Single Parent

The West Coast-style video I filmed of my son has gone viral.

But I’m not the one who’s famous.

It’s my son.

Netizens recognized him at a glance as a mini version of Liang Jingnian.

That man is the head of Xiyue Group and the renowned Crown Prince of the Jing Circle.

The more the internet dug, the more they found.

They even unearthed a video of Liang Jingnian and me breaking up, leading everyone to conclude that I’m the ex-girlfriend who ran away with his child.

I sighed. They’ve got it all wrong.

Liang Jingnian and I weren’t just dating-we were actually married.

On the day my mother divorced, she held me in her arms and tore down the notice from the Marquis Mansion.

The Marquis Mansion was looking for a successor wife, which also meant finding a stepmother for the Young Heir.

A crowd of young women in the prime of their youth, as beautiful as flowers, stood at the mansion gates. They were waiting for the Old Madam to look them over, hoping to enter the household and live a life of comfort.

My brother and father mocked Mother for her wishful thinking.

“Mother has no shame, trying to remarry at her age while dragging along a burden like my sister.”

“Sang Zhi, do you think the Marquis Mansion taking a wife is like buying someone at the village entrance? Do you think being a successor wife or a stepmother is easy?”

I knew I was the one holding Mother back from remarrying, and I sobbed until I was out of breath. “M-Mother, Tao Tao is a burden. Don’t worry about Tao Tao anymore.”

Mother knelt down, gently wiping away my tears as she comforted me earnestly. “Tao Tao isn’t a burden. Tao Tao is Mother’s most precious treasure.”

Matron Deng, the steward of the Marquis Mansion, held the register and lifted her chin arrogantly. Her sharp eyes coldly swept over the group of anxious, quiet young women. Suddenly, she spotted Mother, who was wiping my tears and speaking in a soft, gentle voice. She gave a nearly imperceptible nod.

“Write her name down as well. She actually looks like a mother.”

I am a Bone Demon, trapped for countless years within that cold, desolate graveyard.

No one can see me, and no one can hear me. I have spent centuries in solitary silence.

Until one midsummer, when the sun was shining just right.

A young girl came to sweep the graves, but she mistakenly offered her tributes to me.

I took a bite of a crisp peach and said, “Truly sweet.”

She froze for a moment, then covered her mouth and stifled a giggle.

“Next year, I’ll come again.”

True to her word, she returned year after year, bringing me crisp peaches every time.

Later, she died, and her remains were carelessly tossed into the graveyard.

Her five-year-old daughter, clutching the hand of a younger brother who had only just learned to walk, came to the graveyard day and night to wail for their mother.

I couldn’t stand the noise.

I possessed her body, crawled out from the straw mat, and clumsily gathered those two little brats into my arms.

“Keep crying, and Mother will eat you.”

During the year our love was at its peak, the young general whose name shook the borderlands used all his military merit to petition my Imperial Father for my hand in marriage.

But three years later, a woman arrived at our door clutching a child, weeping and begging me to take them in.

My husband claimed he had simply had too much to drink and made a terrible mistake.

My mother-in-law said that since I had already ruined my husband’s career prospects, I could not go so far as to sever his bloodline as well.

My closest kin advised me to be magnanimous, telling me that this was simply how every mistress of a household in the capital lived.

Only my sister, with whom I had never seen eye to eye, patted my back and told me: “In the past, you let your Imperial Brother make your decisions for you.” “Later, you let your husband make your decisions for you.” “Now, it is time you learned to grow up on your own.” “After all, you have a little girl of your own now.”

I looked down at the tiny daughter in my arms, who was still sucking on her fingers.

I understood that if I were weak, my daughter would never know how to be strong.

If I were easily bullied, my daughter would never know how to be independent. This time, it was my turn to act.

She Has Been in the Wind for Two Years

Synopsis: Two years after my wife passed away, I still received messages from her every day and ate the dinners she had “arranged” for me.

I thought she had never truly left-until one late night, when I followed a text begging for help back home and realized I had been living all along inside the Fengli she left behind for me.