Noble Jade

The old book collection in Zhuoyi Ji lies quietly on its shelves, giving off the musty, decaying scent of old wood.

I once held up a yellowed copy of the Treatise on the Equality of Things and asked Xie Junyu, who was playing the qin beneath the flower window, what kind of story Zhuang Zhou's Butterfly Dream really was.

Xie Junyu smiled and said that life was ever-changing: the butterfly was Zhuang Zhou, and Zhuang Zhou was also the butterfly.

I listened to the mad, erratic opera singing of Xie Shumei next door. Half understanding, I asked him again: were we right or wrong to be like this?

Xie Junyu's flowing fingers came to a stop. In the dim room, he looked up at me.

His eyes were very dark, like a pool of deep water in the Garden of the Master of the Nets, or the gloomy sky during Suzhou's rainy season. When he raised his hand and covered my hair, the scent of August gardenias wafted over.

"Zhuang Zhou's Butterfly Dream was nothing but a dream. There is no truth or falsehood, so there is no right or wrong between us, either."

Actual incest, older seme

Xie Junyu x Xie Jiangzheng

Set around 2010. Two endings.

An old short story from my drafts, and a first-person challenge.

Theme: Flowers reflected in a mirror, the moon reflected in water