[Also known as: The Gentleman on the Wall]
[One-line summary: After I was widowed, I took in a lover, only to discover he was my husband, who had supposedly "fallen in battle" long ago!]
Song Xunyu was betrothed to Shen Yue, heir to the Marquis of Jing'an, from childhood. On their wedding day, an enemy nation invaded, and Shen Yue was ordered to the border to fight. He didn't even get the chance to lift her bridal veil.
A month later, word arrived that Shen Yue had died in battle. To comfort the families of fallen soldiers, the emperor bestowed a noble title upon Song Xunyu, along with a thousand taels of gold and a hundred mu of farmland.
The Shen family had lost its pillar. As the eldest son's wife, Song Xunyu managed everything inside and out. But her mother-in-law was unkind, her younger sister-in-law fought for power, and everyone wanted to take a piece of her. After three years of exhausting herself for the Shen family, she ultimately died from overwork.
Given a new life, Song Xunyu decides she won't put up with this nonsense anymore. Her mother-in-law can't stand the sight of her, so she grants her wish and moves to a separate residence. Her younger sister-in-law wants control of the household? She can have the whole mess.
With nothing left to worry about, Song Xunyu lives happily, enjoying her house and wealth, though she does get a little lonely.
One day, she takes a spontaneous trip and encounters a handsome gentleman, elegant and refined as a jade tablet. Her heart stirs, but as a widow, she's still constrained by convention.
Later, a family moves into the long-abandoned house next door. It turns out to be the gentleman she met that day. She takes it as a chance sent by the Bodhisattva. How could she let it pass? Song Xunyu casts off her restraints and pretends their meeting is a coincidence.
But after she flirts with him several times, the gentleman remains unmoved.
Disheartened, Song Xunyu takes some aged wine into the courtyard to drown her sorrows. Halfway through the bottle, she accidentally breaks her cup and nearly falls when her legs give way.
Then the gentleman vaults over the wall and catches her in his arms. Dizzy with delight, she offers the cup in her hand to his lips.
"Of all the beauty under heaven, you possess eight-tenths. Such beauty is wasted if no one admires it. Why not come with me, my lord? In time, I'll give you a proper place by my side."
It was just drunken nonsense, but the gentleman, who had been as cold as frost and snow only days before, curls his lips and says, "All right."
Much later, their affair is discovered, and Song Xunyu is shocked to realize that the lover she has been entangled with day and night is her husband, who supposedly died in battle. Even Ying Cong has feelings of his own for her.
Furious, Song Xunyu thinks he has been manipulating her all along. She immediately packs her things and tries to leave, but he holds her by the waist and pulls her into his arms, grazing her ear with a kiss. "You promised me a place by your side. Are you going to abandon me now?"
Song Xunyu's hair is in disarray. She spits at him, "Of all the shamelessness in the world, you have seven-tenths!"
Blurb dated August 11, 2023.
The blurb will be polished later, but the central premise will remain unchanged.
Theme: Be brave and pursue what you want.
