A Wedding to Bring Good Fortune Turns into a Ghost Marriage

(The outline for this novel has problems. My original ideas and what I actually wrote have diverged badly. I wasn't prepared enough, and I can't force myself to keep writing it, so I'll take it off paid access and make it free. I won't abandon it, I won't abandon it. I've never abandoned a novel before. After it's free, I'll gradually upload the remaining chapters, so you can read it as a free novel.

Thank you for your support and understanding. I'm very sorry, but I'm really not good at writing supernatural stories. I wanted to try a new genre, and even commissioned a cover, but I've learned my lesson and am ready to crawl back to historical and modern romance. Supernatural stories are so hard, I'm trembling with fear.

Unless something unexpected happens, my next novel will be a historical romance between men. While I'm preparing it, I'll update free bonus chapters for my older novels from time to time to keep you company. After this one goes free, I'll keep updating it until it's complete. I'm sorry to have let all you lovely readers down. Once again, my apologies.)

Nineteen-year-old Qi Hao was sent to bring good fortune to Yin Chaoting, the dying eldest young master of the Yin family in town. They said the young master had a gloomy disposition and a bad temper. With no way to escape, Qi Hao could only steel himself and go.

When he arrived at the Yin home, the person on the bed was pale and gloomy. He showed no warmth to the relatives asking after him, but reached out a bluish-white hand covered in needle marks toward Qi Hao and gave him a wan smile.

“Sleep with me tonight. I'm cold.”

Qi Hao took a step back, clutching his bundle.

“That costs extra.”

“One tael of gold per night.”

Well... all right, then. Mainly for the good karma.

Later, he suddenly noticed that the window in the lid of the joint burial coffin prepared in the ancestral hall was on the bottom? He'd heard some families used this kind of coffin to suppress the soul of a living person buried as a companion in a ghost marriage.

Qi Hao didn't dare stay any longer. He quickly made an excuse to leave. Following Yin Chaoting's directions, he went to dig up the gold outside the Earth God temple. As soon as he came out, he encountered a ghost wall, but Yin Chaoting rescued him and even dragged him into the Earth God temple to get married. They spent seven days in blissful wedded harmony. When Qi Hao woke up, he realized Yin Chaoting, who had been dead for seven days, had bewitched him.

He hurriedly buried the gold again.

“Eldest Young Master Yin, I don't want the gold anymore. Just consider the time I spent sleeping with you before as a freebie. Now we're separated by life and death, and humans and ghosts belong to different worlds. We're not a good match...”

He tried every method he could think of to send the young master away, but after only a few normal days, he found that things had started appearing in his home. At night, whenever he opened his eyes, a drenched female ghost would be climbing out of the well in the courtyard.

Qi Hao was so scared he huddled in his house with the lights on at night. Suddenly, something icy wrapped around him. It felt just like when he slept with Yin Chaoting. Clenching his hands, his eyes reddening, he asked:

“Yin Chaoting, is that you?”

The female ghost had already crawled over, and he couldn't afford to hesitate.

“Can you make her go away?”

“If I make her go away, you'll sleep with me.”

Qi Hao... Well, it's not like I can't.

With a cold ghost lying beside him, Qi Hao tried being gentle after his tough approach didn't work.

“Eldest Young Master Yin, can you let me go?”

His bluish-white lips spoke a chilly sentence.

“Do you want me or her?”

Qi Hao promptly put on a smile.

“I want you. It's late, let's go to sleep.”

During the day, he went straight to Blind Cheng's house to get rid of the ghosts.

“So, you're saying I've always been able to see spirits, and it was only because I formed a marriage pact with Yin Chaoting that I became normal? Now he's dead, so I can see spirits again?”

The half-immortal nodded.

“So what do I do now?”

“Two options. Keep things as they are and enjoy the different hanging ghosts and drowned ghosts every day, or try getting together with the young master of the Yin family. He can help you drive away the female ghosts, and he can keep the other things away, too.”

Qi Hao: “Get together how?”

Half-Immortal Cheng: “Date, obviously. What else could two young men do together?”

Date? How could a human and a ghost date? They weren't even the same species.

Qi Hao returned home in a daze. A hanging ghost was swinging on a tree in his courtyard. He immediately started convincing himself: If he had to look at ghosts, should he choose one ghost instead of a whole crowd? Maybe species didn't need to be such a strict requirement.

