Fang Yuan sat quietly in his room, the moonlight spilling across his table like silver ink.
A soft breeze rustled the scrolls and open books before him, but he didn't move.
His eyes were distant, shadowed by thought.
"So… Elder Yin was ostracised by the very village she protected all these years? She never spoke about that..."
He leaned back slowly, arms folded, gaze fixed on the ceiling as if trying to see through the wooden beams above.
"How did she endure it?" he murmured. "How patient must she have been…? Would I have able to think about them if that had been me?"
The memory came unbidden.
Elder Yin, with her ever-circular way of speaking, always skirting the point, never quite direct had stood before him during the last elder meeting.
Her tone had been polite, her words cautious, but the request beneath it was clear: help for the villagers.
Fang Yuan hadn't thought much of it at the time. Just a passing suggestion, irrigation trenches, nothing elaborate.
