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??《烟雨云台》— He Tiancheng (Released: 2023)（Misty Rain Over Cloud Terrace）

??《半山听雨》— Yang Qing (Released: 2018)（Listening to the Rain Halfway Up the Mountain）

「Prologue」· The Draft

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Three Drafts

A draft is the air through an empty room,

A breath that is felt, though it leaves not a trace.

A draft is a letter stopped short by the gloom,

A sentence begun in a long-vanished place.

A draft is the call that one must yet obey,

When fate, in a whisper, has summoned the soul.

Three whispers that gather, then fade away—

Like a wind through the hall, where no form is whole.

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The rain had ceased before midnight.

Nyxl leaned against the veranda pillar, a white porcelain cup held loosely in her hand. At its bottom lay a shallow pool of rainwater—a leak from the eaves that had crept in, drop by silent drop, while she drowsed.

The courtyard lay submerged in indigo darkness, broken only by an occasional ripple gliding across the surface of the water that brimmed the old clay vat beneath the western wall. The circles spread without a sound, like the dying echoes of a sigh.

A hollow, crystalline stillness hung in the air, the kind that follows a thorough rain.

The wisteria had long bloomed and fallen; a few stray petals clung to the bluestone paving, bleached by damp into pale, ghostly smudges.

The water in the vat held shards of sky in its mirror.

Gazing at her own reflection, Nyxl’s fingertip quivered almost imperceptibly—and the rainwater in her cup answered with a faint, nearly invisible tremor.

It had arrived.

Always thus. Soundless, as a wraith of warm grey mist, it slipped past her door. Four months ago, this blind Siamese had appeared beneath the courtyard trellis, drenched to the bone. Its eyes, which should have been sapphire, were instead clouded as if by endless night, holding only a dim, violet dusk-glow.

It had walked straight to Nyxl’s feet, rubbing its brow against the hem of her skirt as though it had always lived here. She fed it, and it stayed. In her silences, it would curl beneath the old rattan chair, its sightless gaze fixed on void.

Now it brushed against her again, its cool nose nudging the curve of her ankle.

Nyxl knelt, fingers sinking into the silk of its fur. The cat lifted its face. In the thick dark, its clouded eyes held two faint, starlike glimmers—as if dredged from some sunken memory. Nyxl often thought this cat too gentle, too cunning in its affections, always choosing the most fragile moments to drape its tail across her trembling wrist.

Then—a draught.

Nyxl’s fingers stilled on the cat’s spine. The damp patches on the bluestones began to shift—not flowing, but as if guided by an invisible brush, tracing faint, trembling paths before dissolving into finer mist. She could feel the weight and drift of every moist particle in the air, but this draught—

—this draught was different.

It ‘was’ different.

It swept through the hall, first skimming her earlobe, then curling around her wrist—where a faded scar once lay—in an arc all too familiar.

It carried a warmth precisely tempered by coolness, a slight chill that felt… fitting.

Nyxl closed her eyes, her fingers curling gently. The suspended moisture gathered at her will into tiny, swirling eddies.

—As if trying to clasp a phantom fingertip in vacant air.

The cat stood abruptly.

It walked toward the center of the empty courtyard, its steps slow, deliberate, as if those blind eyes could truly see.

Its gait held no hesitation, only the solemnity of a long-kept appointment. At the third bluestone slab, it stopped. Its tail rose straight, and a soft, rumbling purr vibrated in its throat—the kind it reserved for when Nyxl scratched beneath its chin.

Nyxl did not open her eyes. She simply extended her palm, summoning a thin film of water upon it. Ripples formed on the surface—one, then another—born not from the wind, but from finer tremors:the air’s passage, temperature’s curve, proof this night’s draught was unlike any prior.

The draught curved round the water vat. The brimming surface dimpled deep, its edges rounding with a held grace, not a drop o’er the lip.

It grazed the wisteria’s barren branches. A few clinging dead leaves trembled, lifted on the air, yet none let go. Finally, it halted by the cat.

She “saw” it—not with her eyes, but through the shifting damp on every inch of her skin. The draught spiraled above the cat’s head, weaving a tender vortex, then—then gently sank. Like an invisible hand, it stroked the tip of a twitching ear, traced the arch of its spine, down to the tail’s poised tip.

The cat arched its back, then softened. It lifted its head, nuzzling unseen fingers, its violet-blind eyes narrowing to contented slits.

She bit her lower lip. The ripples upon her palm shattered into droplets—tiny, suspended, like winter’s frozen tears.

