There is a ruin in Liangzhou called Kingvine Village. Hidden valleys crisscross beneath it. Every night, the s…
There is a ruin in Liangzhou called Kingvine Village. Hidden valleys crisscross beneath it. Every night, the sound of cracking ice echoes endlessly. Ancient vines in the village twist like black dragons, their frost-covered bark mottled. Legend has it that the "Kingvine Grape" grows on the vines, its fruit as clear as ice, its juice brewed into a liquid as amber-colored as honey. In the past, foreign merchants traded a hundred taels of gold for a jar, chivalrous swordsmen exchanged their blades for a drink, and the sound of emptied purses filled the markets.
Since the Anshi rebellion's flames of war, fertile lands turned to weeds. Now passing the ruins, one sees only will-o'-wisps flickering among crumbling walls. At midnight, wind rises, and the withered vines suddenly bloom with glowing blue grapes, large as chicken eggs, yet they wither at the first light of dawn.
Once a stranger said that this was formed from the ghost folk's obsession. Unaware of their own deaths, they till soil and prune branches night after night, trying to restore the former spectacle of the grape feast. Yet even if a thousand baskets of ghost fruit are borne, they cannot break the barrier between yin and yang. When the cold rooster crows, only shattered cups among the vines reflect the moon, cold and clear as tears.