North Alley of the Pagoda Trees

Sophora blossoms, North Alley. In the thirteen years she had lived there, Guan Fengyun had never seen a boy so handsome. The bully of North Alley was infatuated with someone for the first time. First, she watched him from afar, hiding behind a sophora tree. Then she stole glances at him while leaning over her desk, gazed at him from behind, and finally met his eyes face-to-face. The reach of her gaze was the measure of the distance between them. The sophora blossoms bloomed and fell, and the distance between them grew both closer and farther. The September wind, carrying the faint scent of sophora blossoms, suddenly swept him away toward his distant homeland. Her gaze, too, became a stubborn migratory bird, fixed on a northerly course. That year's nights were long. One was dazed by endless piles of exam papers, while the other put on an air of nonchalance from afar. When he missed her most, all he said was, “Can the wind from Beijing reach Ling'an?” At last, the seasonal wind brought good news. Through mountains of exercises and seas of papers, past the waxing and waning of the seasons, the gaze that began beneath the sophora's shade at the alley's entrance met again beneath the autumn sun in a foreign land, just to count the blossoms blooming at different times, yet overlapping all the same.