The Frail, Hated One Who Longs to Die

[Cover art drawn by the author]

Synopsis:

Ling Li died once. After being reborn, he grew tired of it all.

He wouldn't struggle, wouldn't beg for love, wouldn't hope for anyone or expect anyone to treat him like a person.

Better if they just thought he was dead.

"Want to humiliate me? Get in line. Want to save me? Too late. Want to love me? You're crazy."

Given a second life, he no longer wants to fight for anything. He faces his former bullies, his hypocritical adoptive parents, the real young master who has returned to claim his birthright, and his childhood friend and fiancé, who once toyed with him like a puppet.

Everything about it disgusts him. With his frail, sickly body, Ling Li decides that coughing, fainting, and throwing up blood is the easiest way to stay out of everyone's affairs.

The real young master, who was just about to make things difficult for Ling Li: Wait, I haven't even done anything yet. Why has he collapsed?

The bully who used his power to pick on others: Stop pretending to be pitiful, damn it! He really doesn't want to live...!

When faced with his hypocritical fiancé, Ling Li smiles knowingly. "Want us to grow closer? Sure. Start by getting close to that coffin. We'll need it for our ghost wedding later."

His childhood companions all eye him covetously. Ling Li chooses not to see them. Their sincerity and pretense have nothing to do with him. He closes his eyes and waits peacefully to die.

Ling Li thinks he'll simply drag himself to the end, tired and bored. He never expects that this lifeless imitation of a living person will prove even more irresistible than before.

Ling Li calmly watches everything unfold much as it did in his previous life. One thing puzzles him: there was a man he barely remembered from his past life, but in this one, the man keeps turning up in front of him.

No one cared when he cried. Now that he stands silent as snow, everyone is going mad.

Yet he never notices the one who's gone the most mad.

*

Xie E lost his beloved treasure three times.

The first time was when he was eight. He caught a fleeting glimpse of a beautiful child at the hospital. The boy looked exquisite, and his clear eyes were like glass beads.

While everyone else avoided Xie E, covered in bruises, as if he were a poisonous snake, the boy walked toward him with a candy stick in his mouth, bathed in light. A soft, fragrant embroidered handkerchief patted his face, and a childish voice asked, "Does it hurt?"

That day, the brilliant red clouds reflected in the boy's eyes burned themselves into Xie E's heart. They stayed there for seven years.

When they met again, the boy had grown into an outstanding young man. He'd shed his boyishness and become ever more dazzling. The young master of the Ling family was like a prince, the center of attention wherever he went, surrounded by admirers.

Xie E had found him again, and his whole body trembled with excitement. But the news that the Ling and Liu families had arranged an engagement for him extinguished the fire in Xie E's heart.

From then on, Xie E became a caged beast, hidden from the light. He buried every dark, damp longing and could only hide in the shadows, silently guarding the young man's back.

The third time they met, it was in front of a coffin in a funeral hall. The glass treasure he'd guarded all his life... shattered before his eyes.

The light he had yearned for but could never touch was trampled underfoot and discarded like trash. In the end, it broke into thousands of pieces. The glass eyes beneath that red sky had become nothing but dead silence.

Xie E made the most reckless decision of his life. He defied everyone and took the young man's ashes home to be buried in the Xie family cemetery. After taking revenge on everyone, he chose to end his own life at the young man's grave.

Everyone thought Xie E was a mad dog who snapped at anyone he met, a ruthless, cold-blooded calamity born from the depths of hell.

Everyone said Xie E was crazy, and that he became even crazier after the Ling family's fake young master died.

*

After bringing everything to an end, Xie E returned to the cold grave and pressed a tender, lingering kiss to the gravestone. He clutched a wrinkled embroidered handkerchief in his palm, keeping it untouched by the blood on his body.

Beneath a sky blanketed in fiery red clouds, Xie E closed his eyes in contentment...

I'm not crazy. He's dead, and I just don't want to live anymore.

I'm a bad omen by nature, and you're the only good luck I've ever had.

[World-weary, aloof, and intent on dying / sharp-tongued, sickly beauty on the bottom x devoted, ghostlike, loyal puppy, manipulative, mother-hen top / possessive, competitive madman top]

[The crematorium won't take him back. His ashes get scattered, too.]

[A story about a broken, frail beauty with a tragic life, reborn into a half-dead existence with an extraordinarily beautiful state of mind: a resilient little glass treasure.]

[A story of mutual salvation and love that goes both ways. The mad dog picks up the shattered little glass treasure piece by piece, repairs it, wipes away the dust, and helps it shine again.]

[Synopsis saved on 2025/6/12]

Theme: Glass should never shatter.