Spring, 1453 — Early Ming Dynasty, Jiangnan Prefecture
The markets of Jiangnan teemed with color. Lanterns swayed on long bamboo poles, their silk skins glowing like trapped fireflies in the late afternoon sun. Street vendors called over the laughter of children, hawking sugar plums, steamed buns, dyed silks, and calligraphy brushes with bristles like fox tails. Somewhere, a lute's strings sang above the chatter. The air smelled of sesame oil and spring blossoms.
Liang Wenyan moved through the crowd like a man untethered, ink-stained sleeves tucked neatly at his wrists, hair bound in a modest scholar's knot. He didn't come here often—preferring the quiet corners of his studio, where poetry whispered more clearly—but today, he wandered.
Perhaps it was the season. Spring had a way of stirring restlessness in even the most contented hearts.
He paused beneath a plum tree just beginning to bloom, watching petals tumble like pale snow onto the worn stone road. It reminded him of a line he'd once written, hastily and half-drunk: "She came like spring's first flower—too early, too beautiful, gone too soon."
He chuckled softly to himself. Not his best work.
As he turned to leave, a rustle of silk cut through the street's noise. He glanced up—and saw her.
A sedan chair, carved and lacquered, passed through the crowd with quiet authority. Red tassels swayed from its corners. The bearers moved with practiced grace, parting the sea of townsfolk as if through water. Behind gauzy veils, a woman sat motionless.
Wenyan could see only the outline of her form—a delicate silhouette, poised, unmoving. But then the veil fluttered, caught by wind or fate, and her eyes met his.
Just for a second.
Dark as ink, bright as moonlight. The kind of eyes that lingered long after one looked away.
She vanished around the corner.
He stared after her, stunned by the strange weight that dropped into his chest. Something had passed between them. Or perhaps he was simply losing his mind.
A soft voice spoke beside him. "You dropped this, sir."
Wenyan blinked. A girl—no older than fifteen—stood by his elbow, holding out a slip of paper. Her face was plain, her robe the faded gray of a servant's uniform. She looked around nervously, then pressed the paper into his hand and quickly disappeared into the crowd.
He looked down. It was a poem.
"Beneath red veils and courtly gaze,The world spins on in silken haze.A stranger's eyes in spring's embrace—Have we met in another place?"
There was no name. Only a seal in the shape of a plum blossom, stamped in red wax.
His heart thudded.
He turned the poem over in his hand as if it might dissolve, as if the words were too fragile to carry the weight of meaning he suddenly poured into them.
Was it from her?
It couldn't be. A noblewoman? Writing verse to a stranger on the street?
And yet...
That night, Wenyan sat in his small study, lamplight flickering against the walls. His inkstone was damp, his brush poised over parchment, but his mind had fled. Again and again, he reread the poem. The words were gentle, playful, but laced with something more—curiosity, memory... yearning.
He finally gave in and dipped his brush.
"If we've met, then heaven has played a quiet trick.If we've not, then your eyes have lied like dreams.Tell me—do your words come from the heart, or from the hand of a ghost?"
He smiled faintly. It was bold, maybe foolish. But wasn't poetry born of such moments?
He folded the parchment carefully, tied it with red thread, and placed it inside a small silk pouch. It would wait by the door. Tomorrow, he'd return to the plum tree.
And hope.
The moon rose high, casting silver light through the paper windows, pooling over the half-dried scrolls on his desk. He lay awake long after the candles had guttered out, the stranger's eyes still vivid in his mind.
In a life spent surrounded by words, it was rare to find one moment that defied them.
This one did.