Twelve Letters of Spring

Lu Ci is no genius.

At seven, he snapped his brush while practicing calligraphy. At seventeen, he nearly died of illness in the examination hall while sitting the licentiate exam. At twenty-two, after passing the provincial exam, he stood lost and bewildered among the crowd. At twenty-four, as a registrar, he was tormented by his superior until he could not sleep at night.

He never made a spectacular name for himself or rose smoothly through the ranks. What he did have was the sight of his mother mending his clothes after he made a mistake, his wife silently grinding ink as he left home, his son offering him a piece of candy when he was tired, and a bowl of clean water set out by the roadside by the townspeople when he left court.

He was afraid. Afraid he would fail the exams and let his parents down, afraid he would be a poor official and bring trouble to his family, afraid that he would live and die an ordinary man.

He was lost, too. He did not know what the point of studying was, whether he was on the right path, or how to be a good son, husband, father, and official all at once.

But he gritted his teeth and made it through. Not because he was especially capable, but because there were lights behind him: his parents’ light, his wife’s light, the people’s light, and the light within his own heart, which had never gone out.

That light was called conscience.

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.