Spring Returns to the Withered Wood

I was born with a strange illness. The clan matriarch said it could only be cured if I married on the day I turned eighteen. But no one in the clan wanted to marry a sickly girl like me. With no other choice, my father offered a hefty sum and had me toss a bridal ball to choose a husband. I squeezed my eyes shut and steeled myself: whoever it hit, I’d marry! But just as I tossed the ball, a grand procession of spirit performers came sweeping down the street. The bridal ball landed squarely in the hands of a statue of a god.