The good news was, he discovered Shen Yu liked stories. The bad news? She only liked the stories. The little…
The good news was, he discovered Shen Yu liked stories.
The bad news? She only liked the stories.
The little trinkets he queued hours for at Fairgrounds stalls, Shen Yu wouldn't take a single one. So what could he do? He told her more stories. Better stories. And the way she smiled while listening was so different from when they first met. He liked that smile. So much so, he wanted to tell her every story in the world.
He thought long and hard about it. Back when he escaped the Xiao estate, he'd felt like a bird let loose from its cage. But that night... someone had tossed him a handful of birdseed. So maybe it was okay to linger a little longer. People say a single meal deserves gratitude. What was this, then? A debt for birdseed?
Whatever kind of debt it was, he just wanted to find ways to make her smile. He meant that, truly.
But what if she stayed unhappy? She'd lived like that before, hadn't she? And she made it through just fine. But now... now it felt different. What was different? He kept asking himself, but no answer came. Only that when she smiled, he smiled too. And so he wandered outside the Shen estate for days, for nights.
"You're not going to the jianghu anymore?"
"Just... waiting a bit longer."
Shen Yu only seemed to smile in fleeting moments at night. Sometimes, when she caught him coming or going, she'd lose focus.
He needed to understand why she was unhappy. He started eavesdropping on the maids' whispers, studying every quiet corner of that lifeless courtyard.
He looked up. This place was far too still. Not even birdsong can be heard. The air itself felt stifled. It didn't suit her.
If he lived here, he'd have torn the roof off just to let some sky in. To breathe some life into a place that barely let birds sing.
"A caged sparrow," he mused, "take the'roof' off the cage, and what do you get? A dragon."
He was very proud of that one. A dragon returns to the sea. A bird soars into open skies. Maybe then, Shen Yu would smile more.
"Hey! Leaving this time for real?"
"Just... waiting a bit longer."
"What about your stories?"
Stories do matter. But lately, it feels like what matters most...is telling them to a specific person.