The next morning came with soft clouds and a bitter chill. The town was still asleep, but the quiet held a different weight now — one that settled not just over the streets but inside her chest.
Mei Lin woke before the bell rang. She washed her face, brushed her hair, and folded her blanket in perfect lines. The same routine she had done for years. But everything felt different.
Her movements were hollow, her limbs light, as though she were floating through her own life.
When she opened the window, a breeze blew past her cheeks, and for a moment, she thought it might carry the sound of boots on cobblestone. Her heart leapt—
But it was only the wind.
Just the wind.
---
For the next few days, she did what she had always done: she smiled, bowed, served tea. She danced beneath paper lanterns and sang beneath the scent of plum wine.
But her voice didn't rise the way it used to. Her eyes no longer scanned the room for a certain uniform. And when men complimented her, she smiled out of habit, not hope.
Lan Rou noticed, of course.
"You look pale, little bird," she said one evening while pinning a red flower in her own hair. "Is it heartbreak? Or finally the weight of being nothing?"
Mei Lin didn't flinch.
She simply walked away.
---
In the silence of her room, Mei Lin found herself drifting.
She lit her candle early and stared at the crane on the table. Its wings had once looked like a promise — delicate, carved with care. Now they just looked unfinished.
She picked it up one evening and turned it over in her palm. Her fingers traced the rough lines in the wood, the tiny imperfections in the carving.
He made this.
Not with intention. Not with love. Maybe not even with thought.
But he gave it to her.
And that meant something.
Didn't it?
She set it back down and turned away, but her mind didn't follow. It slipped backward — into a memory she rarely allowed herself to revisit.
---
[Flashback Begins]
She was eight when the festival came to her village. The streets had been filled with red ribbons, music, and the scent of roasted chestnuts. Her mother had dressed her in a pale pink tunic with small embroidered cranes near the collar. She remembered twirling in it, laughing, chasing the glow of lanterns.
She remembered feeling safe.
And then… everything changed.
She had let go of her mother's hand for just a moment — to chase a dropped coin, to follow the sound of a flute.
A cloth. A hand. Darkness.
When she awoke, she was in a wagon with strangers.
A woman in a veil sat beside her. "Pretty face," she murmured, lifting Mei Lin's chin. "Quiet too. That'll fetch a good price."
Mei Lin didn't understand.
Not until weeks later.
Not until she was handed over to the madam of the gambling house — renamed, reclothed, redefined.
"You'll be one of the lucky ones," the madam had said. "You'll serve tea, not bodies. But don't mistake this for kindness. We're preserving value, not innocence."
---
As she grew, Mei Lin learned to move with grace, to speak with charm, to smile without soul. Men adored her, envied her, longed for her.
But no one knew her.
No one cared to.
She had always been something to watch, not to hold.
Until him.
---
[Flashback Ends]
She closed her eyes, and her throat tightened.
He hadn't asked for her past.
But he had looked at her like she was real.
Like she wasn't just another pretty thing behind silk and song.
That was what made it hurt most.
Not that he had someone else.
But that he let her believe there could be something more.
---
The next few days blurred. She found herself lingering near quiet places: the courtyard garden, the tea storeroom, the roof under moonlight.
The other girls chattered about officers and visitors. The musicians tuned their instruments for the upcoming feast. Life moved on.
But Mei Lin no longer moved with it.
---
One evening, while walking back from the market with thread for embroidery, she paused at a bridge just outside the town.
The river below was slow and wide, its surface glittering in the fading sun. She sat on the edge and let her feet dangle, her sandals beside her.
A child passed by with a kite in the shape of a crane. It soared briefly, dipped, then lifted again.
Mei Lin watched until it vanished.
Then whispered to the wind:
"You said you'd come to me first."
And then she said nothing else.
---
That night, she returned to the tea house and wrote a letter.
It wasn't addressed. It wasn't even sealed.
It simply said:
"If I am not enough now, I will never be."
She folded it into a paper crane and placed it beside the wooden one.
Then turned away.
---
The next morning, Lan Rou barged into the dressing room with a triumphant smile.
"Ladies," she announced. "Prepare yourselves. There's talk that the Commander's new wife will be visiting with her entourage. We're to offer a private performance."
The other girls lit up with excitement. Even the madam adjusted her hair.
But Mei Lin sat still.
New wife.
Entourage.
Performance.
Her hands shook as she reached for her comb.
She couldn't stay here.
Not anymore.
---
That night, after all had gone to sleep, Mei Lin rose.
She packed a small bundle — thread, coins, a spare tunic, and the two cranes. She left everything else.
No farewell. No goodbye.
She simply walked.
Out the back gate, through the alley behind the teahouse, and into the dark.
---
She didn't know where she would go.
But she knew she couldn't stay.
And maybe that was enough.