The weeks that followed were touched by a strange and quiet sweetness, like the last of a ripe fruit left on the branch. Wenyan found himself smiling more often, even when alone. His brushwork grew softer, his verses more tender. His students—bright, noisy village boys—noticed the change and whispered about it behind his back, giggling.
Wenyan didn't mind. He was a man of thirty with callused fingers and no family name of power. He had little, but now he had something rare: the flickering light of a shared secret, one he carried like a lantern in his chest.
And Lian—she was no longer just a name in a poem.
They never spoke aloud, but her presence filled his world. Every few days, Meixiang arrived with another letter—sometimes a single line, sometimes a folded sheet of sorrow or joy. In turn, he sent her pressed petals from his garden, hand-sketched birds, and poems full of the gentleness he had never dared show anyone else.
"I dreamed of a mountain last night," she had written once, "and when I reached the summit, you were already there—writing my name in the snow."
He had replied:
"If I could, I would write it on the moon.Let the whole sky know what my heart does not dare speak."
And then, one letter changed everything.
It arrived on a windless day. The silk wrap was darker than usual—blue-gray, like the sky before rain. There was a weight in the fold, not just in emotion, but something tangible.
Inside, along with the poem, was a small ivory pendant. It was the size of his thumb, carved into the shape of a magnolia bud, and tied with a scarlet string.
Wenyan stared at it as if it were burning.
This was not a trinket a noblewoman gave lightly. This was personal—something close to the body, worn or hidden. A part of herself.
The poem was shorter than usual:
"This belonged to my mother.When she passed, I kept it hidden.Now I give it to you.Not because I must,But because I want you to know—My name is not only Lian.My name is Xu Lianfang."
Wenyan read the name again and again.
Xu. A powerful clan name. Not just a noblewoman, then. A daughter of one of the emperor's inner court advisors—maybe more.
He set the letter down and rubbed his temples. The full truth of her world rushed in like cold water.
If she was truly Xu Lianfang, and he—Liang Wenyan—was nothing more than a countryside teacher… then what they had was not only unlikely, it was dangerous.
He could be imprisoned. Worse, she could be punished by her family, married off to some bureaucrat with silver in his teeth and ambition in his eyes.
His hands trembled as he lifted the pendant.
He wanted to give it back. To protect her. To end it before it became something neither of them could escape.
But instead, he pressed it to his heart.
That evening, he didn't write a poem. Not at first. He paced his study in silence, the pendant clutched in his hand, his thoughts a swirl of ink and guilt and want.
When the words finally came, they were slow, deliberate—written with aching care.
"Lianfang.I am honored by your name.And terrified by what it means.You live in a world where love is arranged, not chosen.I live in one where choice is all I have.And yet I would choose you again and again,even if it ended me."*
He paused, staring at the parchment for a long time before adding:
"If ever you wish to stop this—say so.I will walk away. I swear it on the magnolia tree."
He sealed the scroll and gave it to Meixiang the next morning without a word.
Two days passed. No reply.
The third day came with thunder and cold rain. Wenyan didn't teach that day. He couldn't focus. He sat by the open window, watching the gray sky and wondering if he had pushed too far.
Had he frightened her?
Had he ruined everything?
Just as the sun broke through the clouds in the late afternoon, Meixiang appeared at the gate, soaked and shivering, her hands wrapped around a letter.
He took it gently, heart in his throat.
Inside was a single sentence:
"You may not be of my world, but your words are where I live now."
And beneath it—a tiny, delicate sketch of a magnolia tree, drawn in her hand.
That night, Wenyan didn't write. He didn't need to.
He simply sat in the silence, holding the letter against his chest, and let the ache of longing bloom fully—soft and full and painful.
It wasn't yet love spoken aloud. But it was love in its truest form: known in silence, and chosen in risk.
And he knew, with sudden clarity, that no matter what came next, he would not let her go.