Lady Yaoqin, Reading your letter feels like meeting you in person:
Lately, I've been experiencing palpitations, talking to myself, and gazing at the moon lost in thought. My senior saw this and gave a slight smile, suggesting that I've fallen in love and advised me to reveal my feelings to you soon.
I find his words reasonable, so I sought poems to express my emotions, but the more I read, the more I felt pity for those women who fell in love. It's said that red beans symbolize longing because a woman's husband died at the frontier, and she wept under a tree until she turned into red beans. This story makes no sense. Does "being in love" mean a woman must cry every day? In my view, if one truly loves a woman, he would never let her be sad, nor would he bind her with love for life. These poems are not good and need not be read further.
You often say I am like a machine, doing the same things day after day, so you took me by the hand to stay up all night, listening to the rainfall on the parasol trees and witnessing the first awakening of the crabapple. Those scenes, I will never forget.
But I also understand your aspirations and do not wish to bind your steps with the phrase "meeting day and night." I only hope that one day, when all is settled, we can together witness the world's Phenomena.
Mystech Duan Tingxianshu