Being a second wife is difficult

[Domestic power struggles + slow and steady relationships + everyday family matters + raising children + slow-burning romance]

A useless second wife, starting the game with a terrible hand.
On my first day after marrying into the Earl's family, my mother-in-law told me to "respect" my concubine, and my husband said, "I won't neglect you," which was his explanation.
My stepson thinks I'm not as pretty as his mother, and my stepdaughter runs away whenever she sees me.
Everyone in the household was waiting for the new wife to make a fool of herself.
I immediately lay down flat.
What business is it of mine? I'm not a housekeeper.
Why fight for favor? It's not like I'm unwanted.
My mother-in-law won't give me any control over the household? I'm happy to have some peace and quiet.
My aunt wants me to be polite? I've been so polite that she's embarrassed.
When only three hundred taels remained in the Earl's account, the clansmen wanted to divide the family property, and the shop lost money year after year.
The mother-in-law got anxious.
Her husband is an official in another city and knows nothing about it.
There was no other way but for me to do it.
Half a year, just half a year—
I sent the steward who had embezzled tens of thousands of taels of silver to prison.
They invited back the tenants who had all run away, one by one.
They pinned the clansmen who were arguing about dividing the family property to the ground and rubbed them in the dirt.
Everyone thought I was about to dominate the battlefield.
Then the biggest problem arose—
The wife's family is coming to take the child away.
They said things like "a stepmother is not fit to raise the children of her ex-wife."
To put it bluntly, they were just jealous of how well the Earl's family was doing.
I carried an old account book and went alone to the Gu family's gate:
"Either keep the child, or settle the accounts. The choice is yours."
I'm definitely going to win this round.