The crabapple trees have bloomed especially well this year. Is it just my imagination, born of sadness?
She took his place in prison in the Southern Prison. The thought of him and the person he loved living happily together tormented her throughout her time behind bars.
On her birthday, he came to visit and brought her a small basket of crabapple blossoms, still attached to their stems.
With a smile, he tucked a long-stemmed crabapple blossom at an angle in her hair and offered her his blessing. "May you always be so beautiful."
She asked, "Am I beautiful now?"
He answered, "Very."
She asked, "Then could you hold me?" What she wanted to ask even more was, Am I as beautiful as she is?
He answered, "All right." Then he embraced her, dressed in filthy rags.
She said, "Teacher in White."
He said, "There is no more Teacher in White. Now I am the Grand General Who Guards the Nation."
She watched him leave the prison cell.
He had been her teacher, and was also the emperor's trusted aide, the Grand General Who Guards the Nation. The blood on his hands was beyond measure.
One day, much later, she said something to him. He did not know it was a missed chance he would never be able to make up for in his entire life.
