A green train, number K1314, pulled slowly out of a small station in the northwest. It crossed a vast desert of yellow sand, passed the grasslands of Inner Mongolia, crowded with cattle and sheep, and headed for a city far to the north and northeast.
The train traveled through the night. Outside the window, lights twinkled here and there. Would the rumbling train wake anyone from their sleep as it passed? My fellow traveler across from me was already giving a faint snore, but I, on my first journey away from home, couldn't sleep at all.
I opened Half an Acre of Flower Fields, then closed it again. I want to tell a story, a story about the south and the north, about two people who never met yet stayed by each other's side, about a love that lasted without being childhood sweethearts.
