When they first met, she was fifteen and he was twenty.
When she first saw him, he was playing the qin in a bamboo grove, and the strings stirred her heart.
When he first saw her, she was dancing at a banquet, and her dance stirred his heart.
He searched for her to give her a white jade hairpin, then fastened it in her hair.
She danced "Golden Thread" for him alone, and he played the qin for her alone.
But when they met again, several years had passed.
He went to her hometown. They felt like old friends at once, strolling by the lotus pond and speaking in soft, broken phrases.
In front of her older sister, she said they were old friends catching up.
He was heartbroken, but she didn't know.
Later, they saw each other more and more often. And later still, he married her.
As the world changed, his official duties kept him busy until overwork made him ill. On the way home one day, he fell from his horse, and from then on, he left the world behind.
When she found out, she clutched the white jade hairpin and grieved, her heart broken.
But he would never know.
No one would ever again fasten that white jade hairpin in her hair, nor would anyone play the qin for her.
Zhou Lang, Qiao is still here. Why did you leave?
In the next life, Zhou Lang will play, and Qiao will dance "Golden Thread"...
Would that be all right?
Prelude°
The curtains roll in the fine rain as I play a song of parting; in the bamboo grove, you softly play a tune. In those days, you danced "Golden Thread," and now it stirs a few memories in me. The bamboo umbrella tilts, shading half the ripples, for fear of hearing the words written in years to come. Do you know that after we parted, the five strings fell silent, and for whom Zhou Lang's heart now yearns? The years are too many to count, my old friend nowhere to be found. Of all things in this world, the hardest to keep is the past. Yet the past remains, and threads of feeling tangle through my comb, pointlessly wasting my youth. Three thousand roads through the mortal world, the vast lands of the nine provinces: what does the Three Kingdoms mean to me? Nothing to do with a path to power, nothing to do with poetry or books. Without you, there is no Three Kingdoms. Midsummer was halfway through when you left a letter, signed, "Farewell, my homeland, Wu." But my tears fell and only dampened my clothes; the years of grief have worn me down. The dream grows dim, the dream grows cold. Carry you home, and repay my sorrow with joy. What I remember most is what is hardest to say.
(Note: The prelude is not entirely original; some parts were adapted from other works.)
