An unmarked memorial tablet is enshrined in the old Chen family home. It belongs to Chen Yu's "fiancé."
She learned to embroider her wedding dress at seven, and at fifteen began dusting the tablet and burning incense before it.
Her clan said it was a blessing: "Only a virtuous, chaste woman deserves to have incense burned before her memorial tablet."
Then one day, the sound of a lesson about "freedom and equality" drifted in through the private school window, and she felt the name carved into the base of the tablet: Li Yaozu.
"He died at five. I hadn't even been born yet." For the first time, she laughed aloud.
On the night the clan leader forced her to marry the tablet, she overturned the altar table. "I am Chen Yu, not a widow of the Li family!"
