My Husband, Whom I've Never Met

[Older gong, occasionally a bitter, green-tea beauty 1 x gentle, sickly but not weak, homemaker shou]

Li Du lives on Little Garden Mountain, cooking and looking after the children every day. He also observes mourning for his former husband, who died an unknown number of years ago, and is renowned far and wide for his virtue.

Purple rice cakes brushed with pomelo sauce, hawthorn cakes with dried tangerine peel, soft and delicious tea cakes, and crisp-crusted date paste pastries.

Most are for eating, while a few are offered at the memorial tablet of his late husband, whom he has never met but insists on claiming as his own.

Huai Xu Jun was kind and generous, protecting the people of his region, but Li Du got him caught up in a calamity and left his life or death unknown.

For many years, Li Du has accumulated good karma and worn mourning clothes, praying only that Huai Xu Jun might be safe and well. He is determined to repay his past sins with his life.

Until he encounters a snake demon while doing good deeds.

The snake clings to him until his heart softens, and his resolve to die begins to waver.

*

Pei Rongyu was once the Dragon Lord in charge of the Jianghuai region. Even powerful cultivators on the verge of becoming immortals had to address him as “Huai Xu Jun.” Two hundred years ago, he was forced to become a snake demon to save his life. Since then, all he has wanted is to wipe out the sects that harmed him.

Until he meets the little widower surnamed Li.

The little widower is especially good to him, has a lovely smile, and cooks delicious food.

The little widower has a long-dead beloved in his heart. He observes mourning for that person and raises children, and even made a puppet in that person's likeness.

He is even good to him only to accumulate good karma for his dead husband.

*

The little widower has a thing for fluffy fur and scales, so Pei Rongyu has no choice but to use the snake form he despises to win his affection.

“Did your former husband let you touch him too?”

The little widower: (shakes his head)

The snake demon coils around his neck, showing off his smooth, glossy scales, kept in such good condition.

“He must have had his reasons. Maybe he knew he had some flaw, or maybe he really did care about you... How about you touch mine?”

The little widower: (blinks) (lost in thought) (considers carefully)

“His scales were pretty, black, and they looked like they'd feel nice to touch.”

Pei Rongyu: “.”

He'd better never find out who this dead husband actually is.

He is consumed with jealousy, only to discover in the end that the heartless man who abandoned him was none other than himself.

Notes:

1. The shou has no sexual experience with anyone before the gong. Neither has any romantic experience, and both are sexually and romantically exclusive.

2. After meeting the gong, the shou sleeps with someone else once. It never happens again.

3. The children aren't his biological children. There is no childbearing in the main story. I'm still thinking about whether it will happen elsewhere.

4. The shou has no romantic feelings for the gong's former identity. The gong imagined the shou's beloved himself.

*

Temporarily dropped.

Theme: (Little Li to Little Pei:) Many of life's troubles come from pointless comparisons. ^-^