In that instant, when they met, he remembered the verse:
“Never in my life had I known lovesickness; once it came, I was consumed by it. My body like drifting clouds, my heart like flying catkins, my breath like a silken thread. Only a wisp of lingering fragrance remains here; I long to know where the young traveler has gone. When the symptoms arise, when is it? When the lamp is half-dim and the moon half-bright.”
He was not quite “breathing like a silken thread,” but it was indeed “when the lamp was half-dim and the moon half-bright.” He had never known he could feel so intensely, yet a chance encounter with a little girl stole his heart in an instant. The feelings that awakened in him carved themselves into his heart with irresistible force! From then on, it was as if he were bewitched, sinking into a mire from which he could not escape. The more he learned about the petite woman called Yuyu, the faster his heart surrendered. Love would surely envelop her in a cocoon of secrecy, just as he wished, and unfurl...
