The BSN writers club

Prefect Pu Liang parted the curtains to check the progress of his sedan chair. They were barely past the half way point of the windy road up the Hill of the Five Seasons. He sighed in frustration, leaned back, closed his eyes and pictured Serene Sister Weynala again. He was confident that she’d summoned him today because of a certain scroll he’d slipped from his sleeve into hers during their last audience. The matter she cited in her letter was far too trifling to be anything but a pretext to see him. Pu Liang willed himself to see her whispering the verses he’d written back at him as the flower petals fell and fell from her eyelashes past her dark lips. Instead, his imagination uncooperatively painted Serene Sister distant and angry. She ripped his scroll to shreds and threw the scraps at him. His heart lurched, his mind protested the very image it created… why, why? Other men found the fairies spooky, but not Pu Liang.

For most of his life Liang studied for the Examination, and when he was finally admitted to sit it, it was rapture, a culmination of fruitful, exciting years. Alas, the success, the high rank awarded to him and the position in Port Sutao, were not enough for Pu Liang. His days were aimless and dull, since he no longer had the Examination to strive for. Yet Pu Liang served diligently, hoping that a new goal worthy of his mettle would manifest itself. It did, but surprisingly, it was not a political intrigue, or a philosophical dilemma, but a man’s desire. The day Pu Liang first visited the fairies in his official capacity as Prefect, his mind awakened from slumber, spurred on by the excitement of the new challenge. He aspired to win Sister Weynala’s love at least as fervently as he’d wished to pass the Examination when he was a student.

Pu Liang’s anxieties evaporated faster than water in the Sea of Sand and Bones when he finally stepped out of his litter into the courtyard of the Temple of Serene Joy. A fairy acolyte glided over from the dormitories, and beckoned for him to follow. The audience was an informal one, so Pu Liang was not surprised to be led away from the glorious buildings that crowned the Hill of Five Seasons and could be seen from afar. As one of the very few humans who had been admitted on the fairy lands, Pu knew that those buildings were the least cherished of the fairy’s holdings. The Temple grounds extended far beyond what should have fit on the Hill, a patchwork of small gardens and pavilions, each one existing in the season that set off its beauty the best and reflected the mood of its fairy owner. This was the most precious part of the Temple of Serene Joy, set perhaps in Heavens, and linked by some imperceptible boundary to the Hill and its buildings of Earthly materials. Today Pu Liang walked mostly through the displays of Spring, fairies’ favorite season. His eyes grew accustomed to pink and white blossoms coating the boughs, blue stars of snowdrops studding the carpet of emerging grass. Among that splendor, he knew Serene Sister Weynala’s stronghold at once, by the crimson of the autumnal leaves.

Pu Liang followed the stone path to the pavilion, and his heart leapt into his throat when the silent guide stopped at the gates and did not follow him. He walked inside the pavilion, to find a room full of intricately carved tables, benches and shelves, all covered in scrolls. Elated to be in Sister Weynala’s presence, Pu Liang watched her to peruse a scroll. It was not his, but Liang could see it, unrolled, in front of her.