When the snow fell thickly in the north, Wen Yanzhi would often stare blankly at the half-piece of white jade on his desk. He had brought it from Jiangnan years ago. Its edges had been worn smooth, but one crack still stood out: the mark left when Su Wanyi, at twelve years old, crouched in a rainy alley to pick up the jade and struck it with the rib of her blue umbrella.
He had never forgotten how he came to be taken in by the Wen family. When disaster struck them, she had held up a blue umbrella with bamboo ribs and pulled him from where he was huddled in a corner. Raindrops hung from the edge as she stood on tiptoe to wipe his face. "You can stay at my family's umbrella shop." For the next several years, in the rainy alleys of Jiangnan, she walked ahead with her umbrella while he followed, clutching the hem of her clothes. She taught him to recognize the curve of umbrella ribs, and he ground the broken pieces of jade he found into a little pendant, secretly hanging it on her umbrella handle.
Later, he went north to seek his fortune. As he left, she pressed this half-piece of jade into his hand and tapped his palm with an umbrella rib. "When you come back, carve me an umbrella handle." He promised with certainty, never imagining he would have no choice in the matter. To secure his position, he followed his elders' arrangements and took up with a woman of suitable family standing. On the day he returned home, he stood at the mouth of the alley with the jade umbrella handle he'd carved, only to see her tuck the old blue umbrella away at the bottom of a chest. Smiling at another young man, she said, "This umbrella's old. It can't keep out the rain anymore."
Tonight, snow blanketed his desk. As his fingertips traced the crack in the jade, he suddenly heard the faint sound of umbrella ribs outside the window, just like the sound of her waiting for him beneath an umbrella all those years ago. But when he looked up, there was nothing but a blizzard. The half-piece of jade was so cold in his palm it hurt. Only then did he understand: when she put her umbrella away, it wasn't just the umbrella ribs that broke. The warmth he should have held on to more than anything in this life had been frozen and cracked by his own hand in the northern wind.
