It was recorded in the Classic of Mountains and Seas.
"On Mount Chongwu, there was a bird shaped like a duck, with one wing and one eye. Only together could they fly. Its name was Manman..."
There was a bird called Manman. Each bird had only one wing and one eye, and two birds had to pair up and work together to fly.
In later generations, this trait of flying wing to wing was greatly romanticized, becoming a classic symbol of marital love and unwavering fidelity.
Chen Xin took a box from his bag and opened it. Inside lay a feather, light and golden.
Magnificent, dazzling-no beautiful word would have been out of place in describing it.
"I saw it," Chen Xin said, "on Mount Maglić, in Bosnia and Herzegovina."
Sun Xiangxiang looked at the box. She neither accepted it nor pushed it away. She seemed frozen, her breathing barely perceptible.
"I wanted to photograph it as our wedding gift, but it was too dangerous there. I'd only just turned on my camera when it flew away, leaving a feather on the ground."
Sightings of divine birds were rare enough, let alone anyone catching the slightest trace of their movements.
As far as Sun Xiangxiang could remember, Chen Xin rarely said so much in one breath.
When they were together, Sun Xiangxiang did most of the talking, asking questions or making suggestions. Chen Xin's answers were always "Mm," "Okay," or "Whatever you say."
But Sun Xiangxiang had always been talkative, so she had never minded.
Only later, when they spent less and less time together and Chen Xin suddenly asked her one day why she was no longer talking, did Sun Xiangxiang realize that whenever she said nothing, lengthy silences would fall between them.
Back then, Sun Xiangxiang had asked