Mace

The first time Duan Nuo slipped out of Duan's house, he was five years old. She squeezed out through the small door, stepped on the broken bricks, and pried open the iron bolts with wooden strips she picked up from her brother's scrap pile. Outside is a street market in Kyoto, with sparks flying in the blacksmith shop, children crowding in front of the popcorn stand, and a little flower seller squatting at the entrance of the alley. The jasmine in the flower basket is tied into bunches with red thread. She thought that all the problems in the world could be solved with a lever - until she met a boy who was so thin that only his skeleton and eyes were left when he was twelve years old. His name is Amulawu, the prince of Chinan and the detained hostage. She taught him how to write his name, gave him sweet-scented osmanthus cakes, and sent him messages using a bird made by her brother. She thought she was playing a game of chess for the Queen Mother, and thought that every approach and push away from him was part of her plan - until she was eighteen years old, she personally left the illusion of Chi Nan's assassin in the palace, used his father's relics to frame him, and then met him for the last time on the deserted palace road on a winter night when he led his army to attack. "You keep those wolf fangs," he said, "He gave them as a thank you gift, and I gave them as a thank you gift." Since then, the two countries have maintained good relations, trade routes have been smooth, and both the grasslands and the Central Plains have ushered in the best of times. It's just that in the best of times, there are no more of them. She spent her whole life planting the drought-resistant seeds he brought from Chinan, and he spent his whole life guarding the covenant she signed. Separated by a border of three thousand miles, they each get married and grow old separately. Each of them presses the switch of a machine bird in the middle of the night and listens to its gentle vibration to know that the other is still alive.