The draught paused, a held breath. The cat remained, head tilted, whiskers a quiver.

Then it moved once more—this time, departing. It skimmed past Nyxl’s feet, light as a shed feather, stirring the damp air. It glided over the vat, and the water smoothed into perfect glass. It drifted through the wooden gate, away—into the bottomless night.

As the last wisp brushed by, she finally opened her eyes.

She saw the cat still there,gazing toward the moon gate, the tip of its tail swaying faintly. The damp patches lingered on the stones, the wisteria hung quiet, the water in the old vat still brimmed.

All remained as it ever was, as though the draught had never come—save for the fine down quivering on the cat’s ears, and the cool damp pressed into her palm, not yet faded.

She walked to the vat and looked down into her reflection. The water was calm, mirroring the cracked night sky and her own face. She reached out and touched the surface—the water parted obediently around her fingertip, closing seamlessly once it withdrew, leaving no trace.

As though never touched.

The cat padded soundlessly back to her feet, brushing against her ankle. Nyxl bent to gather it into her arms, burying her face in its warm, soft fur. It carried the clean scent of rain, the faint earthiness of courtyard soil, and something else… a trace, barely there, of sandalwood—left behind by the wind.

Holding the cat, she returned beneath the eaves and sat.

For a long while.

Until the eastern sky began to pale. She opened her palm—it was empty, save for a trace of cool lingering on her skin, like a certain violet glance cast softly from memory’s depths.

The draught would not come again. It was time for her to leave.

……

Another ripple spread across the vat’s surface.

Nyxl did not move. She knew it wasn’t the wind. It was simply the brimming water, having borne its own weight too long, quietly overflowing, seeping into the cracks between the stones.

The wind leaves not a trace behind.

Only the moss-damp stone remembers, the blighted wisteria remembers, the sightless cat remembers— Some beings are beyond form; some arrivals, beyond proof; some reunions, beyond even a shade.

All waits upon a wind—a wind known to her alone, bearing old souls on its breath.

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On the second morning after Nyxl left, a draught passed once more through the empty courtyard.

The slightly ajar wooden gate creaked once. Paused. Creaked again. The door swung gently shut. From the gap beneath the threshold, a slender spill of warm, wavering yellow light seeped out.

The old clay vat beneath the western wall no longer brimmed—most of its water had been ladled away, leaving a shallow, clear pool that cupped a perfect fragment of sky. Bright beads still clung to the vat’s rim. The smeared wisteria stains on the bluestones had faded, as if patiently brushed over and over by a bamboo broom. The remaining petals were gathered in a corner by the wall, curled damply into a small mound—a tidy, almost serene little grave.

The blind cat emerged from under the rattan chair. It did not head for the moon gate. Instead, tail held high, it circled the courtyard’s empty heart. Its circles grew quicker, tighter, finally stopping where some intangible warmth seemed to linger. Then it halted abruptly, lifted its face to the empty air, and released a soft meow—a sound tender and drawn-out, trailing into a sigh.

Then it arched its back, that familiar, contented purr rumbling in its throat. An invisible hand stroked its spine, from ear-tip to tail-tip, pausing three seconds longer under its chin—its favorite spot. The cat went limp with pleasure, a puddle of melted grey syrup.

From the kitchen chimney, a wisp of pale bluish smoke drifted upward. Not cookfire smoke, but like someone lighting a pile of damp kindling, trying to chase the gloom from the house. The smoke was thin, dissolving into the not-yet-dark sky, soon gone. But the air held at last a touch of worldly warmth—a dry warmth, carrying the scent of mothballs from an old wooden cabinet.

The cat jumped onto the windowsill, settling facing the courtyard. Its cataract-filmed violet eyes caught the warm yellow light spilling from within. The light pooled in its pupils into two small, gentle points of brightness, as if they had never gone out.

Deep in the night, the last dampness evaporated from between the bluestones, hanging beneath the eaves as a thin mist, mingled with the scent of freshly ground ink. It was as if someone had ground ink, written by lamplight, then crumpled the paper swiftly, tossing the ball into a dying brazier—a flash of dark-red ember, then fine ash.

When the first morning light from the east cut slantwise across the courtyard again, the wooden gate’s shadow stretched long and slender. The door was fast shut, its hinges silent. The light fell upon the bluestones, still damp from the receding water, reflecting a small, clear, quivering piece of sky.

The cat rolled over in the light, baring its soft belly, letting the invisible hand comb through the down of its most vulnerable fur, grooming this peaceful, brand-new morning.

——The sky stretched into a pure void, clear and absolute.