The cottage was quiet.
Too quiet.
Mei Lin sat on the wooden stool by the window, the soft chirp of crickets filtering through the paper screens.
The moonlight outside painted silver threads along the edge of her table, catching faintly on the drying herbs she'd forgotten to pack away. Her hands rested in her lap, motionless.
The stream murmured just beyond the garden, the same one where she had released the wooden crane only the night before. It had been a small gesture. Gentle. Final.
But it had done little to quiet the storm inside her.
Sleep had not come.
She had lay down—tried to rest—but the night had stretched long and sleepless, haunted by faces and voices she had spent years trying to silence.
His voice.
The weight of his silence.
The sight of him in full ceremonial dress, standing beside another woman, his expression calm and untroubled. That moment replayed itself endlessly behind her eyes.
He hadn't looked happy.
But he hadn't looked for her either.
She reached for the tea pot, found it cold, and poured anyway. The bitter taste of old jasmine clung to her tongue, grounding her just enough.
Why had she gone?
Why had she allowed herself to hope?
The wounded soldier had found her by sheer chance, muttering Shen Liyan's name through bloodied lips and pressing a message into her hand before he died. "He kept his promise," the man had said. And those words had torn down everything she'd built.
She hadn't asked for his return.
She hadn't asked to remember.
But remembering had come all the same.
The ache had followed. The old questions. The part of her that still wondered what might have been, what could have been if he had chosen differently. If he had chosen her.
Mei Lin stood and walked to the door, pulling it open. The cool air brushed against her skin like an old friend, familiar and sharp.
She needed to breathe.
She needed to move.
She wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and stepped outside. The moon rode high now, casting the hills in quiet light.
Dew clung to the grass, dampening the hem of her robe as she walked.
Down to the stream.
To the place where she had let go.
The water shimmered softly, carrying with it the faint rustle of leaves. She crouched near the edge and dipped her fingers in.
Cold.
Clear.
Unchanging.
How many times had she stood here, wondering about a future that never came?
She had once dreamed of healing the injured beside him, of traveling with his campaigns, of growing old in a modest house near the river.
She had dreamed too much.
He had remained where she left him, surrounded by honor and duty. And she—she had chosen solitude. A quieter life. But not an easier one.
And now they were strangers again.
She traced small circles in the stream water, watching as the ripples spread. Her throat tightened.
She didn't cry.
She hadn't allowed herself tears since the day she walked away.
But now, in the soft cradle of the mountains, away from the noise and expectations, she felt the fracture reopen.
And with it, the truth.
She still loved him.
That love had changed, yes—grown older, sadder, more distant. But it hadn't vanished. And that terrified her more than anything.
Because it meant a part of her still belonged to someone who never came for her.
Who watched her walk away—again—and did nothing.
She rose, brushing her hands on her robe, and turned back toward the cottage. The lantern inside flickered faintly. She paused before going in, glancing once more at the stream.
Would he think of her?
Would he remember the nights they spent sitting beneath the plum tree, counting stars and whispering stories?
Or would he bury her among the things he no longer needed?
---
Morning came quietly.
The sun rose over the hills, pale and golden. Mei Lin went about her work, slow but steady. She ground roots, folded gauze, wrote down new formulas for remedies she had long meant to test.
But her thoughts were miles away.
The wedding was this week, they had said.
It might have already happened.
Was he already someone else's husband? A title she'd never been offered. A name she would never wear.
She pressed her hands to the wooden table and bowed her head.
She should stop thinking of him.
But when she closed her eyes, she saw his silhouette.
Not in grand robes or polished boots.
But barefoot beneath the rain, holding a blanket above her head, laughing because she had forgotten her shoes during the first spring storm.
She saw him sitting in her cottage, reading labels off jars and mispronouncing half of them. She saw him placing a carved plum blossom beside her tea cup without a word.
Small things.
Precious things.
The kind that duty never had room for.
Mei Lin straightened and crossed the room, opening the wooden chest in the corner. Inside lay scrolls, folded linen, the ivory hairpin he had once gifted her—and a sealed letter.
She had never opened it.
It had arrived years ago, late in the winter, when she was still raw from leaving. It bore his seal.
She had kept it.
But never read it.
With trembling fingers, she broke the seal.
---
Mei Lin,
I write this knowing you may never read it. But I write it anyway because silence weighs heavier than guilt.
You left, and I let you.
I told myself it was for the best. That you deserved more than a man who could not promise you peace. I convinced myself that duty came first—that honor demanded sacrifice. But what I never told you was this:
I missed you every day.
Not just your presence, but your words. Your laughter. The way you understood me without asking.
I thought I could live without you.
I was wrong.
I don't ask for forgiveness. I don't ask for your return. I only hope that, wherever you are, you find the joy I could not give you. You deserve that.
I keep the plum blossom you carved on my desk. The crane too. They remind me of the spring we first met.
And they remind me of everything I lost.
—Shen Liyan
---
Mei Lin read it twice.
Then again.
She pressed it to her chest and closed her eyes.
Too late.
The letter had come too late.
But his words—his truth—still reached her.
And that was something.
The ache inside her didn't vanish, but it softened. Enough.
Enough to let her breathe.
She folded the letter and returned it to the box. Not as something to forget, but as something to remember with gentleness.
Then, slowly, she picked up her satchel.
She gathered the balm she'd made, jars of tincture, cloth bandages. She tied her hair in a long braid and wrapped herself in her travel cloak.
Not for him.
Not to chase ghosts.
But because she remembered who she was before the heartbreak. A healer. A traveler. A woman who walked her own path, no matter how hard it became.
She had returned to the capital once. She could leave again.
Or she could go somewhere new.
Somewhere unwritten.
As she stepped into the sunlit road, the weight she carried felt lighter.
Some griefs never truly left.
But some goodbyes were not endings.
They were beginnings in disguise.
And maybe—just maybe—one day, if the wind was kind and the stars aligned, she would see him again.
Not as the woman who waited.
But as the woman who chose herself first.