"So you're saying that the entire purpose of Zhaoji's existence is to suffer the loss of his wife, then change completely, go mad and fall into ruin, and finally discover it was all a false alarm. His heart-wrenching grief and the destruction of his family are there to entertain those 'conquerors.'"
The System fell silent in her ear. "Yes."
"And the entire purpose of my existence is..."
She looked toward the cold, blue-green tombstone beneath the purple flowers, the one that belonged to her.
The System said, "To be loved by him, then die young and become the person he can't forget, creating obstacles for the conquerors who come later."
Qingshu wordlessly watched the young man who had come to pay his respects at her grave.
He had come here to mourn her one hundred and fifty-one times.
Every time, he wore the same clothes and had the same expression, with the same purple flowers overhead.
Every time, half a stick of incense later, a girl would come up the steps and collide with him among the mountainside daisies.
Girls in yellow, in pink, in purple, in green.
The gloomy young man was astonished every time he saw those bright, lively girls, like golden orioles.
The System said, "But every time he loses a wife, his reaction falls short of what they expect. They're not as important to him as they think. The conquerors can't win him over, and they're unhappy. They say it's because he has you in his heart, that he's 'not sexually pure' and 'not emotionally pure,' that he's 'tainted.'"
Qingshu watched the two of them walk away. "So?"
The System said, "So the conquerors forced the Creator to erase him."
What a self-righteous, arrogant bunch of onlookers.
The System said, "To do that, this sub-world has to be shut down, and the Heavenly Dao severed."
"You, him, and I will all be erased by the Creator."
"So, Qingshu."
"This time, I chose you."
The purple flowers were a deep, somber hue. Beneath their cascade, a wisp of blue-green smoke rose and swayed, then suddenly gathered in front of the tombstone and took on a graceful shape.
A wisp of white smoke curled around her slender wrist, condensed into a bracelet, and flashed.
With her flesh and blood restored, Qingshu looked at her hands. Her palms were moist and soft, tinged with red, and blue veins stood out on her wrists.
The System, transformed into a jade bracelet, said to her:
"So come back to life and save him."
"Don't let him fall in love with any of them."
We, destined to entertain the onlookers with tragedy, should hide away and keep fate from finding us.
#After the tools of a fake-death plot awaken, they save each other in turn#
Gloomy, sickly beauty with a bodhisattva's face VS a saintly man who's sick of the world, people, and everything
Inspired by that extremely heartbreaking story, Mountains Without End. While writing this, I felt at times like I was torturing cats and dogs.
The original blurb was Can I Take Revenge on My Ex-Husband After Ascension?, but that idea overlapped with another story I want to write, so I changed the blurb. Please remove it from your collection if you mind.
New blurb posted on 2026.7.2
The blurb and character profiles may change before the story begins. I haven't really figured out the characters yet.
Theme: Why should my suffering be your amusement?
