After Being Wrongly Married Off I Stabbed My Husband to Death and Became Famous Throughout the Land

Li Shu, a modern woman who had worked tirelessly to accumulate wealth and achieve a comfortable life, is struck by a mysterious flash of light and transmigrates into the body of a seventeen-year-old girl named Ah Li in the Great Zhou Dynasty. The original owner lived a miserable existence under the abuse of her stepmother and neglect from her father, having been arranged into a marriage with Captain Ma’s son as a repayment for her uncle’s military service. On her wedding day, a chaotic mix-up caused by rumors of bandit unrest results in Ah Li being wed to Qi Yanfeng, the volatile son of a poor oil merchant, while the girl Qi Yanfeng loved, Yao A Ning, marries into the Ma family instead. Qi Yanfeng, suffering from a head injury that causes violent episodes, beats Ah Li severely on their wedding night when he discovers the mistake. The original owner, broken and hopeless, dies from her injuries, allowing Li Shu to take over her body.

Awakening in a woodshed, Li Shu discovers she possesses a spatial storage ability granted by the same phenomenon that brought her to this world. Realizing she has no support system and faces imminent death if she remains in the Qi household, she decides to fight back. Using a firewood chopper hidden in her space, she ambushes Qi Yanfeng when he comes to check on her and kills him in cold blood. She then stages the scene to look like self-defense, crying out to the neighbors that Qi Yanfeng attempted to murder her during one of his violent episodes. The public, aware of Qi Yanfeng’s dangerous condition and the Qi family’s mistreatment of Ah Li, sympathizes with the young bride. Captain Ma, concerned about his family’s reputation and the broken promise to Ah Li’s uncle, intervenes to ensure Li Shu is not executed, classifying the death as accidental self-defense rather than murder.

Li Shu is imprisoned while the legal proceedings take place, where she endures treatment from a physician and receives visits from her biological father, Li Chutian. Instead of showing parental care, Li Chutian demands she commit suicide to settle the debt with the Qi family and later attempts to have the jailers intimidate her by releasing rats in her cell. Li Shu counters this by starting a controlled fire in the adjacent empty cell, exposing the jailers’ negligence and ensuring the two guards responsible are punished. Upon her release, she is ordered to pay a small fine to the Qi family but is otherwise free. She returns to the Li household, where she faces hostility from her stepmother, Madam Zhou, and her half-brother, Li Linsheng.

Li Linsheng, who had hoped to benefit from Ah Li’s marriage into the powerful Ma family, feels betrayed by the outcome. When he confronts Li Shu, she reveals that she stole tung oil and silver from the Qi household before her arrest, implying she has accomplices and leverage. Fearing exposure and potential danger, Li Linsheng backs down and negotiates a truce. Li Shu demands five taels of silver in exchange for fabricated intelligence about local bandits, securing funds for her future. With her injuries healing and her family temporarily subdued, Li Shu begins to plan her next moves, aware that the border region is unstable and that she must build a secure foundation for herself in this dangerous new world.