The Widow Returns to Their Youthful Married Days

Who becomes a widow at such a young age?

From the moment Jiang Yaoxu was born, the Astrologers' Pavilion marked her with cinnabar as a solitary star of ill fate, destined to suffer the Five Evils and Three Deficiencies.

The Jiang family sent her to Wangqing Mountain and left her to fend for herself.

Fortunately, an old, poor woman pitied her circumstances and raised her as her own.

*

In her thirteenth year chopping firewood on Wangqing Mountain, Jiang Yaoxu encountered a young man lost deep in the mountains.

She personally escorted him to the foot of the mountain. She thought it was just a chance meeting, and that would be the end of it. But the next day, in the very same spot, she ran into him again, injured by a hunting trap.

After that, they met again and again, day after day and year after year. He would seize every opportunity to seek her out.

He was down on his luck and unruly, and he clung to her for three years.

*

Until the Jiang family forcibly took her back.

The human heart is hard to fathom. Not long after returning to the Jiang family, Jiang Yaoxu was told she had gained a marriage engagement.

At last, she understood what they were really after.

*

Jiang Yaoxu gave a cold laugh and agreed with a gentle smile.

But on her wedding night, she hid a cold blade in her sleeve.

When the red veil was lifted, however, she stared at the groom before her and was struck speechless.

A dragon and phoenix adorned the wedding chamber. Red candles dripped wax, their flames swaying in the flickering light, which illuminated his striking brows and eyes, full of languid tenderness.

He noticed the concealed weapon. His gaze drifted casually to her face, pale with shock, and he raised his brows with a carefree smile.

"What a lovely surprise, my little bride. Is this grand welcome how you greet your husband?"

*

He was a young general who roamed the battlefield with unbridled arrogance, invincible and proud.

Famous from a young age, he had been domineering and unruly for over a decade.

A woman with her fate was hardly a suitable match for him.

But when the Astrologers' Pavilion once again spread word that she was born to bring calamity, he reined in his wild ways. He strode over divination tortoiseshells crushed to powder, drew his sword, and pointed it at the crowd, murderous intent blazing in his eyes.

From then on, no one in the world dared look down on her again.

She was his wife, the celestial beauty he had married properly, brought home in a bridal sedan carried by eight bearers.

To hell with the Five Evils and Three Deficiencies.

*

But Chu Qingtai had a wicked disposition. Jiang Yaoxu had bickered with him for years, but they always made up after their fights. She had never imagined that one day she would see him die with her own eyes.

The crowds clamored, and rumors flew. Jiang Yaoxu paid them no mind. For three years, she lived as a widow and kept the household in perfect order, hoping only that he knew of it in the afterlife.

She held on for three years, but in the end her body gave out first.

*

When she opened her eyes again, her soul had returned.

*

A maid's jubilant announcement reached her ears: "The general has returned victorious!"

Jiang Yaoxu asked in confusion, "Wasn't he dead?"

With a bang, the front door was kicked open.

She looked up. A figure rushed in and kicked the door wide. His armor still reeked of blood. He must have raced home at full speed, frantic with worry.

The young man was travel-worn, but his brows still held all their usual arrogance. Remembering the words from the woman he had thought of day and night, his heart ached with anger, and he laughed in fury.

"What, were you hoping your husband had died so you could marry someone else?"

A chill settled in his brows. "Let me tell you, your husband is going to live to a hundred. You'd better forget that idea."

Live to a hundred...

Jiang Yaoxu lowered her eyes.

That's right. You were always meant to live to a hundred.

"Bonus Scene"

Outsiders loved to say that Chu Qingtai was henpecked and wouldn't dare say a word against Jiang Yaoxu.

When his fellow officers joked about it, the young general gave a cold laugh. "Absurd."

He slowly turned the wine cup in his hand. "There's no one in this world who can keep this general in line. Her, of all people?"

But around the corner, he ran into Jiang Yaoxu, who had come to bring him winter clothes.

The smile froze on Chu Qingtai's lips.

That night, Chu Qingtai was kicked out of bed.

Seeing him inch back toward her with pleading eyes, Jiang Yaoxu said expressionlessly, "The general is peerless in this world. I suppose you don't care for such things. Perhaps we should sleep in separate rooms from now on..."

Chu Qingtai raised his brows in protest and gently covered her lips. "My dear, you can be angry, but how can you make things so difficult for me?"

Before Jiang Yaoxu could reply, Chu Qingtai took her hand and pressed it tightly against his face.

His eyes were full of laughter. "I was a fool earlier. You can scold me or hit me, and I'll take it," the young general said in a meek voice, deliberately putting on a pitiful act. "But if you send me away, I'll lie awake all night. Can you really bear to do that to me?"

Note: This is almost entirely about the romance, with a light, everyday feel. There is little plot, and the story focuses on falling in love, with lots of flashbacks to their past lives!

There is no historical dynasty as a model. The setting is a huge fictional mishmash, so please don't scrutinize it too closely.

There is a little political intrigue, but very little. The characters are not perfect and all have flaws. The female lead is neither strong nor a powerful heroine!

Please don't read if that bothers you.

