Qiguan Yuan stood in the clearing, turning the Marriage Register back and forth in his hands.
He was extremely irritated.
He could not find his way back.
He flipped through the Marriage Register again.
The Marriage Register was packed with names, a dizzying sight.
Only in some of the blank spaces were Qiguan Yuan's illegible scrawls.
He was always jotting down all sorts of things in it. Most of them were routes.
Qiguan Yuan truly had no sense of direction; he was always getting lost. So he had developed the habit of making notes wherever he went.
But because he had recorded far too much, and his handwriting was so sloppy, Qiguan Yuan had successfully managed to lose his way home.
Qiguan Yuan stopped at one page. It should originally have been blank, but now he had covered it with drawings.
Even he could not say what he had drawn. He clicked his tongue in distaste. How could his handwriting be so ugly?
What was on the page looked like a map, with a few crooked characters mixed in. He could just barely make out a "Yun" and a "Yin."
He stared at the page for ages.
He could make nothing of it.
He sighed and closed the book.
His arm moved slightly, and the red thread wound around his wrist swayed with it.
That red thread was different from the one tied around Pei Yubai's wrist. This one was finer and brighter, as though alive, swimming over his skin without a fixed shape.
Qiguan Yuan glanced down at the red thread. "Darling, help me find Yun Yin."
The red thread paused on his wrist, then slowly, slowly extended in one direction.
It slowly wound around Qiguan Yuan's little finger, and a faint tug came through it.
Qiguan Yuan followed the tug. The red thread led him through a patch of shrubs, around a fallen dead tree, and through a clump of ferns.
The sound of bronze wind chimes reached him.
The scattered notes were quiet, but clear in the still woods.
Qiguan Yuan pushed aside the last clump of shrubs and saw his courtyard gate.
The string of bronze wind chimes hung from the doorframe, jingling whenever the wind blew.
He reached out and flicked the wind chimes. They swayed, their notes coming more thickly. "Well done."
Then he raised his hand and tapped the red thread wound around his little finger. The thread obediently withdrew, winding back into its original place, quiet and still.
Qiguan Yuan pushed open the courtyard gate and walked inside.
The front courtyard looked exactly as it had when Pei Yubai and the others had seen it.
Blue bricks paved the ground, the moss in their cracks a fresh green. The old elm stood in the middle of the courtyard, its spreading crown covering half the courtyard in shade. Red cords hung all over the tree.
Qiguan Yuan walked beneath the old elm and looked up.
The tree was tall, its branches reaching into the sky, drawing line after line across the blue expanse. He watched for a while, then circled around behind the tree.
There was a small patch of open ground behind it, enclosed by roots and stones, impossible to notice without looking closely.
The soil there was looser than elsewhere and darker, as though it was often turned over.
Qiguan Yuan bent down and picked up a shovel beside the roots.
The shovel was iron, its wooden handle worn smooth and bearing a dull sheen.
He gripped the handle, drove the blade into the soil, and stepped on it.
The soil was not very compact, and a single shovelful broke it open.
He dug, stroke after stroke, neither hurried nor slow.
The soil was turned aside, exposing what lay beneath. It was the mouth of a wine jar, sealed with red cloth that had faded to a pale pink.
He used the shovel to clear the soil around the mouth, exposing it fully, then set the shovel aside, crouched down, wrapped both hands around the jar, and lifted.
The wine jar was heavy. With a little effort, he pulled it out of the soil. Wet earth covered its body, clinging to his fingers.
He set the wine jar on the ground and went to dig up the second.
He took them out one by one.
Some were lighter, some heavier. The red cloth over some mouths was still intact, while on others it had half rotted away. He placed them beside the roots one after another, arranging them in a row.
One, two, three, four, five... He counted them. Eighteen.
None were missing. Although none could possibly be missing, he was used to checking the count.
He crouched before the wine jars and looked at them. The soil on their bodies had not yet been wiped off; it was wet and gleamed in the sunlight.
His fingers rested on the mouth of the nearest jar, and he tapped it lightly. The jar gave a dull sound, like a brief sigh.
He looked a little bewildered. "Huh? Which jar was it?"
He raised his head and looked at the old elm. Its branches swayed gently in the wind, and the red cords floated up, then fell again. A few hung so low they almost touched his hair.
"Yun Yin, do you remember which jar has aged long enough?"
The wind rustled through the crown. The red cords swayed, as though someone were shaking their head, or perhaps not.
Qiguan Yuan waited a while.
But no one would answer him.
He lowered his head, his gaze sweeping over the wine jars. Some had smooth bodies, others rough ones. Some mouths were sealed with red cloth, others with yellow cloth, and some had no covering at all, only mud plastered over them.
He looked for a long while, then reached out and picked up the jar on the far left.
That jar of wine was not large, its body a size smaller than all the others, but it felt heavy.
The red cloth over its mouth had half rotted away, revealing the wooden stopper underneath. A character was carved into the stopper, obscured by soil and difficult to make out. He rubbed the soil away with his thumb, revealing half the character.
"Yin."
He cradled the wine jar in his arms and wiped the soil off its body with his sleeve.
Once the soil was wiped away, the jar's original color emerged: dark brown, with a dull sheen, smooth to the touch.
He tossed the shovel aside and sat down against the old elm, holding the wine jar.
The trunk was thick against his back, its rough bark pressing painfully into him. He set the wine jar on his knees, peeled away the red cloth, and pulled out the wooden stopper.
The fragrance of wine drifted out. It was not a strong, pungent fragrance, but a faint, lingering one, like plum blossoms and like pine needles, mingled with a barely noticeable trace of earth. It was hard to describe.
He raised the wine jar and took a drink.
The wine flowed from the mouth of the jar, cool as it slid down his throat and into his stomach.
It neither burned nor caught in his throat. It was very mellow, like warm water flowing all the way down his throat. But after he swallowed, warmth rose from his stomach and slowly spread, warming his whole body.
He took another drink.
The second sip was slower than the first. The wine lingered in his mouth for a moment. His tongue tasted sweetness, then astringency, and finally a touch of bitterness, so faint he would not have tasted it without paying close attention.
He leaned against the trunk, his head tilted back, looking at the sky. It was so blue it did not seem real.
A few clouds drifted very slowly, taking a long time to move from one side of the crown to the other.
"Another year."
His voice was quiet, as though he were speaking to himself, or to the old elm. "Yun Yin, you've been gone for eight hundred and twelve years."
The wind blew, lifting the red cords. One that hung very low brushed lightly over his forehead. He reached up to push it aside, pausing when his fingers touched it.
"There seems to be something wrong with my memory. I only discovered it less than two days ago." He paused and took a sip of wine. "I can't remember what you look like."
His tone was calm as he said this, but his fingers slowly stroked the wine jar, again and again, without stopping.
"Don't blame me. After searching for you for so many years, I finally found you, but when we met, I suddenly realized that your face had already grown hazy to me."
He took another drink. The wine slid down his throat, warmth spreading from his stomach.
"Only when I saw you appear in Fated Marriage Village that day, dressed in white, did I suddenly realize that eight hundred years had already passed."
He set the wine jar on his knees and looked down at its mouth. It was round and dark, the wine swaying inside it, reflecting the daylight.
"Fortunately, I still managed to find you."
He raised his head and looked at the row of wine jars before him. Seventeen jars stood in a neat line, bearing a dull sheen in the sunlight.
"Perhaps the time has finally come for us to keep that promise we made back then-not to go home until we're drunk."