From the memories of Wang Jian
The wine had long since gone cold, but Wang Jian still swirled it in his cup, watching the ripples catch lantern light.
He hadn't meant to remember tonight—but the wind through the paper windows carried a familiar scent: plum wine, and something sharper beneath.
"You two used to laugh, once."
The words escaped him without warning, as if pulled from some hollow in his chest.
It had been spring in name only that year, the frost still clinging to stone paths. Wang Jian had been younger then—wide-eyed and wary, trailing behind the other two like a shadow. Shao Han had leaned over the pavilion rail, his hair unbound, loose with the wind. And beside him stood Li Shuyin, all in pale silver, speaking softly in a tone no one else ever earned.
"I think," Wang Jian had said, "I would like to stay here. Just a little longer."
"Stay as long as you like," Shuyin replied, without hesitation. "This place will remember you, even if I am gone."
At the time, Wang Jian hadn't understood the weight behind the words. Now, years later, it pressed heavy on his ribs.
They'd left the pavilion eventually. They'd left everything, really.
But sometimes, Wang Jian thought, places kept memories even when people tried to forget them. The wine pavilion still stood on the southern slope of Ling territory. And when the wind was just right, it whispered their names in fragments.
Wang Jian
Li Shuyin.
And himself, forever the third shadow on their sunlit days.