Chapter 1: Four Hundred Years of Solitude and One Annoying Scholar

Hu Danyan had saved the man purely by accident — she had been trying to avoid the rain and had stepped into the road at the same moment a runaway cart came around the corner, and it was simply more convenient to stop it than to move again. The man, who introduced himself as Wei Jingzhi and had apparently been composing a poem at the time of near-death, thanked her with the sincerity of someone who had genuinely not expected to survive the afternoon. Then he asked if she lived nearby. She said no. He fell into step beside her anyway, still composing, seemingly under the impression that saving someone's life created a social obligation she had not consented to.