Coming soon:

"Jade in Her Heart, Pearl in Her Sleeve":

They said, "Fengyi, if you have to leave, take this with you and go far away."

Tears welled in Fengyi's eyes, but where was she supposed to go?

They said again, "Go west, to the Changqian region. Find the person who can protect you."

Fengyi nodded, took her bundle, and slipped away in the night without daring to stop.

She dared not look back, either.

She ran faster and faster, until even the fear trembling in her heart was left behind.

Her usually splendid skirts dragged along the ground, their layers of cumbersome fabric now a shackle weighing her down.

Unsurprisingly, she fell hard.

Seeing stars, she hit the ground right in front of someone.

Both her knees were bruised, and they hurt terribly.

"How pitiful..."

A young man's faint, mocking voice sounded beside her.

She struggled to raise her head. All she could make out was a tall figure hidden in the darkness. Moonlight revealed a pair of dark eyes and a gaze that seemed to fall on her, careless yet indifferent.

But Fengyi could no longer worry about any of that. Her whole body ached, she was exhausted, and her pursuers would never let her go.

So, for the first time in her life, she bowed her head and begged.

"C-could you let me rest inside for a little while? I... I'll leave..."

The young man looked visibly surprised.

He lowered his eyes and glanced at her sidelong, then smiled and stepped aside, revealing the wooden door behind him. "Come in, if you're not afraid."

Back then, Fan Fengyi thought that she was utterly alone and adrift. To protect something more precious than her own life, she would have to bow her head and beg far too many times.

She could never have imagined that the boy who had maliciously frightened her would one day reach out, lift the hem of her mud-splattered skirt, and wipe the dirt from her face.

Yesterday, she had been a pampered noblewoman from a prominent family. In a single day, she became a destitute homeless fugitive. She had no choice but to flee from place to place. Yet when she was trembling with anxiety, that young man's figure stood before her, shutting out all the chaos of a turbulent age.

His voice drowned out the rain of arrows, and his body shielded her from the cruel wind and frost. He trampled frost and bones beneath his feet, silently following her like a shadow from the capital to Changqian, protecting her day and night.

There was no need to beg helplessly in her loneliness, nor to fear wolves howling in the wilderness. He washed the blood from his hands, took hers, and led her step by step toward the dawn that belonged to her.

She would still be Fan Fengyi.

Fengyi... Fengyi... May the years ahead bring you everything you wish for.

"After Marrying My Frail, Short-Lived Husband":

Xi Lingjun, the third young lady of the Xi family, was said to be proper and disciplined, much like her virtuous and gentle elder sister. Since childhood, she had also been promised to a respectable man. By all rights, she should have lived out her life according to plan.

But though outsiders saw her as gentle and docile, in the end she personally put an end to this laughable engagement.

Her so-called good match was nothing but a dissolute playboy. Her parents' love for her could not outweigh their desire to pave the way for her brother's future.

Once she saw the truth, her parents scolded her for being narrow-minded, jealous, and unreasonable.

Xi Lingjun smiled scornfully. After years of putting up with everything, this time she would not back down. She stepped forward, straightened her back, and spoke each word with cutting precision.

"I'd rather die than marry him!"

Overnight, she found herself at the center of a storm, with everyone pressuring her.

She refused to let a marriage contract ruin the rest of her life. So she carefully sought out someone she could make use of.

In the end, she went to one man: Yan Huaizhi.

He was a renowned young gentleman in the capital, upright and refined. He was gentle and understanding, and far more handsome than the other man.

But her decision nearly made her parents faint with rage.

There was a reason.

Yan Ziyong came from the Yan family, a distinguished family of upright officials.

He was the same Yan Xilang who had once been as warm and refined as jade, brilliant and ambitious, with a promising future. Everyone knew his name.

But now, he held only an honorary post as a Hanlin Academician at the Tianzhang Pavilion and had no real duties. He lived in seclusion, with a frail, sickly body and an incurable illness. Every doctor in the city said he had little time left.

But Xi Lingjun had plans of her own.

At first, she had been surrounded on all sides. Even those closest to her wanted her to sacrifice the rest of her life to clear the way for the only son in the family.

She had no other choice but to plunge into another whirlpool. She did not do this to exact revenge. She simply wanted to stake the rest of her life on forging a way forward for herself.

To Yan Huaizhi, his life was short and fragile. To have the good fortune of keeping her company was a blessing from three lifetimes. He wanted nothing more than to spend what little time he had left protecting her.

As for Xi Lingjun, her reasons for marrying him were far from pure. At the time, she hoped he would die soon.

When she first married into the Yan family, that was exactly what she thought.

But later, she began to think:

If even those who were utterly wicked could live long lives, what harm would there be in letting one more man in this world live on?

For the first half of her life, she endured endless rules and expectations, and grew used to lowering her head and swallowing her pain. All she had to do was be obedient and sensible, so she spent more than a decade enduring in silence.

Later, she met Ziyong. He stayed by her side and helped her speak out about right and wrong, with nothing to be ashamed of.

Theme: Love yourself before loving others. People should learn to rely on and cherish themselves.