He Shuangqing

I was born into an ordinary landowning family.

We had hundreds of mu of good farmland, my parents were healthy, and I had an older brother who was good for nothing.

Life was uneventful. There didn't seem to be much to say.

Until that day,

when I heard that the Zhou family next door had bought a new bride. I went along to watch the commotion.

The chill of early spring still lingered. In the crowd of onlookers, Shuangqing plunged her delicate hands into icy water, shivering as she washed clothes.

Her mother-in-law stood just inside the door, gossiping with someone and cursing the new bride as pretty but useless.

Shuangqing kept her head lowered. I couldn't tell if she'd heard.

Chewing on sunflower seeds, I walked closer. "Keep washing like that, and you'll scrub the cloth to shreds."

Shuangqing looked up at me.

I stared, dumbstruck, and even swallowed a sunflower seed shell. I couldn't help saying, "You're so beautiful. Why didn't you come to my family instead?"

She held my gaze for a moment, then suddenly smiled.

That was the first time in my life I'd seen her smile.

*

When I got married, Shuangqing cried.

I was in the bridal sedan, my head covered by a veil.

I couldn't see her, but I could hear her.

"I gaze at mountains and rivers, as people come and go, fading into the distance.

Who else will see, or be seen? Who will mourn this delicate beauty?

Who will long for happiness, secretly applying powder and painting their brows?

Who will care about forever, night after night, day after day?"

The poem Shuangqing wrote for me on a peony petal,

I kept pressed beneath my dressing table, its words imprinted in my heart,

where they hurt for countless years.

**

Much later,

those memories all faded away,

but Shuangqing still wrote poems for me, one after another.

"May the flowers thrive through the years. I bow to Guanyin and draw every sacred lot."

In spring, amid flutes and strings in a painted gallery, we sat by the window facing each other.

I did her eyebrows; she ground the ink.

Everything had changed, but we were still the same.

[A story of two girls who support each other and gradually fall in love]

Inspired by Qing dynasty poet He Shuangqing and her neighbor Han Xi.

This isn't a historically researched work. I mainly admire Shuangqing's talent.

Given the historical setting, both female leads have marriages. The ending is happy, so please don't read if that bothers you.

Theme: I pity you, I love you, I think only of Shuangqing.