The Red Leaves Chronicle

In the autumn of the thirty-third year of the Wanli reign, sixteen-year-old Zhou Shaowen pushed open the wooden gate of a nunnery on Mount Jiming and heard someone softly singing beneath the maple trees:

"The night of joy ends; years pass before we meet again. Why are partings so long and joyful meetings so few?"

He had only meant to find a quiet place to escape his Eight-Legged Essay studies, but here he began learning to compose ci poetry. On his master's desk lay an old collection of lyrics, whose title page read, "For Huaiyue to read first, then return to the copyist." On the gray-white wall outside the veranda was a poem titled "Huanxi Sha," written thirteen years earlier and left unsigned.

He had entered school at fifteen, and people had always admired his writing. He couldn't understand why the people in the poem, though they had already met, had turned away without a word. A few words of praise in a Qinhuai waterside pavilion made him think he'd found a kindred spirit, too. After that, he revised lyrics, copied books, and waited for a reply. Little by little, he tasted feelings he'd previously encountered only on the page, and little by little, he let someone else's promise slip.

Only after he failed the spring examination did the young man head south. When he returned to the mountain, he brought with him a page of comments left by someone from his past.

The sentence was unfinished.