Shen Mengning first met Fu Zhishu in the veranda of the Shen family's ancestral home. Hugging a stack of old books to shield them from the rain, she saw a young man in a moon-white robe leaning against a vermilion pillar, holding half an unburnt paper kite skeleton between his fingers. Raindrops fell along the eaves, splashing tiny ripples at his feet. When he raised his gaze, his eyes seemed to flicker with shattered stars. "Is my little sister afraid of the rain?"
Back then she was only thirteen. Because her biological mother had died young, she was raised in the household of her uncles and aunts, and always loved hiding behind screens whenever she met people. He was the son of the newly appointed magistrate, visiting the clan elders along with his father. Clutching the corner of a book without a word, she watched him pull a piece of sugar cake from his sleeve. Wrapped in oiled paper, it was still warm. "From Aunt Zhang's at the mouth of the alley. It's very sweet." A crumb of osmanthus from the sugar cake fell onto the hem of her skirt. Suddenly remembering how her mother had loved making osmanthus sugar when she was alive, a bitter ache rose in her throat, yet she took the sugar cake as if guided by some unseen force.
After that, he often scaled the wall to look for her, teaching her to write with dead branches on blue-stone slabs, and taking her to see fireflies in the suburbs. On a certain summer night, pointing at the Milky Way, he explained the constellations to her…
Chapter 45