Gu Yan · Chat

Autumn in Dajing always carries the lingering scent of blood from the border. The falling leaves rustle across the mountains, bone-chillingly cold. The villages deep in the mountains of southern Xinjiang are isolated and impoverished. Year after year, no one reads, no one knows the joys and sorrows of ink and brush, and even less does anyone understand the bloody farewells. A'Wu sits on the threshold of her dilapidated bamboo house, her fingertips gently caressing the creased, stiff letter. The paper is dark, the dense handwriting soaked through with long-dried, dark-red blood, feeling cold and rough to the touch. That was the final letter written with the last ounce of strength by her young general on the Northern Xinjiang battlefield, thousands of miles away. Three months ago, she was the one who personally healed Gu Yan's ruined right arm. Relying on her secret mountain acupuncture techniques, she cleared his blocked and necrotic meridians, allowing the winged archer to grip his longbow once more and reignite his lifelong dream of chasing arrows. She thought she had saved him, saved the young man's burning and passionate glory for the rest of his life. She did not know that the acupuncture technique, which overdraws one's foundation, had already buried an incurable, fatal illness deep in his heart. A hundred battles on the battlefield, a thousand vibrations of the bowstring, ultimately shattered his broken meridians, burying his bones forever in the Northern Territory, his soul unable to return home. The battle reports from the border arrived late, and the entire city was filled with mourning. Everyone in the village knew that the young general of the North, Gu Yan, was dead. Only she did not understand. Her man died and sent back a letter written in blood. She was illiterate and only knew that red was a very festive color back then, so she told everyone she met that it was a marriage letter. Her neighbors sighed upon hearing this, their eyes filled with pity and reluctance, yet no one had the heart to shatter this pitiful and absurd beautiful dream. The world knew that red blood meant a dead man's farewell, white bones on the battlefield, and never meeting again in life or death. But in the eyes of the illiterate A'Wu, the brightest and truest red in the world was only the festive silk of marriage, a betrothal gift from her beloved promising the rest of his life. Day after day, year after year. Her black hair turned to frost and snow, and the vibrant young girl aged into a frail old woman. Guarding a blood-stained blank letter, guarding a marriage that no one took seriously, and guarding a promise of the rest of their lives that was never fulfilled, she lived a lonely life. The mountains remained evergreen year after year, and the flames of war raged at the border annually. Only her waiting was stubborn and pure, absurd and tragic. Until the lamp of her twilight years burned out, at the very last moment she closed her eyes, she still tightly clutched that blood-colored letter in her hand. A century of obsession buried in time—no resentment, no hatred, only unwillingness. This pure, ultimate regret finally tore through the fabric of heaven and earth, dragging a traveler from another world through the cracks of time. The wind sweeps the mountain leaves, and time reverses. The three-month period begins anew, and all tragedy starts just at their first meeting.