Song of the Long Night

Blurb:

Wen Shuning transmigrated into another world. From childhood, she lived with her mother in Wutong Lane, Yangzhou. Her mother told her that her father was a good man and held a high office in the capital. After her mother died, she went to the capital with her father. The very next day, she was made to take her elder sister's place and marry the Xu family's second young master as a good-luck bride.

The Xu family was a distinguished military clan. The second young master had been injured on the battlefield, and a quack doctor claimed that a celebratory wedding could save his life. What utter nonsense!

Li Chao wanted to curry favor with the Xu family but could not bear to send his eldest daughter, who was soon to enter the palace, so they came to her instead.

On their wedding night, Xu Yanjing handed her a divorce agreement. She refused. Though angry, she still did her best to care for him. Later, when he brought up divorce again, she wanted a peaceful life, and returning to the Li family was out of the question. So she tore up the agreement and declared that she would never leave.

A month later, Xu Yanjing died, making her the capital's youngest widow. She spent her days in the courtyard, plucking the strings of her pipa. She heard that a young general, valiant and skilled in battle, had recently made a name for himself in the capital.

She recalled that she, too, had once saved a general.

Then, one snowy night, she and the young general were locked together in a secret chamber. He asked, "Everyone says I look like my second brother. Do you think so too, sister-in-law?"

-

Xu Yanjing had died, but not quite. He became the illegitimate son of his second uncle, a man proficient in drinking, gambling, and womanizing. To return to the family, he had no choice but to travel far away to Liangzhou and fight alongside his father. After earning military honors and returning home, he saw the wife who had been widowed barely a month after marrying him.

Later, he led troops in his father's place. When he returned, he heard that she was going to marry the crown prince as a secondary consort. He rushed into the palace to ask the emperor for a reward before he even had time to go home.

The emperor asked, "What reward do you seek?"

He replied, "I wish to marry my late elder brother's widow, the second daughter of the Li family, Li Shuning."

The entire hall erupted in an uproar!

As soon as he finished speaking, an attendant shouted, "Recorder Li has fainted!"

Wen Shuning: I just heard something I shouldn't have. What should I do? I might as well pretend to faint.

1. The male lead is reborn, but not in his original body. The setting is fictional, with the Ming dynasty as a reference.

2. A bickering couple who are truly in love, fake uncle and sister-in-law, real husband and wife. There is some political intrigue, but it all serves the protagonists' romance.

3. The familiar trope of three men competing for one woman. Who will win her heart in the end?

4. Both leads are each other's first, their secret crush becomes mutual, and it has a happy ending.

5. See the author's notes for detailed content warnings.

Theme: In youth, springtime feelings are as heady as wine