Three Lifetimes of Sorrow and Parting

He was eighteen, she was seventeen; bound in marriage by a fated meeting in a former life. Alas, the moon in the golden chamber wanes all too soon; before the Zhu and Chen families could be joined, they were parted. The rain falls softly, the clouds gather thickly; they never knew the Witch Mountain Gorge or the balcony of Yangtai. Even if the traveler from Chu came to her in a dream, the goddess might not emerge among the flowers. Three lifetimes of sorrow and separation, bitter, then faintly sweet, like the world's most poisonous wine of love, with no cure, its draught already lodged in the throat. Written for my beloved, Yang Lijing.