Spring Comes Too Late to Cross the River

He was Xie Jingque. One day, he climbed over a wall and met Gu Xianzhi.

The man said, “It’s windy up there. Don’t catch a chill.”

He pursued Gu Xianzhi for three months, pulling him down from his pedestal.

They were together for three months. Ninety days. From the first apricot blossoms to the first cicadas of summer.

Later, somehow, word slipped out through a crack.

All that tenderness fell away overnight, like apricot blossoms.

Then he left, leaving Xie Jingque a note.

It read:

“Xianzhi built a nest, but it was never finished; Jingque waited on an empty branch, and the branch has broken.

You are spring. I am a ferry crossing.

A ferry crossing can fall into ruin, but spring should never be made to stay.”

Xie Jingque didn’t cry.

He clutched the note in his hand and never let go.

The following year, the apricot blossoms bloomed again.

He returned to the wall where they had met.

This time, there was no wind up above, and no one left to tell him to be careful not to catch a chill.

He smiled as he climbed to the top of the wall and closed his eyes.

Like a magpie, weary from flight, finally returning to the branch where it first perched.

The spring wind cannot ferry us across; in life or death, we return together.

Gu Xianzhi: He understood every rule of this world and knew the two of them could never be together. It wasn’t that he was afraid. He couldn’t bear to let Xie Jingque ruin his future for his sake. In the end, he chose to bear everything alone and end his life to put an end to their hopes.

Xie Jingque: He believed sincerity could be answered with sincerity, and that if he were only brave enough, he could keep spring from leaving. But he forgot that spring can never be held back.