The Heart's Wounds Won't Fade [Male Substitute]

*Male substitute / female lead doesn't love the male lead, who goes crazy

The day Shu Ning and Li Weiyi divorced, Li Weiyi killed himself.

-

During the two years Shu Ning and Li Weiyi were married, everyone thought Shu Ning was hopelessly in love with him.

After all, she had deliberately schemed to marry him, using underhanded means to attach herself to him.

When Li Weiyi tried to argue with Shu Ning, she would only smile and move closer, saying gently, “A Yi, don't be angry. Your health matters most.”

She called him A Yi.

Li Weiyi also believed Shu Ning was hopelessly in love with him.

After their passionate embraces, she would often stare at his face, then smile faintly and caress him tenderly. “I love your eyes most.”

Li Weiyi hated her boldness and frankness. His face turned pale, then red, as he shoved her away and said coldly, “Shallow!”

-

After a month of the married couple giving each other the silent treatment (at least, that's what Li Weiyi thought), he suddenly decided one day that this was pointless.

A real man shouldn't hold a grudge against her.

Li Weiyi followed Shu Ning to a place she often visited.

It was her birthday, and his mother had insisted that he bring Shu Ning home.

He endured a crowded, foul-smelling train, then got on a bumpy bus with no air conditioning. After throwing up, he thought bitterly: Shu Ning would probably be so moved to see him that she'd burst into tears.

Shu Ning really was crying.

Li Weiyi stared blankly as Shu Ning carefully caressed a tombstone. Tears shone in her smiling eyes, her face carrying a uniquely fragile beauty as she called out, “A Yi...”

Who was she calling?

When Li Weiyi realized, disbelief gave way to fury. He threw down the cake and flowers in his hands and shouted, asking whose grave it was.

Shu Ning looked at him quietly, without offering a single explanation.

She was even afraid the cake might soil that person's tombstone.

A proud man like Li Weiyi would not be anyone's substitute for the dead.

Shu Ning said, “Then let's get divorced.”

Female lead's perspective:

After her boyfriend, Gu Yi, died, Shu Ning sank into unbearable grief.

Until she met Li Weiyi.

She looked into his eyes, and the world stood still.

There was even a “Yi” in his name.

-Inspired on June 2, 2025; blurb revised on July 15, 2025

-Angst for the heroine, the hero, and the readers; melodrama

Theme: Cherish life