Crossing the Ashen Plum River

[Pure Angst]

Her dancing sleeves conceal the grave of an entire family. His prayer beads are tangled around a sin beyond redemption.

On a snowy night years ago, Yan Qingshu, a courtesan from Pingkang Ward, was humiliated at her enemy’s gates, the cold freezing her to the bone.

Then a monk’s robe scented with sandalwood came down over her from through the snow. The man who draped it around her was the son of the censor who had framed her entire family. Now a master of Buddhist teachings at Jingye Temple, he was known as Liaochen. His lay name was Xie Mingjue.

“Benefactor, the wind is fierce here.”

“I could never accept the mercy of your Xie family!”

Their encounter began in blood feud, yet their feelings took root in the plum grove at Jingye Temple.

Yan Qingshu offered him care edged with thorns: pastries baked in atonement, and dances that challenged him.

Xie Mingjue gave her silent protection: salves for her bruises, and old scars on his wrists from punishing himself while copying scriptures late into the night.

“I’ll repay what the Xie family owes you with my whole life.”

“You can’t repay it.”

“I know.”

When the Xie family finally fell, brought down by the evidence Yan Qingshu had gathered over eleven years, the warm winds of Jiangnan and her long-lost family called to her.

A light unseen in her eyes for a decade shone once more:

“If you’re willing, come find me in Jiangnan.”

His heart burned, but he only lowered his eyes and pressed his palms together:

“May your journey be safe and smooth, benefactor.”

They say fire leaves only ashes behind. So why, deep within the ashes, does that plum blossom, rooted in sin and nourished by devotion, bloom year after year, burning ever brighter?

This is a forbidden love waiting to blossom among the ashes.

Will he save her, or himself?

When the plums bloom, the answer will be in the wind, and in the Jiangnan they may never reach.