The Substitute Villainess Wakes Up (Old-School Angst)

I was with Yan Shuqing for a hundred years. Everyone in the immortal realm knew that I, Tan Riying, shared a harmonious marriage with him, loving and respecting each other.

I stood by him from his youth into adulthood, from having nothing to being revered by thousands.

He had always been distant, but I thought he treated me differently. Whenever he looked at me, there was a tenderness in his eyes that he tried to hide.

At first, I didn't understand. Then one day, he brought home the woman he loved, his white moonlight... No, she was the one who looked six parts like me.

I was stunned. I confronted him. "Did you marry me because I look like her?"

He said nothing. His silence gave me my answer.

He made her laugh and worried all night when she was unhappy. But when I vomited blood after my cultivation went awry, he never even asked about it.

It took me a long time to understand. The hundred years of devotion and companionship that meant the world to me were worth less than a penny to him. To him, they were nothing but a joke.

That day, thunder raged across the sky. He prayed to the gods to protect his badly wounded white moonlight, while my inner demons gnawed at my bones. I leapt from Phoenix Terrace.

The saddest thing was never failing to become someone's white moonlight. It was knowing that the white moonlight existed, yet still wasting your time on that mere speck of mosquito blood.

But in truth, I was too proud to put up with that.

So I leapt without hesitation or regret, and never looked back. I didn't see Yan Shuqing rushing toward me through the falling snow, his gaze shattering into pieces.

#

After faking my death and escaping, I returned to the mortal world and carried on living freely amid the bustle of everyday life.

Later, I heard that the lofty Lord Qinglian knelt all night at the grave of his late wife, his hair turning white by dawn. I heard that he frantically wove Dream Brocade to stop her soul from leaving. I also heard that grief and heartache had driven him mad, and his inner demons had consumed him.

By then, I had long since forgotten the deep wounds and humiliation of the past. When I heard the news, I only smiled faintly and raised a cup of rough wine toward the horizon.

Then I took the hand of the new sweetheart I'd just met in the mortal world, and went off to have fun.

Warnings:

1. Written in third person. The story features a white-moonlight substitute trope and a groveling romance, with amnesia, mistaken identity, terminal illness, and all kinds of melodrama.

2. Happy ending. The male lead is Yan Shuqing.

3. The female lead isn't a badass. She doesn't get to slap anyone in the face, and she's a total goofball and a bit of a clown.

4. Any other potential dealbreakers I've forgotten.

Trope noted on 2021.8.19. There's a screenshot on Weibo.

Theme: Learn to love yourself, then love the world.