Much later on in the novel, one of Li brothers' aunts are introduced and she seems to hate Li Man for no reason. But, there's a twist. The Li brothers' mother was this beautiful woman that was very spoiled by her husbands and shortly after giving birth to Little Five, she s*upidly threw a tantrum and ran off into cold weather because she was unhappy over something. Her husbands chased after her, and the parents all end up dying in the snow and leaving their children orphans.

Yes, I understand this is ancient China, which means a woman's reputation is like gold. And there were other reasons why the village elder was called in to mediate. But think about it, why would the cannon fodder make a big deal of the MC not being a virgin IF the villagers wouldn't have punished the MC for it? The entire scene was so laughably ridiculous, the author clearly fabricated it out of nowhere with zero historical basis.

Let's not forget the absolutely giant logic gap of villagers "saving up all their life" to be able to bring home a wife, and then immediately killing said wife if she tries to run away? Uh... so suddenly they're ok with the equivalent of throwing all that money down the drain because things didn't work out once? Even becoming s*ave traders and reselling them would have made more sense. And that's assuming it's logical to have all the villagers basically hunting down and killing their neighbor's wives for fun.

[I favor 3rd and 4th brother the most ?:

3rd brother is really romantic despite his hotheadedness and he's considerate,

4th brother seems calm and elegant at first, but he's actually impulsive but in a hot way lol,

2nd brother I did not like, he's the overbearing sly tricky type with harsh words, I guess a tsundere?

1st brother is too hmm... quiet... but dependable I guess but that almost makes him a wallflower,

5th brother, tbh I can't see him as a candidate... he grew up eventually but I don't recall him getting together with her because it ended before that point... it's mentioned they got together in the extras tho... I think].

I would have to say that the ending was slightly abrupt, I think, and then it went onto extras... It's not like they got super rich or anything which I appreciate that this story doesn't end with them conquering the country or anything, they just settle in their peaceful [somewhat] village and become well off enough to not worry about anything else.

4 stars because well the abrupt ending imo, it felt like there needed some wrapping up but w/e it's not terrible like skipping scenes or w/e. It's not particularly unique but it's not the cliche of 'the world's women are going extinct', it's just the particular village society of where the ML's live that the brother's end up sharing a wife due to their financial circumstances and the promise they made to their mother, tbh I'm not too sure of what happened with the MLs' mother and fathers but it lead to why they were willing to share the MC as their wife.

Overall it's an ok read for those that don't mind polygamy, there are bits about how she tries to balance their feelings, it's not like they immediately all get along with the situation of her being their shared wife automatically even if they did promise their mother... there's some tension and jealousy and such, but with some time she manages to somehow balance it out so it doesn't turn ugly and manages to improve their living circumstances which helps quite a bit.