In ancient times, there was the Stone of the Waiting Wife. Today, there is the Inn of the Waiting Wife’s Return.
Su Ya achieved financial independence at twenty-eight, thanks to a family inheritance and her gift for investing. At thirty, on a rainy night, she met Jiang Yu, a guardian of time and space, and fell in love at first sight. When he vanished into thin air, leaving behind half a jade pendant, she sold off her billions in assets and built the Heart’s Haven Pavilion at the place where they had met. Ten years of waiting transformed a bright young woman into a gentle, mysterious beauty in a qipao. The patterns on her clothes shifted with her feelings, each tearful lotus and trembling plum blossom leaving its mark.
The Heart’s Haven Pavilion had one ironclad rule: offer guests a sanctuary for the soul, and earn your keep through your skills. No money was accepted; instead, guests paid their lodging with their talents. The cook warmed hearts with nourishing soups, the hacker broke through mysteries with code, and the embroiderer mended fractured souls with her needle... The inn became a museum of extraordinary people, and an ever-spreading net in Su Ya’s search for Jiang Yu.
When a musician’s melody awakened golden patterns on the jade pendant, and an astrologer discerned the missing star in the Big Dipper, Su Ya finally learned that each time Jiang Yu appeared, he was burning away the “sand of time.” When he would return was uncertain, and seeing him again had become an addiction.
Waiting does not mean doing nothing. It means harnessing the strength of all living things to rewrite the rules! Su Ya entered the void where time and space returned to its origin, trading her life for another’s, and became a stone statue in the courtyard of the Heart’s Haven Pavilion. For ten years, the guests brewed wine with their tears and nurtured the jade with their songs. At last, when dew fell upon the pendant, a miracle awoke:
Where stone split and souls returned, a white-haired guardian watched over the stele.
She kissed the wrinkles of his aged face, and lotuses blooming in pairs burst across her qipao:
“From now on, I’ll be the one who watches over you, year after year, for all eternity.”
Time and space as our betrothal, the patterns of our hearts as our vow.
