Let it be sworn upon the eight-year-old rooster at the village tree: every word here is true. Jinhang Wu Jinha…
Let it be sworn upon the eight-year-old rooster at the village tree: every word here is true.
Jinhang
Wu Jinhang was Kaifeng's most celebrated scholar, a man whose brilliance lit poetry contests and philosophical debates alike. Noble daughters sighed over his verses, but Jinhang remained indifferent to courtship. Academia, not affection, ruled his heart.
Everything changed at the Flower Festival. When he rescued a silk-clad woman from drunken assailants, she offered tea in gratitude. Ever proper, he declined with a courteous bow. Yet fate entwined them: mornings found them meeting along lanes by chance; evenings dissolved into chess matches by winter hearths; spring afternoons spent chasing paper kites through peach-blossom gusts. Slowly, inexorably, the two were drawn close, and they agreed to meet by the lanterns. Yet a seeker of truth must walk the path unencumbered, he told himself. Love would only weigh his steps. So when dusk deepened, he turned homeward alone. Years later, he saw her again, perched atop Fan Tower like a phoenix alighting upon the Revelry Hall.
With bittersweet remembrance, he recorded this account. Some regrets never fade.