young and old, might realize something was off.

So when I heard a matchmaker had come to propose a marriage, I, an ancient-world spinster, could hardly wait to say yes.

Who cared? Get married first, worry later. If I slipped up afterward, I could always claim my reputation as a well-bred maiden had been made up.

Anything was better than being accused of possessing a corpse!

Outwardly, of course, I still had to put on a modest show. Clutching my handkerchief, I shook my head with tears in my eyes. “Mother, I won’t marry. I want to stay with you and Father and look after you for the rest of my life.”

“Enough, enough. Have you forgotten how old you are?” Mother said. “At least someone still wants you as his second wife. Give it another year or two, and the only offers you’ll get will be to join a dead man in his grave!”

“All right. I’ll go.”

I would agree to a meeting, but that didn’t mean I had no standards.

If life with a husband wouldn’t be as comfortable as life at home, I might as well pretend to fall into a pond, run a fever, and emerge from a grave illness having lost my mind… No, my memory.

I followed Mother into the reception hall. On the other side of a screen, the matchmaker was talking so enthusiastically she practically sprayed us. “The gentleman is mature, dependable, and knows how to cherish a wife!”

“Oh. An old fellow getting on in years.”

“He’s devoted, honorable, and kind!”

“Still pining for the love of his life.”

“This is hopeless! You’re no young girl yourself, miss. I’ve brought you dozens of matches, and you keep finding them either beneath you or beyond your reach. What is it you want? Lord Lin is the Salt Inspector! Even to become his second wife, women would queue all the way beyond Yangzhou’s gates. And you still find fault?”

“Wait. Who?”

“Lord Lin, the Salt Inspector!”

Good grief. The biggest undercover tycoon in A Dream of Red Mansions. A fabulously wealthy eligible bachelor. More to the point, wasn’t he supposed to die young? If I married him, could I go straight to the dream package: status, a fortune, and a deceased husband?

An imperial title as his wife, a vast inheritance, and all the freedom to enjoy my days?

I pressed my handkerchief to my face, tears of joy welling up. Heaven and earth! It was finally my turn for something good!

Of course, it wouldn’t be that simple. I was, after all, the unlucky idiot who had missed a step while fetching a takeaway downstairs and crossed into another world without so much as eating it. I hadn’t even rated a backstory involving revenge or an unfaithful lover.

I might be the Shen family’s aging unmarried daughter, but my parents, brothers, and sisters-in-law all adored me. They sent people to make thorough inquiries about Lin Ruhai.

Then Mother began to worry. “Lord Lin has learning, looks, and prospects. But they say he loved his first wife deeply and has been grieving ever since her death some years ago. The people at the Lin ancestral hall fear he may die and the clan decline with him. That’s why they want him to marry you: to turn his fortunes around with a wedding.”

Mother put it plainly. “If it weren’t for his health, I really would want you to marry him. He and his first wife had only one son, who died at two or three. Now he has just a daughter, and she’s being raised by her mother’s family. All you’ll need to do is find her a good marriage when the time comes… It truly would be suitable. Such a pity…”

“No pity at all. None! It’s settled. I’ll marry him!”

Even if the man weren’t reason enough, I had to marry him for the legendary heroine, Lin Daiyu!

Who wouldn’t want to meet the heroine?!