We Were Happy to Meet, Yet It Ended in the South

“In the year 520, Empress Gongyi of the Guo Dynasty was deposed after contradicting Emperor Xianzong during his southern tour and imprisoned at the Biling Palace. In 521, Gongyi fell gravely ill and died. She was buried in the tomb of Consort Chunhui De, without a posthumous title. Emperor Xianzong later ordered all records of Gongyi erased. In the twelfth month of that same year, the northwestern Kingdom of Cangqiu invaded. Consort Rong Luo, renowned for her beauty but never summoned to the emperor's bed, won the favor of the King of Cangqiu. Consort Rong Luo was sent to marry him, averting war.”

Among the consorts in the harem of Emperor Xianzong of the Guo Dynasty, two women of the Luo clan were caught up in the currents of power. One was Consort Jieyu Luo, enfeoffed alongside Empress Gongyi, the subsequent empress Yixian. The other was Consort Rong Luo, sent away to marry a foreign ruler as soon as she entered the palace.

Luo Lingling was a woman who died in the 21st century. But when she arrived in the underworld, she discovered that her allotted years were not yet up. Hoping to be reborn into a good family and avoid being killed by a mistress again simply because she lacked money, power, and ability, Luo Lingling agreed to the Netherworld Lord's request: she would enter the dreamlike illusion of one of the three thousand wronged souls from the Yellow Springs, a tragic woman of the Luo clan. Her consciousness slipped into the illusion, and she believed she had transmigrated to a real dynasty like the Tang or Song, where she would live through the fate of this Luo woman, whose story seemed destined for a happy ending.

She did it, and eventually she returned. The Luo woman's grievance had been laid to rest. But Luo Lingling waited by the Bridge of Helplessness until Granny Meng asked what she was waiting for. “I'm waiting for my husband, so we can be reborn together,” she said. Granny Meng asked who he was, and Luo Lingling smiled faintly.

“His name is Nan Jue.”

“He is the king of the northwest.”