Chapter 17

Chapter 17

In the beginning, Liang Zhi was like a friend to me.

He was a simple youth, sincere and endearing.

Take that abandoned pond, for instance. My talk of the ‘Southern Sea’ and ‘lotuses’ had been nothing more than a passing remark.

Yet, I never expected that three years later, it would truly be filled with a pond of blooming lotuses.

‘Wind through the reeds by the small pond, the scent of lotuses after the rain…’ Because the scene was so truly beautiful, a scholar later even wrote a poem in its praise.

When I heard of this, I sent my Wet Nurse to investigate. An old man in the city told her that the lotuses had been planted by a young man three years ago. The youth had spent a long time cultivating them, and they finally bloomed this summer.

However, for some unknown reason, that young man had long since vanished.

Liang Zhi really was the world’s biggest fool.

Not only did this fool plant lotuses behind my back, but he was also convinced that I loved them. Every midsummer, he would insist on going out into the wild to pick a large bouquet and deliver them to my windowsill.

On my fourteenth birthday, he even gave me a lotus hairpin carved from wood.

In our youth, we didn’t understand the nature of love. He didn’t realize that a hairpin was not the kind of thing one should give a girl lightly.

And I, raised to be mindful of propriety, clearly knew I shouldn’t accept such a gift. Yet, as if possessed, I took it anyway and kept it cherished in a golden casket.

That wooden lotus hairpin was truly ugly.

But it was carved by Liang Zhi’s own hands.

At the age when one’s heart first begins to stir, I knew I liked him. But I also knew that this affection was destined to be in vain.

Liang Zhi and I never made our feelings for each other clear.

Even though Xi’er once said that whenever he looked at me, his eyes were always as bright as the stars-a joy that simply couldn’t be hidden.