Page 77 of Silk and Sensibility

Meilin’s tempo slowed. Then, instead of continuing the song in the traditional way, she began a variation that was completely her own. While her version lacked the complexity and speed of the original, her notes were intentional and open-minded, the music becoming a question more than a statement.

Can you find a new way? Meilin seemed to ask.

At that moment, Ailin realized what she had to do.

Even if it was embarrassing to admit that she had lied to Enze about wanting to forget him, even if confessing the truth might cause conflict with Shen Lusi—she had to write to him. Then, even if the future didn’t turn out the way she hoped, she would at least know she had done what was right.

Ailin gathered her supplies: the brushes and paper she used every day, as well as the inkstone with apricot blossoms and swallows that Enze had given her almost a year ago. She had hidden the inkstone away as soon as she found out about Shen Lusi. Now, however, she was ready to use it again.

Once her brush was laden with ink, Ailin kept her message short and simple, foregoing sentimental greetings and closings since she knew Enze would recognize her handwriting:

You are a noble scholar whom I will never forget. Do not give up.

自古逢秋悲寂寥，我言秋日勝春朝。

晴空一鶴排雲上，便引詩情到碧霄。

The ancients call autumn a melancholy time,

Yet I say autumn surpasses spring.

Against the clear sky,

A crane flies above the clouds,

Making my spirits soar.

—Poem by Liú Yǔxī, Tang dynasty, transcribed by Fan Enze

Chapter 32

Meilin

After dinner, Captain Bai asked to speak to Meilin alone. No one objected, least of all Meilin.

When Captain Bai first returned a month ago, she tried to restrain herself from being alone with him because she didn’t want to make her desire to marry him too obvious. She’d made that mistake with Wei Luobi and hurt her whole family because of it. In light of Ailin’s heartbreak with Enze, she also felt guilty about her own undeserved luck in love. But when Ailin told her she’d sent a letter to Enze, Meilin began allowing herself to return Captain Bai’s attention more openly.

The man was a marvel. Besides courageously driving away hordes of Wōkòu and being hailed as one of the heroes of Suzhou, he’d come home as kind and considerate as he had always been, perhaps even more so. Meilin remembered their earlier arguments, but now she recognized he had always meant well, even when he expressed himself too bluntly. Through everything they had been through, she now understood that he was a man she could depend on at all times. He was the kind of man she wanted to share her heart with until their hair grew white: bái shǒu tóng xīn.

As Meilin led the way to a secluded garden not far from the dining room, Captain Bai followed, carrying a mysterious oblong sack under his arm. They sat down on a bench beneath a purple crape myrtle tree. A warm sunset illuminated the garden.

Captain Bai set the sack on his other side, obscuring it from Meilin’s view. Sitting next to him, Meilin took a moment to enjoy his presence. Today, he was dressed in casual robes the color of cinnamon, and he smelled like soapberry and sandalwood.

He knitted his fingers like a tent and kept his eyes forward. His dark brows were angled down, as if he had something momentous to say and was worried about how to say it. Seeing him nervous was unusual, but also oddly endearing.

“I have something for you,” Captain Bai said, finally breaking the silence.

“For me?” she asked brightly.

Captain Bai lifted the sack and pushed it toward her. “I hope you’ll like it.”

Meilin peeled back the cloth covering, and her jaw dropped open.

The gift was a zither—her zither. From its paulownia wood soundboard to its mother-of-pearl huī dots to its seven silk strings, it was the same instrument she had dropped to help Ailin dodge Wōkòu arrows.

Never in a thousand years did she think Captain Bai could surprise her like this.

“I saw this zither shatter with my own eyes. How is it intact?”