The night she escaped the marquis's residence, Lin Xiuhe had only a pouch of broken silver, a cloth bag embroidered with wild chrysanthemums, and a faded red cord.
Shen Yan had woven the cord. He made two, giving one to her and keeping the other for himself.
She escaped without looking back.
In Bianjing's night market, she rented a stall, moved the tables herself, set her own prices, and kept her own accounts. Her brother said, "I can support you." She replied, "I know, but I don't need you to."
She didn't know when Shen Yan might come, but she knew the other end of that red cord was still somewhere in Bianjing. She didn't go looking for him, and she didn't wait for him. Every day, after closing her stall, she simply glanced down at the cord on her wrist to make sure it was still there. Then she kept moving forward. She missed him terribly, but before anything else, they each still had their own road to walk.
"Everything was my choice. Even if I did it for you, it was something I chose to do. You don't need to feel guilty."
Theme: In the torrent of their times, all people suffer. An individual's redemption always has its limits, yet some still plant flowers in their chains and put down roots in the cracks in the walls.
Aunt Zhou: We are all little pitiful people, and we will become old pitiful people in the future 🐶