She crossed mountains and rivers to find her husband.
Xu Zongsu was deeply captivated the first time he saw Shen Yu.
She was the wife of a fallen officer under his command.
Shen Yu stood in a corner of the military tent, dressed in white. When she looked up, her red-rimmed, swollen eyes made her seem heartbreakingly delicate, like a gardenia too fragile to pluck. Every step she took toward him sank deeper into his heart.
Xu Zongsu slowly closed his eyes. Keeping his heart free of worldly attachments seemed impossible for the rest of his life.
*
Shen Yu was gentle and meek. At her elders' arrangement, she married into a once-prominent family in the capital that had long since fallen into decline.
By all accounts, the match was above her station.
But her husband was as gentle as jade and treated her with the utmost tenderness. Before long, he became the only person she could rely on in her otherwise lonely life. Then came the call to enlist on the frontier, and her husband gave up his writing without hesitation to join the army.
Shen Yu waited alone at home for two long years, only to receive a brief letter of divorce.
Her heartbreak and despair left her with no tears to shed. Shen Yu made the boldest decision of her life:
She would go to the military camp alone and demand an explanation from him face to face.
On the night she arrived at the garrison, Shen Yu fainted upon hearing that her husband had died. When she woke, she remembered nothing, save for a vague recollection that her husband wanted to divorce her.
Looking at the utter stranger before her, who claimed to be her husband, Shen Yu shrank back in fear. "Didn't you want to divorce me?"
Xu Zongsu paused, his eyes darkening for an instant. "Not anymore."
2023.3.25
Forced possession | melodrama
Theme: Answer lies with lies, but treat others with sincerity.
