The Nightingale and the Still Ship

That winter, when she had nowhere left to turn, Xi Ling crouched in front of a foreign supermarket, picking up coins.

She looked up and met a pair of eyes in the mist. Snow dusted his shoulders, and icy blue eyes were set in a striking Slavic face. He looked like a young nobleman out of an old Russian novel.

The man bent down and placed a twenty-ruble coin in her palm. "Do you need help?"

Victor was handsome and wealthy, with a heart as pure as gold. He believed Xi Ling's sob story, full of holes, and took her back to his apartment overlooking the Don River.

Xi Ling clung to this lifeline, hoping only to scrape together enough money to get home.

Who could have guessed that, when she returned to campus for the new semester, she would hear a familiar, deep voice call her name? The new professor at the lectern was none other than her "landlord."

*

Xi Ling lived in his home, sat in on his classes, and eventually even swindled his family's heirloom ring out of him.

They kissed by the Don River. His breath was hot, but his voice was soft. "Ling, my grandmother once told me the ring was meant for my future wife."

Xi Ling's head spinning, she gave him a radiant smile. "I'll be your wife! I'll spend all the money you can't spend yourself!"

It wasn't until just before graduation, when he started making wedding plans, that Xi Ling realized she'd taken things too far.

She fled overnight with the ring and returned to her homeland.

A year later, Xi Ling was thriving. At a glamorous reception, amid elegant clothes and glittering jewels, someone grabbed her wrist, and the scent of snow swept over her.

Victor stood behind her, his striking features impossible to ignore, his gaze stubborn and aggrieved. He rubbed the ring on her left ring finger with his thumb and spoke in clear, deliberate Chinese:

"I finally found you, wifey."

[Wife Wanted: Searching for my wife, missing for a year. Description: beautiful, carrying a family heirloom ring.]

Theme: Where there's a will, there's a way