She was once a wisteria spirit by the Qiantang River. To save the man she loved, she broke a prohibition and extended his life, then waited three hundred years beneath Gushan, trapped in a withered skeleton.
The Office of Reincarnation took pity on her devotion and granted him a new life, but their paths kept missing one another in time.
In his first life, he was a scholar traveling to sit the imperial examinations, spending the night by the Qiantang River. She became a boatwoman and came to meet him, but on a stormy night he slipped and fell into the water.
In his second life, he was a young fisherman. She rang a bell in a pavilion at the heart of the river to guide him like a lantern. Following its sound, he pursued her boat, struck a reef, and sank.
In his third life, he drove a BMW into the old harbor district. Suddenly, her humming sounded from the navigation system:
"If I were to carve my vow upon the riverbank, the river would turn cold, the moonlight would fill the city like a vast sea."
Her reflection appeared in the car window, wearing a blood-red dress, her eyes brimming with tears:
"Why have you come so late again in this life?"
Delicate, emotionally resonant