The Spring Breeze Knows Not to Forbid the Willow Catkins

With the lilting cadence of classical verse, she sketches the outline of fate. Someone holds the happiness she was never meant to covet, writing, stroke by stroke, the story of her lifelong devotion.

A smile that never fades is a song that rings out loud; yet the colors filling the sky are unmistakably silent.

What a proud, unwilling woman she is. Though a thousand thoughts twist in her heart, her face shows only the faintest trace of them. Even if she must bear the sorrow of spending her life alone, she will bring it to an end in a way that preserves her pride.

And yet she cannot help remembering those measured words, chanted in the dawn breeze beneath the waning moon: “Alas, Bai Ningmei's furrowed brow was all for naught; she only earned the name of one who spurned love and betrayed a springtime heart.”