Can We Still Get a Happy Ending If My Husband Dies?

*Childhood friends / Supernatural mysteries / Past and present lives / Reconciliation / Mutual devotion*

Song Shi had a childhood sweetheart, a fiancé.

He was proper and dignified, gentle as jade, and they had been in love since childhood.

But on the eve of their wedding, Song Shi received news of his death.

What no one knew was that his spirit had stayed by her side, held there by his obsession.

But he always believed that, as a mere ghost, he could never be worthy of his beloved, and he refused to appear and reunite with her.

A former suitor came to call again, and her parents and brothers urged her to choose another suitable man. But she could not abandon their love and insisted on marrying him while holding his memorial tablet.

From then on, everyone said that the young lady of the Song household had gone mad. Not only had she married a dead man, she spent every day praying to gods and asking ghosts for help, hoping to bring her dead husband back to life.

That night, the wind stirred the red curtains and the candlelight dimmed. A hazy figure truly appeared behind the curtain.

But in the blink of an eye, the shadow vanished into the moonlight.

The last shred of hope in her heart was utterly destroyed.

Much later, her father and brothers were framed, and she was attacked by villains. She nearly died several times, yet always managed to escape disaster.

Smelling the faint fragrance of lotus in the air, she suddenly understood that his spirit had always been beside her, keeping her company.

She thought that one person and one soul wasn't so bad. She wasn't afraid of the divide between the living and the dead, nor of the world's judgment. Being together was enough.

She thought she could fulfill her wish, but a truth she accidentally uncovered drove her into a desperate corner.

That day, the snow and wind were fierce, and the whole world was a vast white. Looking at the face before her, more familiar than any other, she smiled faintly.

His throat tightened. He gently raised his sleeve to wipe the blood from the face of the person in his arms. "Why... would you not let go of your obsession?"

A tear slid from the corner of her eye. "Someone burned their soul to prolong my life. They refused to be reborn for two lifetimes because of me. I can't let them down."

He asked, "Then, would you marry me once more?"

The person I long for is far away, beyond the Yellow Springs.

Cloud-covered mountains lie a thousand miles away, yet my heart reaches them from a thousand miles' distance.

Reading Notes:

1. The setting draws on the transition between the Northern and Southern Song dynasties, with a government system modeled on the Song.

2. Neither protagonist is based on a historical figure. The story was inspired by a dream the male lead told me about. Though they reconcile, they never actually fell out. Happy ending, happy ending, happy ending.

3. Some ghosts and gods are based on the Shuihudi Qin bamboo slips and the Fangmatan Qin bamboo slips.

Contest Entry Reason: When faced with hardship, the heroine never gives up. She believes that everyone has their own gifts and does her best to grow with determination.

Blurb written 2023.12.25, revised 2024.10.22

Theme: Take the world as your responsibility