Gathering Dreams

The first snow of that year was cold and light. When she was young, she said she wanted to plant a hillside full of jigede trees with her future husband when she grew up. He would only have to tend sheep, working from sunrise to sunset. When he came home, he could pull a handful of wild jujubes from his robe and give them to her. That would be enough.

The Su prince held hostage in her country, ten years her senior, smiled faintly. "When we grow up, would you let me marry you?"

Years later, the world had changed. The memory was now a pain that pierced to the bone. He was clad in splendid robes and a crown of jewels, but there was no one left to call him Enhe.

Watching her retreating figure, he smiled through his tears and sighed. "Lady Wei, the jigede trees on the northern hill have borne fruit. And... I'll tend sheep."

Even a moth flying into a flame can glimpse a world it has never seen through the light, at the moment it is destroyed. Tell me, when will this fool wake from his dream?