The King's Dead Wife

Dusk fell.

He drank to drown his sorrows, the fine liquor burning in his throat like fire.

He raised his eyes to his wife's portrait. The spirited, valiant features in the painting seemed to be looking back at him.

He took off his court robes and fetched his wife's clothes. Their silks and brocades were fragrant, still faintly carrying her familiar scent. He draped himself in her floor-length gown, alluring ribbons, and delicate accessories.

He applied a touch of rouge.

Then gazed at himself in the mirror.

He looked at his own face, and it seemed as though his dead wife's spirit had returned in the faint glow of the candle. Facing his reflection, there were three of them.

A clever and benevolent princely lord, an artist of great literary talent.

A valiant princess sent from a powerful foreign kingdom to seal an alliance, distinguished in her insight.

Shouldn't theirs have been a love story passed down among the common folk?

But she died beneath his hopeful gaze, amid the prayers of the people and the chants of the monks.

The strange young lord was consumed by longing until it became an illness of the heart. He said,

“Now that I've lost my wife, I want to live on as her...”

And so the treacherous minister assassinated the strange ruler.

Facing the death he had foreseen, all he could do was gaze at his wife's portrait, splattered with his blood, and offer a sorrowful smile.