Twelve Years, Old Friend's Play

"Years pass, a song of old friends on stage; you and I are both players in the drama." When they first met, Third Master Fu was a young gentleman who had booked half the theater to support a performer, sitting with one leg crossed over the other, leaning to whisper to the person beside him. In the flickering lamplight, his profile revealed a kind of weary charm. Only later did she truly see—in that half-light, half-shadow, he sat upon a mountain of bleached bones, guarding a vast and boundless land. This story is purely fictional.