Dream After Dream in Qingning

“This world is a play written in advance, and she is the doomed leading lady destined for a tragic death.” Song Yimeng opened her eyes and discovered she was living inside a storybook called A Dream of Qingning. She was a puppet on strings, controlled by the plot: She would fall in love at first sight with the deceitful Seventh Prince, break her engagement, and be abandoned by everyone. In the end, she would leap from the city wall. She wouldn’t die, but would be mutilated and confined in a clay jar, suffering endless humiliation. And the fiancé she had “abandoned,” the young general Chu Guihong, would be silenced with a single sword through the throat for her betrayal, his body never to be found. She refused to accept it. She remembered his tearful farewell on the wall beneath the moon. She remembered the letters they had exchanged without fail for ten years, every birthday gift he had sent, and his promise: “Meng’er, wait for me.” So she tore up the script and resolved to marry him. But the bridal sedan became her coffin. The first time, a blade pierced her throat. The second time, she was burned to ashes. The third time, poisoned wine sealed her throat... She could never make it to the wedding ceremony. When, at last, she died for the tenth time and screamed in despair, “I won’t marry him!” Time unexpectedly rewound by half a year. This time, she would no longer obsess over getting married. She would strike at the root and sever the chains of fate. She would protect her general and overturn this man-eating script, and make the “will of heaven” wielding the pen behind the scenes pay the price. “If you insist on making me an actress in this play, I’ll smash your stage.” “If you insist on deciding my ending, I’ll overturn your desk. As for how my fate unfolds, I’ll write it myself!”