When the Wine's Fragrance Fades, Love Is Hard to Keep

The twenty-third day of the twelfth lunar month, the New Year's goods market.

I crouched by the roadside beside half a folding table and thirty jin of homemade rice wine, my hands frozen red.

When I looked up, I saw Jiang Ruibai.

He wore a dark gray cashmere coat, with two assistants at his side.

He stopped at a stall selling osmanthus cakes.

One assistant asked how many boxes to buy.

He said, "Five. Lingyi's been craving these lately."

Lingyi.

Shen Lingyi.

His current wife.

The crowd was packed, and we were three stalls apart, but he still spotted me at once.

He walked over.

"Cheng Wan."

"Yeah."

"Still making wine?"

"Yeah."

"...Still using your mother's recipe?"

I glanced at him.

"You took my mother's recipe. I make wine using my grandmother's."

His expression changed for a moment. In the end, he only said two words.

"I'm sorry."

I didn't respond. I lowered my head and went on ladling wine.

He stood there for a while, then tucked five hundred yuan beneath my scale and walked away.

I pulled it out and called after him.

"My wine costs three yuan a bowl. You didn't buy any, so you don't have to pay."

He didn't look back.

The wind was strong. The wine was cold.