Her Delusions

[The blurb has been screenshotted. This is an ancient-style romance written after He Chao Wei Ci.]

1.

Her husband, whom she'd married just three months earlier, suddenly died of illness.

Wei Lan was given two choices.

One: be buried with him.

Two: marry her husband's younger brother and stay with him until she bore a child for the family.

Wei Lan wanted neither, so she stabbed the sorcerer who was about to sacrifice her and escaped.

2.

Pei Zhiyi was a teacher at Wutong Academy, a proper, rigid man who never smiled.

One winter night, he came home and found Wei Lan, who had run away.

He only frowned and said, "Madam Song, calling at my humble home so late at night is highly improper."

He didn't even notice that her hands were covered in blood.

This teacher, so devoted to propriety, lectured her that "dying of hunger is a small matter; losing one's chastity is a grave one," all while hiding her in his home and tending to her every need, three meals a day.

He preached the Three Bonds and Five Constants, chastity, and virtue, while also teaching her how to escape, assume a new name, and begin a new life.

Wei Lan could only think that Pei Zhiyi was a deeply contradictory man.

This stodgy scholar was willing to do anything for her, yet refused to admit that he loved her. When the Song family surrounded Wutong Academy with torches, Pei Zhiyi emptied an entire book chest filled with texts on propriety, women's commandments, and women's virtue, then stuffed her inside.

When the Song family came to demand her return, he turned around and said, "Since Madam Song has been entered into the Song family register, she must remain faithful to her husband until death."

3.

Pei Zhiyi spent his entire life teaching the rules of propriety.

The most outrageous thing he ever did was pin Wei Lan against a lacquered cabinet in the library and kiss her, overcome by desire. Even more outrageous was the night they spent together on top of the scattered books on propriety.

He had yearned for her for five years, watched with his own eyes as she married another man, and had already drawn his sword to cut those feelings from his heart.

But now she was standing before him again.

"I'll ask you one last time, Pei Zhiyi. Do you love me? Are you willing to leave with me?"

Pei Zhiyi replied, "I cannot leave with you, Madam Song."

Theme: Opposing feudal etiquette and tradition.