Liu Yi, at your service — a failed examination candidate. No, wait, I haven't sat the exam yet: a candidate-to-be. Let's get that straight before I pass and you dig this up.
I was traveling from inland toward the coast, bound north for the examinations, when I lost my way in the peach woods before Aolai Town. Shameful, I know: I can tell the three commentaries of the Spring and Autumn apart, but not three paths in a peach wood. A day and a night I wandered, out of food, until a peddler with a shoulder pole led me out.
Getting lost, though, led me to something.
Just before the woods' edge, I sat down under an old peach tree, and from behind it stepped a young woman, soaked through, who asked if I was bound for the East Sea. I said I was. She took a letter from her dress — the envelope already soft with water — and held it out with both hands: Young master, please take this letter to the East Sea, and give it to—
She spoke three words I didn't catch. When I asked again, she was gone.
Don't laugh. I've read the sages; I don't believe in spirits. But the letter sits against my chest, and it's heavy — not like paper, like stone. No characters on the envelope, only a ring of water-marks. I lodged in Aolai Town and asked everyone: who at the East Sea receives letters? Shecan the storyteller looked at me a long time and said: Young master, this letter of yours — I fear it isn't addressed to the mortal world.
Not the mortal world? Then whom?
He wouldn't say. Only: there's an old road by the sea, and a mermaid girl who comes ashore for goods. Ask her.
I've done my reading since. In Tang times there was a scholar called Liu Yi who, having failed the exams, met a shepherdess at Jingyang — a dragon princess — and carried her letter home to the Dragon Palace of Lake Dongting. It's in the books: the Tale of Liu Yi. We share a name, he and I, and we both carry letters for dragon folk. Tell me — can coincidence stretch that far?
So I'm staying in Aolai Town a while longer. First, to mend. Second — honestly, I'm a little afraid. But I fear one thing more: that elder Liu Yi delivered his letter and became a legend. If I lose mine, I become the joke.
The letter outweighs the life. When I've delivered it to the East Sea, I'll come back and boast about it.