Moon on the Empty Steps

The Moon Over the Empty Steps

After his wife died nine years ago, Yan Kai, a renowned restorer of ancient architecture, turned himself into a ruin.

He guards the old house his late wife left behind, drinking alone with his memories through countless cold, lonely nights. He writes poetry and restores ancient buildings with desperate devotion, not to remember her, but because he has contracted an irreversible illness: fully aware, he is watching himself slowly forget her name.

Su Xiao's arrival is like a ball of fire bursting into this icy, lifeless cellar. She craves Yan Kai's tenderness and willingly imitates the dead woman, becoming the hopelessly incurable man's painkiller.

It is a descent into ruin that they both know is poison, yet welcome all the same.

When memory is completely erased, as if by an eraser, and longing becomes an indescribable physical instinct,

he forgets the whole world and forgets who he loved most, yet remembers the aching void in his chest, where every draft hurts.

“I long to send a new letter, but there is nowhere to send it. Line after line, ink and tears mingle.”

The deepest sorrow in this world is not being parted by death, but standing right before you and no longer remembering why I love you.