In her previous life, Shen Qingyi married Shen Du, a gentle and refined man, believing herself to be the luckiest woman in the world. During their three years of marriage, she learned to play the qin, write poetry, and make osmanthus cakes for him, turning herself into someone else. Then she found the portrait in his study: the woman in it looked seven-tenths like her, with a cinnabar mole between her brows. Her name was Bai Ruomei, the woman he had loved but could never have.
She was nothing but a substitute.
Heartbroken, Shen Qingyi threw herself into the river and ended her wretched life.
When she opened her eyes again, she was eighteen. Nothing had begun yet, and Shen Du had not shown her his false tenderness. In this life, she swore she would never repeat her past mistakes or live as anyone’s shadow.
But she never expected her cousin Pei Yan, with whom she had barely interacted in her previous life, to pursue her at every turn this time. His gaze burned as if he had been waiting a thousand years. He was stern and taciturn, decisive and ruthless, yet time and again, his eyes reddened in her presence.
“Qingyi,” he said, “this time, let me be the one to find you.”
Meanwhile, Shen Du approached her just as he had in her previous life, trying to draw her back onto that same old path. And the friends, maids, and even enemies around her all found their lives taking different turns this time.
Several romances, countless entanglements. Some found their happy endings; others carried their regrets for life.
This time, she would no longer follow in the footsteps of her past life. She would live for herself, just once.
