On a stormy night, Yu Ci kicked open the bookstore door to collect a debt.
He found Shen Yan shielding ancient books with his back, rain trickling down his prominent shoulder blades.
“Pay up.” Yu Ci slapped the IOU down on the restoration table.
Shen Yan hid his bloodstained fingertips in his sleeve. “Give me three more days... They can’t get wet.”
Before long, the debt collector became a regular at the bookstore.
He watched Shen Yan use tweezers to mend century-old scrolls, their breaths mingling beneath the warm yellow light.
When loan sharks smashed the storefront window, Yu Ci instinctively used his body to shield Shen Yan from the flying shards.
A drop of blood fell onto a rare Ming-dynasty book, like a red plum blossom suddenly bursting into bloom.
In the darkness, Shen Yan tremblingly traced his wound. “Does it hurt?”
At last, a scorching kiss fell between the bloodstained pages.
But when dawn came, Shen Yan said, “The debt’s settled. You can go.”
Three years later, a bloodstained ancient book appeared at an auction house. Its inscription read:
“I used gold dust to turn the bloodstains into petals. But the one who waited for them to wither never came back.”
