Rain Beneath the Eaves, Old Memories on the Steps

The flames at the Burial Mounds died out, and Chenqing was left behind in the scorched earth. When Jiang Cheng tucked the charred flute into a wooden chest, he never imagined that over the next three years he would slip into the storeroom countless times in the dead of night, staring blankly at its cracks.

The loquats at Lotus Pier ripened and fell, and the lotus roots in the pond withered and grew again. He rebuilt the family estate and taught Jin Ling archery. Whenever he poured wine for his sister in the ancestral hall, he always set out an extra bowl and pair of chopsticks. Nie Huaisang’s fan fluttered through the seasons, and Lan Wangji’s music echoed with the chill of an icy pool. The Zidian in Jiang Cheng’s sleeve always grew faintly warm when the wind rose, like the warmth of that person secretly tugging at his sleeve when he was still here.

There were no heart-wrenching sobs, only the soft patter of rain on the steps beneath the eaves, and the longing hidden in the dust before them. It turned out that the deepest yearning was never a scream. It was the unopened jar of Emperor’s Smile beneath the loquat tree, the lotus flower deliberately carved crookedly into an arrow shaft, and the faint, bittersweet catch in his throat on some ordinary afternoon when he suddenly remembered, “Wei Wuxian used to love skipping stones here.”

These were Jiang Cheng’s thirteen years: waiting, letting go, and all the words he never got to say, which in the end became a sigh-soft “Idiot” carried on the wind over the lotus pond.