Yellow sand filled the sky.
A white-haired old soldier stood unsteadily beneath the city wall, surrounded by the bones of his fallen comrades.
With his only remaining hand, he mustered the last of his strength and planted the tattered battle flag in the ground. It fluttered amid the swirling yellow sand.
Even at death's door, his eyes remained fixed on the lands beyond the pass. He could not fall; behind him were the lights of ten thousand homes.
A true man died on the battlefield, his corpse wrapped in horsehide. He had no regrets.
Only...
Tw ang...
The notes of a zither drifted through the air, like the gentle music of strings and bamboo amid the misty rains south of the river.
The windblown sand filling the sky turned into a fine, misty rain.
That lonely, deathly silent frontier wall became the riverbank of his hometown, fringed with graceful willows.
A black-canopied boat slowly glided across the river.
An old woman with graying hair stood at its bow, holding the hand of a child with twin hair buns.
"Old man... the fighting's over. We won. It's time to come home for dinner."
The old soldier stared blankly at the wooden boat and the two faces that had haunted his dreams. His long-stiffened hand suddenly loosened, little by little.
The tattered battle flag fell into his hometown's clear river, its bloodstains slowly fading.
He looked down at himself. At some point, his battered armor had become a clean set of coarse hemp clothes.
"Aye... I'm coming..."
Clouded tears streaked down his face, and the old soldier smiled.
He stepped aboard the black-canopied boat and, amid the gentle sound of oars on the southern waters, dissolved into specks of starlight with his family.
The zither played on, unbroken as silk spilling