Coming soon:
To escape punishment, Liu Jianshu invented a husband for herself.
His name was Li Tingxu. He was from Shangling, had known her since they were young, and was serving in the army in the northwest.
To make the story seem convincing, she wrote to this supposed husband every month, sending her letters to the frontier.
Every word in them was heartfelt, all about her own life.
Some urged her husband to work hard and get ahead.
Some spoke of her worry and longing for him to return.
But every word was a lie.
One day, someone shouted outside her door that her husband had returned from the army.
*
Li Tingxu was an ordinary soldier from Shangling, serving in the army on the northwestern frontier.
When he was close to death, a courier brought him a letter, saying it had been sent by his wife.
In the gloom, he opened the letter and read the hopes his “wife” had for him.
After that, a letter came every month, without fail, each one written just for him and signed “Jianshu” in delicate, hairpin-style script.
*
Every soldier in the Northern Expedition Army knew that their fearsome general had a wife he thought about constantly.
She wrote to him every month, without fail, for six years.
But the young general never wrote back.
He charged into battle in a bloodstained robe, spear in hand, keeping the letters clean and tucked inside his underclothes, close to his chest.
Theme: Redemption.
