Rivers disappear, but ink marks endure.
Deep within the stack of old papers hides a vanished river named “Qing Rui,” and also a twenty-year-long, unspoken approach.
Ling Xueqing’s world is defined by a repair desk precise to the millimeter, the fragile fibers of ancient books, and the river her mother remembers but can no longer find. She seals herself into a flawless specimen using rationality and extreme restraint, until the girl who always sleeps by the window in the afternoon repeatedly breaks into her meticulously ordered life.
Ye Qiulan’s world is the label on her father’s medicine bottle, the frayed edges of life, and the hours spent holding her breath while restoring ancient texts. She is used to existing quietly on the periphery, until she realizes the cool gaze fixed upon her carries a different warmth than anyone else’s.
From an accidental brush of fingertips across an oak table in the library, to a difficult confession of a heavy past in a rainy warehouse; from a fictional river on an old map to a blurred private seal in a late Qing dynasty genealogy—they awkwardly learn how to approach each other amidst old papers and dust.
When they finally gather the courage, what they touch might not just be each other’s hands, but also the “Qing Rui” that vanished in time, and the unnamed spring at the river’s end.
Raw Novel Name: 雪落秋闌時