But from that day on, the hostile presences spying on him grew fewer. The only problem was that someone, no, a ghost, would appear in his bed every night and hold him. He put up with it, but was also afraid the ghost would leave and a bunch of ghosts would come instead. Every day, he was torn between choosing one ghost or a whole crowd.

P.S. The seme is a ghost.

An unconventional clingy male ghost.

Upcoming novel: My Imperial Brother Is Seriously Ill Again

Xiao Han, a top lawyer renowned for never taking criminal cases with a sentence under ten years, tripped over himself and got knocked out by counterfeit liquor. He transmigrated.

Other people transmigrated into emperors or princes. He got it even worse: he became the ten-year-old only son of a rebel leader at the end of a dynasty!

When he arrived, his father, who had risen in rebellion, had just ambushed a prison cart and rescued a marquis exiled by the court.

They said the marquis had defied the court's order to suppress the refugees. He had resolutely led an army to repel the Northern Hu, who had come south to massacre villages, and held the northern border. The court had charged him with disobeying an imperial decree, and the whole realm considered it unjust.

His father won popular support among the rebel kings the moment he rescued the man.

“Lin'er, he'll be your big brother from now on. How about having him teach you to read and write?”

Xiao Han's eyes filled with tears. He was a highly educated man, yet he couldn't recognize a single character here. A teacher from the outside world had come, and he wouldn't be exposed. Wonderful!

Shen Ting had arrow wounds and injuries from torture. After being unconscious for seven days, he woke to find a fair little boy staring at him with wide eyes, holding his hand and calling him big brother.

At first, he thought the rebel leader wanted to use him, but then he realized the leader's son seemed to have the makings of a wise ruler.

From then on, he carefully looked after the little dumpling. When the boy was sleepy, he soothed him to sleep; when he was sick, he fed him medicine. He taught the little dumpling to read and write, military strategy, and the ways of governing the realm.

Shen Ting was devoted, while Xiao Han was suffering. He wasn't a little dumpling! Shen Ting was exactly his type, and his intentions were impure. But he was only ten... He'd have to wait until he grew up!

Six years later, his father unified the south and ascended the throne, and he became Crown Prince.

Less than a year later, his father died, and he inherited the throne. Shen Ting became a prince of a different surname and led armies on campaigns in the south and north despite his grave illness.

After peace came to the realm, Shen Ting supported selecting officials through the imperial examinations, and became a thorn in the side of the great clans.

Day one: “Your Majesty, Prince Yongning is secretly keeping weapons, building up his own forces, and plotting rebellion.”

Day two: “Your Majesty, Prince Yongning's cold has worsened, and he's unconscious.”

The emperor left his ministers behind and hurried to the prince's residence.

When slander didn't work, they tried to send women to the emperor. The ministers had only just submitted a memorial urging the emperor to select consorts on a grand scale when Prince Yongning became seriously ill again. This time, the emperor brought him straight into the palace. With an adult prince living in the palace, how could the women of the harem get in?

Whenever the prince fell ill, the emperor indulged him in everything. He supported his establishment of official schools, the expansion of the imperial examinations, and the suppression of the great clans, carving out a path for countless men from humble backgrounds.

A short scene:

The prince's residence

Emperor Zhou Wu, dressed in black imperial robes, held the frail, sickly man in his arms and fed him medicine. A cold hand caught his wrist, and a weak voice sounded.

“I've made things difficult for Your Majesty.”

“Don't say that, Brother. Take your medicine, and as long as you recover, I'll let you personally oversee next spring's examinations, all right?”

After Emperor Wu left, an attendant softly tried to persuade the man on the bed.

“Your Highness, His Majesty treats you so kindly. Why ruin your health?”

“Even the deepest affection cannot outweigh the words ‘ruler and subject.’”

Inside the palace

“Your Majesty, the prince went two days without taking his medicine after catching a cold, which is why his condition worsened. I'm afraid...”

“I'm afraid he did it on purpose to make me worry.”

“This servant wouldn't dare.”

“Get up.”

The figure in black stood alone atop the ninefold palace. Shen Ting didn't believe in the oath a ruler made before ascending the throne, nor that an emperor could remain constant. So he was willing to use even his own body.

He would spend a lifetime making him believe that an emperor could be faithful to one person from beginning to end. After all, this was the person he'd fallen for at first sight.

Theme: Beautiful love can heal the darkness.