The Seventh Year After My Husband's Death

On the day Lord Xie of the Duke of Anguo's household remarried, everyone said his new wife, Madam Rong, might have come from humble origins, but she was remarkably beautiful. The only flaw was that she had brought along a ten-year-old son.

Madam Rong had long heard that Lord Xie's eldest legitimate son, Xie Guan, was cold and harsh by nature. Before leaving, she repeatedly warned her son, "We are dependent on others now, so watch your words and actions. Don't get involved with your elder brother in any way."

Rong Shuyu took his mother's words to heart. On the day he first entered the household, spring was deep and apricot blossoms fell. Amid the shimmering light and shifting shadows, he saw someone strolling out from beneath the corridor. Their eyes met, and he gazed into a pair of eyes as cold as a deep pool.

Knowing the man disliked him, he lowered his head and eyes, then softly called, "Elder Brother."

For the next few years, Rong Shuyu trod carefully at every step, as if walking on thin ice.

When he was sixteen, disaster suddenly struck the Duke of Anguo's household. Lord Xie and Xie Guan were sentenced to beheading, while the rest of the family was exiled to Lingnan.

Lingnan was bitterly cold, and Madam Rong died on the journey. Rong Shuyu's eyes were also injured by the frost, leaving him completely blind.

He should have vanished without a trace into the snow and wind of the southern wilderness.

But someone found him in the boundless snowy fields, carried him home, and cared for him tenderly.

Apart from his peerless beauty, Rong Shuyu had nothing to his name.

The following spring, the two married.

Though they were not deeply in love after the wedding, they treated each other with respect and consideration, like a devoted couple.

They shared a bed and slept in on rainy days, huddled around the stove roasting chestnuts on snowy nights, and listened to the tide crash against the shore from the deck of a merchant ship.

Until one night, Rong Shuyu waited by the door for his husband to come home. The candle burned out, dawn broke, and his husband never came.

Not long afterward, a servant from his husband's household brought the news. On the way home, in the heavy rain, the carriage had plunged off a cliff. His husband was dead.

When Rong Shuyu first heard, all he could think was that he would be alone again. Fortunately, he had never fallen in love. Otherwise, he would have been widowed at such a young age. How pitiful that would have been.

But year after year passed, and this fool finally realized that perhaps he had loved his husband too.

Unfortunately, his husband's belongings were few. No matter how many times Rong Shuyu searched through them, there were only a handful of old keepsakes.

Seven more years passed. That year, unable to endure the entanglement of the sons of aristocratic families, Rong Shuyu decided to move away.

While packing, he came across a seal, one of his husband's possessions.

Two tiny characters were carved underneath. His husband had never let him touch it before, but now Rong Shuyu could slowly feel the characters with his fingers.

He never imagined that the two characters would be Xie Guan.

His elder brother's name.

It turned out that the husband who had lifted him from the snow, married him, and spent every day and night with him had always been Xie Guan, the very person he had tried so hard to avoid.

Reborn into another life, Rong Shuyu decided that this time, he would no longer be afraid of Xie Guan.

He would treat him a little better, and better still.

Recently, Xie Guan had been troubled by scattered fragments that left him restless.

In his dreams, behind warm curtains and gauzy bed canopies, he and his nominal younger stepbrother were intimately entangled, consumed by a deep passion.

Even after learning that his stepbrother was blind and could never regain his sight, he had harbored the despicable thought of marrying him.

At first, he could only think how absurd and laughable the man in his dreams was.

Until he dreamed that

In the seventh year after his death, his stepbrother, his wife, was going to marry again...

Reader's Guide:

1. By the time they marry, they are no longer related in any way. This is a sweet romance, a sweet romance!

2. I'm out of ideas for the original premise. If you're not interested, feel free to collect it anyway.

2025.10.16

Theme: Love makes people stronger.