The Yue Maiden's Story

The stone cottage was furnished as sparsely as it had been the day before, but its owner's return had given it a little more warmth.

Rosinante shakily lit the old oil lamp in the corner, then used the harp with its broken strings as a stand, laying a plank across it to serve as a makeshift tea table.

He poured everyone a cup of tea.

The tea set consisted of four old cups, each with a different pattern. Clearly, he had not entertained so many people at once in years.

"Please excuse my humble home." He sat down in the old rocking chair and covered his knees with a worn, faded blanket. His hands folded over his knees, he slowly looked over the four young faces before him. Finally, his gaze settled on Yaoyue and lingered for a long while, as though he were searching her features for the outline of someone from long ago.

"You want to hear the story of what happened back then, don't you?"

Yaoyue nodded vigorously, gripping her teacup so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

Rosinante leaned back in his rocking chair and raised his head slightly. His gaze passed through the low ceiling, through fifty years of time, and settled on a place only he could see.

"It was autumn, fifty years ago.

"The autumn rain in Ragunna was colder than it had been in previous years, and the wind at the harbor carried it through even the thickest cloak.

"That evening, I had just finished singing at a dockside tavern. My throat was parched and hoarse, and I was in a hurry to get home and warm myself by the fire.

"When I came to St. Elmo's Bridge, I saw a young woman huddled beneath the arch."

His voice was old but steady, as though he were telling an ancient legend that had nothing to do with him. Yet something glimmered faintly in the depths of his clouded eyes.

"She was soaked through and burning with fever. There wasn't a trace of color in her lips.

"She was wrapped in a thin old cloak, and it was clear at a glance that she had come from somewhere else.

"The fabric was made in Huanglong. Ragunna's weavers couldn't produce a pattern like that.

"She was curled up in a corner, like a bird drenched by the rain."

The room was quiet, with only steam rising from the tea.

Cioccolata sat in the corner with a cup in her hands, but she hadn't taken a sip. She watched the old man without blinking.

"I went over and asked her name, where she was from, and whether she had somewhere to stay. Her fever had left her delirious, but her eyes-"

Rosinante paused, tapping the arm of his rocking chair gently with his fingertips, as though hesitating over how to put what came next.

"Even with a fever like that, she kept her eyes wide open, as if she were desperately holding on to something.

"I've seen too many wanderers, and I've only ever seen that look in people who truly didn't want to die.

"She clutched my sleeve and said something. Her voice was as faint as a mosquito's hum, but I heard her clearly."

"What did she say?" Yaoyue's voice trembled.

"She said, 'I can't die. My younger brother is still waiting for me to come home.'"

Rosinante picked up his teacup and took a sip. His hand trembled slightly, whether from age or the memories, it was impossible to tell.

He put the cup down and looked at Yaoyue again. His gaze was gentle, as though he were looking at someone he had known a long, long time ago.

"Those words alone were enough. I knew I had to save her."

He went on with his story.

He carried her on his back to the nearest clinic and spent every Shell Credit he had just earned, but it still wasn't enough.

He left his harp as collateral with the clinic's owner, promising to bring the money to redeem it within three days.

The doctor said she had acute typhoid complicated by pneumonia. Half a day later, and she would have been beyond saving.

That night, her fever reached forty degrees. She raved continuously, calling for her mother and younger brother over and over in the Yuezhou dialect.

He sat on a hard bench at the clinic and watched over her all night, afraid to close his eyes.

"On the third night, her fever finally broke. When she woke up, I was dozing at her bedside.

"She stared at me for a long time. Later, she told me that when she woke up and saw a strange man keeping watch beside her bed, her first reaction was fear.

"But her second thought was, He's quite handsome."

Yaoyue burst out laughing, even as tears fell from her eyes.

She raised a hand to wipe the corners of her eyes, but did not interrupt the old man.

"She stayed at the clinic for seven days.

"I went to see her every day.

"She couldn't stand staying in bed. As soon as she felt a little better, she propped herself up and asked if there was any work she could do.

"I told her she hadn't recovered yet. She said doing nothing made her feel worse.

"That was how stubborn she was.

"We talked a lot. About the customs of Yuezhou, the osmanthus cakes from her hometown, and her mischievous younger brother.

"Her eyes would light up when she spoke. She would smile when she talked about her brother, and fall silent when she spoke of her parents.

"At the time, I thought that although she was as skinny as a bamboo pole, she had a tenacity that refused to admit defeat.

"I'd seen that kind of tenacity on the battlefield, and in sailors fighting for their lives against a storm.

"But not in myself, a bard."

At that, Cioccolata paused with her teacup in hand.

She opened her mouth as if to say something, but ultimately chose to remain silent, only tightening her grip on the cup.

"On the seventh day, the clinic owner discharged her.

