Love Consumed by Longing

The summer rain fell with an urgent fury, each drop striking the bamboo leaves with a crackling sound. She stood beneath an oiled paper umbrella before a solitary grave. Even now, stains marred the tombstone, the inscription growing blurred with time, and the edges of the stone bore the marks of damage.

“Mingyue, was I truly wrong?”

Back then, when she first heard this question, she found it easy to answer. But now, she was no longer so certain. Was it wrong? Perhaps…

She walked away from the grave, her umbrella sheltering her, the sound of wind mingling with the rain, rustling the verdant bamboo leaves until both the forest and the tomb were left behind.

Ten years earlier.

By the banks of the Luoxi River, where willows trailed along the dike and fresh green foliage concealed much from view, there stood a riverside shop. Lovesick Pavilion had been left to Mingyue by her mother, but Mingyue had inherited none of her mother’s skill at crafting rouge. She could barely make ends meet, and this was a source of shame she seldom dared voice.

Tap, tap, tap… When her middle finger tapped the table for the hundredth time, Mingyue suddenly stopped, wiped the table with some care, and rose to step outside to the fastest-updating “Listening to the Tides Pavilion.” The sun was bright that day. Shielding her eyes, Mingyue looked up. There, in blue robes, Qin Shi stood on a wooden ladder, polishing the signboard, his figure slender and frail.

“It’s been half an hour already, and you’re still not finished?”

“Almost done,” he replied.