He died before his wife's grave. His last words were, “Wanwan, wait for me.”
When he opened his eyes again, he had become Lu You in the Southern Song during the Shaoxing era, twenty years old. His wife, Tang Wan, was being confined to a separate courtyard by his mother for “disobeying her parents,” with a divorce letter hanging over her head.
He thought he was the only one who had transmigrated. As he tried to establish himself in the Lu family, he searched for traces of his wife, Su Wantang. It wasn't until Chapter Twelve that Su Wantang fully awakened within Tang Wan.
She, too, thought she was the only one who had transmigrated. She was convinced that the “Lu You” before her was the real historical Lu You.
And so
He listened to her coughing from outside the wall, while she asked from within, “I wonder if there's anyone outside the wall.”
He wrote, “Someone listens to the rain at night beyond the wall, but cannot speak,” and she understood the words without knowing that the person was her husband.
He thought his wife had vanished forever; she thought her husband had remained a thousand years in the future.
They lived together, parted, and went their separate ways as Lu You and Tang Wan, with every encounter falling one step short of confirming the truth. They finally reunited in middle age, but the truth still remained hidden. They doubted and tested one another, and neither dared speak first.
Until one night in Peach Blossom Spring, she babbled in her fever: “Shen Yan, the heart monitor is too loud. Turn it off.”
He froze.
Half a century of missed chances, a lifetime of restraint, all those “wait for me”s found their answer in that moment.
This is a story about waiting. No, it's a story about being afraid to ask. The deepest love is when someone is right beside you, yet it takes a lifetime to dare ask:
“Wanwan, is that you?”
Female-oriented · historical romance · both transmigrate into other bodies · a thousand-year tragic romance · happy ending.
Theme: Longing gives us strength, and after a thousand years, they finally meet again
