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Where colorful butterflies flutter, I naturally follow.

By Yuanshui Bridge, we meet rain or shine.

Mei Fugui, who will wait for you forever

A few sprigs of red plum blossoms dotted with a few snowflakes and a few painted butterflies. The winged, colorful insects were collectively pasted onto the snowy plum blossoms, as if stuck in a spider's web, unable to fly away.

Damn it!! Such great artistic conception, I am truly amazing! Heheheh!

"Young Master Ba, what are you *shi*ing?"

"Move along, this is Japanese, do you understand? What's your education level, eat more food and speak less."

"..."

Setting aside the writing brush, shaking out his wide sleeves, and pulling out a Seal, he stamped it with a bang and painted a red plum blossom paired with a gold ingot in the corner.

"Done, quitting for the day."

"Young Master Ba, you, this... is it really considered finished? This is my very first love letter in this life, and it is very important to me and even to the continuation of the Mei Household's incense fire and the passing on of our ancestral lineage."

"I can't care about passing on ancestral lineages and continuing incense fires. But rest assured. I have always been most considerate of my patrons. Look, I even turned both you and your crush's names into important elements integrated into the entire love letter. I guarantee that after reading the letter, your darling will be so intoxicated by your creativity, talent, and deep affection that she won't be able to extricate herself, and will desperately want to fly immediately to Yuanshui Bridge to flutter about with you like mandarin ducks."

"Is it really that magical? Hand it over and let me have a look."

"Pay the silver first, then take the goods. Those are the rules."

"Bah. Poor, stinky scholar. The affection between Die'er and me is priceless!"

The moment his voice fell, a small scrap of silver was slapped unyieldingly onto the table. One hand delivered the money while the other delivered the goods, and the love letter paper overflowing with fragrance was pushed to the edge of the table.

Young Master Ba, looking like a scholar, revealed a bright smile, weighed the silver, and tucked it into his pocket. "Take your priceless love letter home and read it slowly. I'm going to close the shop and leave a step ahead."

"Wait. Bookworm Ba." The man who had forked over the silver began to become less easy to talk to, grabbing the short scholar by the collar. Swoosh— "Although I, Mei Fugui, don't read many books, can you explain to me why plum blossoms blooming in winter would have butterflies resting on top of them?"

He had never seen butterflies this lively in the dead of winter.

Young Master Ba raised an eyebrow, swatted away the man's dark claws, and leisurely tidied the collar of his long robe. "Let me ask you, when are butterflies supposed to appear?"

"How should I know, at least pick a warm day?"

"What about plum blossoms?"

"The dead of winter, duh."

"Your surname is Mei?"

"Who in a radius of a hundred miles doesn't know Mei Fugui? Whenever people mention a thousand acres of fertile land, a family fortune of ten thousand strings of cash, and an only son to carry on the family line, don't they think of me, Mei..."

"Your family's wealth will probably be gone by your generation... Such bad luck."

"What are you mumbling about?"

"Ahem, what this scholar means is that your surname is Mei, and your crush is named Die. One blooms in the bitter cold of the twelfth lunar month, while the other flutters in the warm, blooming season of spring..."

"What does that mean?"

"..." That meant the two of you had no chance at all, you were overthinking it, you had eaten too much, chasing after butterflies in the dead of winter, bah. But... subtext was the most taboo thing to speak aloud; once spoken, it lost all aesthetic appeal, all artistic conception, and all harmony. Before a patron, of course one had to say: "That means the two of you are destined by heaven, and your affection is stronger than gold. You are willing to bloom in the warm sun for her, and she can fly into the bitter winter for you. This is a hyperbolic artistic processing method in literary works, do you understand? Understand, do you understand??"

"Is... is that how it is?"

"Bah, within a hundred li nobody dares to doubt Zhu Bafu's professional proficiency in writing love letters. Who among the newly married young couples all along this street hasn't used my calligraphy to patch themselves into a pair! Why can't you chase women? It's simply because of that stubborn, fossilized brain of yours. Do you know what fossilized means? It means once upon a time there was a country bumpkin with no romance and no poise, who only knew how to count gold ingots all day long, and relying on his money, he chewed on spareribs every single day—chewing and chewing and chewing until his stomach and intestines got blocked and he couldn't digest!"

"Huh? Fossilized... So that's what it meant? No wonder Die'er says that about me..."

"Knowing where you were wrong, hurry off and improve yourself. I won't charge you a consultation fee this time. For a short while, I do not want to see you! Disappear from my sight."

"Yes... y-yes, many thanks for Young Master Ba's guidance, I'm disappearing, disappearing... Then after Die'er reads this letter you helped me write, will she definitely keep the tryst?"

"If she hasn't kept the tryst yet, it means your improvements haven't reached the required standard!"

"I understand. Starting from today, I simply won't eat spareribs anymore!"

"Humph. I hope you keep your word."

The sucker of a patron vanished at the end of the street. The scrap of silver was tossed into a small purse, and as slender, onion-white fingers pulled a pink embroidered drawstring, the young master in a green-bottomed white silk long robe spat out his tongue, his face full of triumphant smiles. That Miss Die'er had long since spread the word that she wanted to marry a cultured, well-read scholar, and didn't care at all for the Mei Household's lousy silver. A love letter could fix a woman? That was only about right when a woman's heart was already stirred with spring feelings. As for this matter, he had to find a way out for himself in advance and cut ties clean. If this jinx couldn't catch a woman, he mustn't let it smash his golden signboard.

Lifting the front hem of the men's clothing, the pink scholar tucked the silver pieces into his waistband, glanced at a folded love letter sitting on the table, curled his lip, and simply grabbed a whole bunch of them, shoving them straight into his waistband. He hurriedly pulled down his clothing, snatched a folding paper fan from the table, bit it between his lips, and scurried outside in a panic.

The moment he bolted out a few steps, two or three women behind him gathered into a little clique and kept pointing at him, covering their mouths in coy smiles, making him feel as though needles were pricking his back.

"It's Young Master Ba of Wuya Bookstore. Today, too, his whole body is brimming with a dazzling scholarly aura. Such a handsome and exquisite young master, with flowing talent and a fine writing style—I wonder whose young lady has the good fortune to be a match for him."

"If a scholar doesn't radiate a scholarly aura, does he radiate a murderous aura instead? He's not as special as you're making him out to be. Look at him, such a sissy, with a slender neck and swaying waist like a woman."