The road through the southern provinces curved like a thread through a tapestry of golden fields and old stone villages. Mei Lin rode in silence, her eyes scanning the horizon but her thoughts fixed behind her.
Days had passed since she left the ward. Since she left him.
Jun said little, as always. He rode ahead or just behind, respectful of the solitude she needed. But once, when they passed a quiet lake where reeds whispered to the wind, he glanced at her and asked:
"Do you miss him?"
She didn't answer.
The truth was too large, too shapeless, to fit into words.
---
They reached a quiet township nestled beneath terraced hills. The people there had no idea who she was. Just a healer with calloused hands and tired eyes. She liked it that way.
In the mornings, she treated minor injuries. In the afternoons, she taught young girls to mix salves and identify safe herbs. She moved like a shadow in the corner of a simpler life.
But every evening, she returned to her rented room, lit a single candle, and stared at the window, waiting for a letter that never came.
Until it did.
---
It arrived on a rainy morning, slipped between her herbal orders like an afterthought. A plain envelope. No seal. Only her name, in a familiar hand.
Mei Lin
That was all it said.
She stared at it for a long time, afraid to hope. Then she broke the wax.
Mei Lin,
I do not know where to begin, only that I must.
I failed to stop you. I failed to speak when I had the chance.
But if you can forgive silence, if you still carry anything for me in your heart, then I am writing to say: I choose you.
Not out of guilt. Not out of memory. But out of something deeper. Something that grew between us again, even in silence.
I have no promises of freedom yet. But I will earn them.
If you will wait for me, I will return—not as a commander, not as a son of the Council, but as the man who once braided flowers into your hair.
If you cannot wait, I will understand.
But I had to tell you the truth, at least once.
—Liyan
Her hands trembled.
Jun found her sitting in the doorway of the apothecary, the letter clutched in her lap. He said nothing, only knelt beside her and placed a quiet hand on her shoulder.
"I didn't think he would write," she whispered.
"Then why did you wait by the window every night?"
She almost smiled.
...
That night, by candlelight, she wrote back.
Liyan,
Once, I told you I wouldn't wait forever.
But I never told you how long 'forever' feels.
And it feels like now.
You don't need to earn anything—not from me.
You already did, in the quiet moments between everything we didn't say.
Just keep walking. I'll meet you halfway.
—Mei Lin
She sealed the letter before she could second-guess it, handed it to the local courier with steady fingers, and returned to her small room. That night, she didn't look at the window. She slept.
---
By morning, her decision was made.
She packed lightly—just the herbs she'd harvested and the little salve pots the girls had made for her. The rest, she left behind. Some places were never meant to be permanent.
Jun was already waiting outside, holding the reins of her horse.
"You're going back?" he asked.
She nodded once. "To the village."
His gaze searched hers for a moment, then he simply nodded.
There was no need to ask why. He already knew.
The two of them rode out just as the mist began to lift from the hills, leaving behind the township, the apothecary, and the borrowed quiet of a life between choices.
They followed the southern trail, retracing the path they'd once taken north. The journey back to the village was slow, unhurried. Mei Lin watched the landscapes shift like old memories returning in fragments—bamboo groves, terraced slopes, the scent of camphor trees.
She didn't know what would come next.
But she knew where she belonged, for now.
And that was enough.