On an autumn evening at the Xuxi ferry, no one was ferried across after dusk.
The scholar Shen Qingci, dressed in blue, missed his lodging while traveling to take the imperial exam. Breaking the ferry's century-old rule, he boarded a lone covered boat and sailed into the cold waves.
When the boat reached midstream, a hand gripped the gunwale, pale as jade. A silver lotus at the wrist caught the lamplight. Seaweed tangled around a hairpin carved with a peach blossom, concealing an obsession that had endured for twenty years.
She was Miss Su, who had sunk beneath the autumn waters, waiting for the betrothal hairpin and for someone to return home.
It turned out the ferry's taboo had never been about an evil ghost claiming lives. It was only two lovers, separated by cold waves, keeping watch for half a lifetime.
The autumn nights at Jiangnan's ferries have always hidden the gentlest ghosts and the most wistful yearnings.
