Chapter 3.4: Balcony

Hun Chengde sat on the balcony where the note had said to wait. He held a package in his hand. During that age, it was the custom for young men to bring gifts, not only to the ladies they courted, but to their circle of friends and family. He hoped that his gift would be appropriate; he did not know who would be recieving it.

The screen slid back to reveal a girl with a white-powdered face; her hair was carefully tied back with delicate ivory combs shaped like maple leaves. Her robe was striped white and black. The only colour in that figure was in her lips and eyes, red-brown like dried blood. It was Vermillion Sparrow. "Hush, quickly, I have a dance lesson to attend, I am only here to give you this..." She gave him an envelope.

When she had darted back out of the balcony, Chengde opened it. The message, frustratingly, was a meaningless ramble of characters. The paper smelled of cherry blossoms and the sea. Most puzzling of all, where the signature should be, there was only a sun with sixteen rays, drawn carefully with red ink. As he walked back to his rooms, Chengde studied the paper. Some of the characters were drawn with strokes that were distinctly incorrect, it seemed, but here and there he could see a phrase: needstrange, my heart oddity desolate chimera... it was clearly a love letter, and in a language that he did not know.