Life is fleeting, but my heart remains steadfast.

The following day was the 20th day of the twelfth lunar month.

Although it wasn't snowing, frost had formed in the early morning.

Beside the schoolyard wall, a few banana trees had withered leaves covered with a thin layer of white, like fine sleet.

The roof tiles were also covered with frost, lines of white extending along the edges of the tiles.

Icicles, some thick, some thin, some long, some short, hung from the eaves, crystal clear.

After Liang Shanbo washed up, he helped Zhu Yingtai pack her bags.

After packing their bags, the two stood outside the schoolhouse. The morning chill enveloped them from all directions, turning their breath into puffs of white mist.

Zhu Yingtai, carrying her luggage, looked at Liang Shanbo, wanting to say more. She wanted to say, "Brother Liang, please take care of yourself," "Eat well," "Don't overwork yourself and ruin your health." But the words that came to her lips were only a soft "Brother Liang, I'm off now."

Liang Shanbo looked at her and nodded: "Take care on your journey."

Zhu Yingtai glanced at him again, then turned and walked along the bluestone path toward the school gate. Yin Xin followed behind her, also carrying a bag, turned back to wave to Liang Shanbo, and then quickened her pace to catch up with her lady.

The master and servant walked out of the school gate.

A bullock cart was parked outside the gate. The cart was sent by the Zhu family, with a sturdy bull harnessed to the shaft, its horns covered with cloth, and its back covered with a blue cloth smother.

An old coachman sat on the shaft, his hands tucked into his sleeves, while several guards and servants stood beside the carriage.

Upon seeing Zhu Yingtai emerge, a maidservant hurried forward, greeted her with a smile, and then took the baggage that Zhu Yingtai was carrying.

Zhu Yingtai walked to the carriage and paused.

She turned around and looked at the school gate. The scene of her coming here to enroll with Brother Liang in late spring this year was vivid in her mind.

Then he looked away and bent down to climb onto the oxcart.

Yin Xin also boarded the car.

The driver gave a soft shout, and the ox swayed its tail and began to move slowly.

The oxcart slowly drove away from the school, along the bluestone path, through the dense pine forest, and headed towards the official road.

……

……

The next day was the 21st day of the twelfth lunar month.

It was Liang Shanbo's turn to set off.

early morning.

He shouldered his bag, walked out of the school building, and closed the door.

He paused for a moment in front of the gate, gazing at the few banana trees by the courtyard wall. The banana leaves drooped, covered with a thin layer of frost. Then he turned and walked along the bluestone path toward the school gate.

He left the school and then embarked on the official road leading to Shanyin.

In late spring of this year, in March, he carried a rattan-woven bag and wore straw sandals, walking from Shanyin to Qiantang.

Now he returns to his hometown along the same road he came from, and the season has changed from late spring to the depths of winter.

Previously, at the "Suihan Qingyin Collection," he had given 10,000 coins to his mother, Madam Lu, which he kept for himself.

Now that he's going home for the New Year, he'll give this 10,000 coins to his mother.

Ten thousand coins is a heavy weight, and it would be quite inconvenient for him to personally carry it back to Shanyin.

Meng Wenlang, showing compassion for his disciple, has written him a letter, which is also addressed to a friend in Shanyin. Upon returning to Shanyin, the disciple can take this letter directly to Meng Wenlang's friend to exchange for ten thousand coins.

The upper class in the Eastern Jin Dynasty placed great importance on personal relationships and reputation. Such transactions, which relied on letters and entrusted others to forward documents, were common and were equivalent to "remote deposits and withdrawals" in this era.

Liang Shanbo has already received the letter.

……

……

We've arrived at the Qiantang River.

The river flows more slowly in winter than in spring, and its color is more somber, not emerald green, but a deep bluish-gray.

The ferry was moored on the shore, the same wooden boat from late spring, its hull varnished with tung oil, giving it a yellowish-brown color. Standing at the bow was the same boatman from late spring, punting a long bamboo pole.

Liang Shanbo didn't need to wait; he stepped directly onto the boat.

The river rippled, and the willows on both banks had shed their leaves, their bare branches swaying slightly in the cold wind.

He gazed at the opposite bank, recalling the scene before crossing the river last spring. At that time, he had recited in his heart, "There will be times when the wind and waves will be strong, and I will set sail to cross the vast ocean." Now, looking back, he realized that in the past six months, he had studied diligently and strived hard at Wansong Academy. Could this be considered a slight reversal of fortune in his life?

On the opposite bank, the bamboo pavilion still stands, and a group of people are waiting for the boat inside and outside the pavilion.

A middle-aged man had an old knife scar running from his brow bone to his jaw on his left cheek. The scar stretched half of his face, making it look slightly distorted and somewhat frightening.

An old beggar, with disheveled white hair, leaned on a cracked bamboo cane in one hand and held a chipped earthenware bowl in the other. She was hunched over and had cloudy eyes.

A woman of some beauty, with her hair tied in a bun, was leading a boy of about five or six years old.

A young woman with a somewhat robust build and dark skin, who looked like someone who made a living on the river year-round.

There were two more young students who resembled Liang Shanbo.

Although it is the dead of winter, the New Year is approaching, and there are more travelers on the road than in late spring.

The boat docked, and Liang Shanbo disembarked.

People boarded the ferry one after another. Among them, the somewhat attractive woman leading the boy and the rather robust young woman both intentionally kept their distance from the middle-aged man with the scar on his face, harboring a sense of wariness.

Liang Shanbo did not leave the ferry immediately. Instead, he walked to the pavilion, sat down, and looked at the people boarding the boat. He recalled the few travelers he had met here in late spring of this year who were waiting for the boat.

The peddler carrying his wares, the young couple with their child, the elderly man with gray hair and beard leaning on a bamboo cane—how have these people been doing for the past six months? Where are they now?

He watched the ferry slowly sail towards the opposite bank, and suddenly remembered a poem he had written in his twenties in a previous life:

Life is fleeting, like a transient journey in the vast sea of ​​humanity.

So many people brush past each other, but it's all just a fleeting moment like a wind chime on the eaves.

You ride your horse across the long street, I carry a lantern to illuminate the cool night.

Vanished in an instant into the vast mortal world

This life's connection is so thin, I didn't even have time to carefully depict his features.

They then went their separate ways, never to meet again.

After the mountains and rivers

Only the wind stirred by the hem of my clothes that day

I still vaguely remember a similar coolness

In the story of "The Butterfly Lovers," although Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai were not destined to be apart, their ending was ultimately a tragedy. Although they did not go their separate ways and never meet again, one died of grief and sorrow, while the other threw herself into a grave and died for love. They could not share a bed in life, but they could share a grave in death.

No, he absolutely did not want this to be the outcome!

Now that he has been Liang Shanbo for a year, he is determined to rewrite his destiny, his own destiny, and Zhu Yingtai's destiny.

Life is but a fleeting journey, yet my heart remains steadfast.

I aspire to be like the swan, soaring through the sky.

Thinking of Zhu Yingtai, he wondered if she was still on her way home, the oxcart moving slowly, and if she was thinking of him.

He stopped thinking about it, calmed his mind, shouldered his bag again, stood up, stepped out of the bamboo pavilion, and onto the official road leading to Shanyin.

A cold wind brushed my face, and the sound of the river faded into the distance.

His steps were more steady than they had been in late spring this year.