"She still hadn't fully recovered and was unsteady on her feet, but she said she had to return to Yuezhou immediately. She was worried about her brother being home alone.

"I walked her to the harbor. She walked slowly all the way there, and so did I. The wind at the docks filled the sails, and everyone was in a hurry to board. Only she stood still at the gangway.

"She looked back at me and opened her mouth, but said nothing.

"I knew what she wanted to say, and I knew why she didn't say it.

"What lay between Yuezhou and Rinascita wasn't a sea. It was her home.

"Her roots weren't here."

Rosinante fell silent for a while, his fingers unconsciously rubbing the arm of his rocking chair.

Yaoyue softly added, "On the day my mother left, you sang her that song."

"Yes. Right there at the gangway. She said she wanted to hear a song, so I took the harp off my back.

"I'd only just redeemed it from the clinic.

"Standing by the pier, facing the sea breeze, I sang her 'To the Yue Maiden Far Away.'

"I wrote that song after staying up two whole nights, and revised it several times.

"I've written more than a hundred songs, but that was the only one I wrote especially to bid someone farewell.

"If she missed home, she could listen to it.

"When she heard it, someone far away would remember her."

Yaoyue set down her teacup and took a gourd-shaped terminal from inside her clothes.

She took a deep breath and pressed play, her fingertip trembling slightly.

A beam of pale blue light projected from the terminal, slowly gathering into a translucent image in the center of the dim stone cottage.

It was a thin woman reclining on an old bamboo couch. Her hair was mostly gray, and her face was gaunt, but her eyes-still clear, gentle, and stubborn even at the end of her life-were just like Yaoyue's.

A thin, faded quilt covered her, and the faintest smile rested on her lips, as though she were looking through the screen at a place very, very far away.

Rosinante suddenly gripped the arms of his rocking chair, his knuckles turning white.

The woman in the image began to speak.

Her voice was soft and halting, as though every word required all the strength she had.

But she enunciated clearly, because she knew this was the last time.

"Mr. Rosinante-"

She paused, then suddenly gave a soft laugh. The corners of her eyes crinkled gently as she smiled, and there was still a faint trace of the young woman who had stubbornly clung to life beneath the bridge.

"I practiced that opening in front of the mirror dozens of times.

"But when it came time to record this, nothing I said felt quite right.

"I felt the same way fifty years ago, when I looked back at you for the last time at the docks. I'd prepared so much to say, but in the end, I couldn't get a word out.

"Let's just say I'm saving you a little time.

"After all, when you sang to me at the docks back then, you didn't say anything to introduce the song either."

In the hologram, she drew a short breath and steadied her breathing.

The stone cottage was so quiet that only the faint crackle of the oil lamp's burning wick could be heard.

The old man sat motionless, every wrinkle frozen on his face.

"The bravest thing I ever did was listen to that song to the end on the pier, then turn around and board the ship.

"Thinking about it now, that was probably also the thing I regretted most in my life.

"But I never regretted it.

"Because on the ship home, I sang that song over and over all the way.

"The other passengers in my cabin all thought I was being noisy. Only I knew.

"I wasn't singing. I was carrying what you gave me back to my hometown, memorizing it one passage at a time.

"That song stayed with me for fifty whole years.

"I used it as a lullaby to put Yaoyue to sleep, sang it as a wedding song at my wedding, used it as a requiem to bid my parents farewell, and now I'll use it to see myself off too.

"You wrote so many songs in your life. Did you ever imagine one of them would be sung by the same person for her entire life?"

Her eyes reddened, but she shed no tears. Instead, her smile deepened, bearing the calm of someone who had long since come to terms with it.

"Finally, there's something I've kept hidden for fifty years. If I don't say it now, I won't have another chance.

"Rosinante, thank you.

"Thank you for saving my life, and for curing me of my stubbornness.

"Before I met you, I thought living was all about repaying debts-repaying my parents for raising me, and repaying the debt I owed my brother for relying on me.

"You showed me there was more to life.

"When I boarded the ship at the docks, I really did want to stay.

"But I knew the girl you liked wasn't the one waiting to die beneath the bridge. It was the one who gritted her teeth and fought to live.

"So I left.

"I didn't marry you. That was the one thing in my life I never had the courage to do.

"But I used the courage you gave me to live a good life."

The woman in the image paused, then suddenly laughed aloud. Her laughter pierced time and life and death, echoing throughout the stone cottage:

"You don't have to answer me.

"I just wanted you to know that in another corner of the world, someone lived a very happy life because you were there.

"Your songs weren't written in vain, and your life wasn't lived in vain.

"The girl who looked back at you for the last time on the pier never forgot you.

"Not once."

The hologram slowly faded.

The stone cottage remained quiet for a long, long time.

No one spoke. No one moved.

Even the birds chirping outside the window fell quiet, as though the whole world were making way for this moment.