This Time, We Won't Lose!

She was an utterly ordinary mountain woman, born into a middling tribe, with parents who quarreled now and then but were mostly harmonious, and a younger brother who was always arguing with her, yet would listen after they were done bickering.

She had grown up in an environment that was neither particularly strict nor particularly easygoing. She learned her family's craft: weaving ropes from reeds and raising fish and shrimp in the reed ponds. She got to know children her own age from several neighboring households, playing and working alongside them as she gradually grew up.

She met her husband one afternoon beneath gentle sunlight. It was a bright autumn day; the forest by the lake had been dyed pale yellow, reflecting the sunlight and glittering like gold. Those sapphire-blue eyes, as though they could speak, made her instantly stop her little sickle in mid-cut. He too stood frozen in place, gazing at the owner of those pale silver eyes, before giving her a shy smile.

They grew familiar with each other. He was the son of a herbalist, and he invited her to dance at the winter mountain-closing festival. She agreed without hesitation. By the following spring, they had become a family, and soon had a child. The child inherited his father's blue eyes, bright and dewy, and often giggled sweetly. He was adorable.

Those were her happiest days. Her son was gradually growing up, and she carried another child in her belly. Her husband's work was hard, but every time he returned from gathering herbs, he brought her a pot of flowers. Their little stone house was certainly crude, yet incomparably warm. The backyard behind it overflowed with dazzling colors, and whenever she stood among the flowers there, he would praise her as the most beautiful sight in