Reader's guide: This is not a substitute romance, so if that's what you like, please move along. The author is to blame for not being able to come up with a title.
If you opened the Bai family genealogy and ranked every living woman in the family, Bai Sujia's name would surely be near the top, in the most prominent position.
At the age of twenty-one, she married the Purple-Clad Marquis, the most powerful lord of the current dynasty.
It was said that when the imperial decree was issued, the daughters of Shangdu wept without end. Some threatened to kill themselves, some starved themselves, some shaved their heads and became nuns, and one particularly bold woman even ran to the palace gates and begged the emperor to revoke the decree.
What a spectacle!
Then, seven years later, Bai Sujia died in a secluded courtyard in the Western Prince's residence.
There were no trees, flowers, or water in the courtyard, only a vast stretch of yellow earth.
On that yellow earth, Bai Sujia clutched a zither tightly as she passed away on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival.
After Bai Sujia died, the Purple-Clad Marquis never took another wife.
People gradually came to believe that he had loved Bai Sujia of Longxi deeply.
But I think the Purple-Clad Marquis was truly ridiculous. If he had loved Bai Sujia so deeply, how could she have died in a secluded, desolate courtyard with nothing in it?
Theme: If love goes unfulfilled, you simply didn't try hard enough.
