Marriage is the joining of two families. But what happens when death refuses to dissolve the bond?

Scholar Feng was betrothed at sixteen to a girl he had never met — Miss Lin. Before the wedding took place, Miss Lin fell ill. Within a month, she was dead.

Feng moved on. Years passed. He took the examinations, earned his degree, married a woman named Mei, had a son.

On the boy's third birthday, Feng returned home to find his wife weeping. "A woman came today," Mei said, trembling. "She said she was your first wife."

"That's impossible. Lin has been dead for nine years."

The next day, the woman returned. She wore a red wedding dress, though the color had faded to near-pink with age. A red veil covered her face.

"I have waited," she said. "Nine years in the underworld, and they have granted me a single year above. A single year to be your wife, as was promised."

Feng, torn between pity and fear, allowed her to stay in the guest quarters. For three nights, nothing happened. On the fourth night, their son fell gravely ill — a fever that no physician could break.

The dead bride came to Feng in the courtyard. "The underworld demands its due," she said. "Give me the boy, and I will return to the shadows."

"What do you truly want?" Feng asked.

She removed her veil. Beneath it was not a rotting corpse but a tired woman. "I want to be remembered. My family burned my letters, erased my name. Give me a tablet in your ancestral hall. Let me exist."

Feng did as she asked. The fever broke that night. The ghost wife was never seen again.

But sometimes, when Feng walks past his ancestral hall at dusk, he swears he smells jasmine.