That year, the locust blossoms in Qingqiu Town bloomed unusually late.
It was already late spring, yet the old locust tree at the town entrance, old enough to have gained a spirit, only slowly put forth a few clusters of tender white blossoms. Their faint fragrance mingled with the scent of earth and drifted on the evening breeze.
A bullock cart trundled back from town. Sitting aboard was the daughter of a family that sold wine, a girl of fifteen or sixteen with amber eyes and a few freckles across the bridge of her nose. She perched on the edge of the cart, swinging her legs and humming an unfamiliar tune.
When the cart passed the locust tree, she suddenly fell silent.
Someone was squatting beneath it.
Dusty clothes, unkempt hair, a thin, withered figure. He squatted there without moving, holding a twig and scratching at the ground.
The girl glanced at him and thought nothing of it.
The cart rolled on.
She didn't know that this one glance would be the greatest calamity of her life.
Nor did she know that the boy beneath the tree had already been waiting for her for five thousand years.
It can be updated faster. I want to see it. I feel it can be updated more quickly.