A Home Amid Mountains and Rivers, A Lifetime of Youth

Willows in the breeze, a stream flowing beneath a little bridge: these were the familiar sights she had known since childhood. She had grown up in an ancient town south of the Yangtze, and had never imagined that a man from a northern city would unexpectedly enter her life. He himself did not know whether he had fallen in love with that city because of her, or with her because of that city. They say that travel brings romantic encounters. If that was true, then they had found each other. Neither of them expected their chance meeting to lead to anything more, but fate turned their paths toward each other right then and there.

He said, "I'll build you a home surrounded by mountains and water." She said, "All right. Then we'll grow old together there." They had thought they could keep walking forward together like that, their love flowing gently and steadily, just as she had always wanted. But nothing in life is ever that simple. What stood between them was far from simple. Everything fell apart just as happiness seemed within reach.

The man who loved her was someone neither of them wanted to hurt. He was so fragile, and had already suffered so much. It was all a cruel twist of fate. They had missed each other for so long. The reasons behind it are too painful to tell one by one. Thankfully, they had both kept waiting for each other. At last, one day, they walked together toward old age in the home they had built among mountains and water.