In 1905, the edict abolishing the imperial examinations arrived, and ten years of study vanished in an instant.
My father went gray overnight, yet I felt a strange sense of relief.
Only when I thought of her, Wang Xiulan of Guide Prefecture in the Central Plains, did genuine bitterness rise in my heart. When we were children, our families had been close friends, and we spent a few brief months together amid the misty rain of Jiangnan. The way she called me “Brother Zhixin” was the only bright spot in my bleak childhood.
Later, she returned north with her family. Years passed, and all that remained were a few letters of formal greeting.
I knew she was a young lady from a distinguished family of scholars, while I was merely a destitute scholar whose prospects had been ruined. Between us lay not only a thousand miles of mountains and rivers, but also the insurmountable gulf of social status.
Then one day, I received a letter she had sent by a circuitous route through an intermediary. It contained just one sentence: “The new road lies beneath your feet. Don’t be confined by the old window.”
Holding the letter, I looked north. This time, I sought no fame or official rank. I only wanted to cross the sea of people and prejudice, stand before her, and ask, “Xiulan, I’m just an ordinary man taking a new path now. Would you still be willing to walk it with me?”
