Written to keep my mind sharp in old age.
[Major rewrite of the full story] Irreverent blurb:
Reborn, the heroine realizes that in her previous life she had narrow horizons and a small heart, and took the wrong path. So the originally tragic, ordinary storyline suddenly swerves at breakneck speed onto another road, and not even nine oxen could drag it back.
A playlet, part one: A bewitching male demon versus a straight-laced, lustful guardian.
A playlet, part two: A dispirited, spoiled young master versus a wooden bodyguard with peerless martial prowess.
A playlet, part three: A genius, scheming young father on the run with his child versus a sharp-tongued National Security Bureau chief who keeps him in line.
A playlet, part four: A beautiful, frail, tragic merfolk versus a hapless princess who cannot stop crying.
A playlet, part five: A hot-tempered male cultivator versus a drama queen who keeps courting death.
A playlet, part six: A compassionate high priest versus a wicked demoness.
Serious blurb:
There is a strange insect in this world, called rouge. Its entire body is red as blood and amber. Grind the bones and blood of a female insect and apply them to the face, and the result is smooth, radiant, and extraordinarily beautiful. People adore it, and for a time it is bred in great numbers., A Pseudo-Bestiary
There are no demons in this world.
It is merely a blank storybook left behind by the Fates, its only writing a seal on the cover.
The seal reads: “When the false is taken for the true, even the true becomes false. Where nothing is taken for something, something becomes nothing.”
With every stroke, the written word becomes law. Inked characters on white paper conjure boundless worlds. This is the Realm of Delusion, where one tragic tale after another unfolds, filled with lovestruck men and women nursing broken hearts.
Delusion falls away, and the play reveals life. See through it, and the mystery can be solved.
Huo Li was the exception.
She was born from the resentment of the mother rouge insect, formed over countless millennia in the Realm of Delusion through the grinding away of flesh and bone. Born without a heart and unable to understand human feelings, she stole the realm’s name and drifted between truth and falsehood.
But this realm would not tolerate a true spirit. Just as Huo Li had managed to fashion herself a human form, she was pulled into the story.
