In the summer when she was seventeen years old, the girl met the eyes of the shaman on the high platform during a clan ceremony - a head of white hair, a wooden mask, and a figure that was too far away to be in the human world.
Later Yun Xi bumped into her under the old locust tree. No mask, no witch robe, just plain white clothes, holding the sachet she threw in her hand.
"My name is Qi." She said, her voice as soft as the wind blowing through bamboo leaves.
Since then, the backyard of the ancestral hall has become their secret base.
Yun Xi climbed over the wall and went in, bringing peach blossom cakes, a mud whistle, and a handful of smooth stones picked from the stream. Pray to teach her to recognize snow in June, teach her to blow grass stems, teach her to see snails slowly crawling across leaves.
Secrets can never be hidden.
When the elders of the clan asked sternly, when everyone said it was blasphemy - the girl just held hands.
This is a story about encounter.
About a girl trapped on a high platform, and a girl willing to climb over the wall to get in.
Intention: God is not on the high platform, but in the moment when two people look at each other and smile.