My aunt wouldn't allow it, saying that since I was a grown man and already had a family outside my home, I could survive anyway. Yang was an orphan, what would she do after the divorce?

Yang's father and brother were officials guarding the northern border. Although they were civil servants, they were good friends with my father. Later, my father was transferred from the northern border to the Western Route Army, and the distance was far, but the friendship between the two fathers was extraordinary.

It was then that I learned that in the battle with the Northern Huns two years ago, the father and brothers of the Yang family let the people go and climbed the city wall themselves, where they died in a bloody battle. Among them were the women of the Yang family who insisted on not leaving and stayed to fight. The entire family died in the battle, leaving only this orphan girl.

After I returned to the border town, I couldn't forget Yang's face. I remembered seeing her in the northern border as a child. Unexpectedly, she came to the northwestern frontier, found me, and gave me many gifts, saying that her aunt was worried that I would suffer. She also told me not to worry, that the divorce could be handled quietly, without telling my parents or aunt.

She said that after I left, my aunt had been worried sick. She said what mother wouldn't worry about her son and wish him back home? Her presence had made things difficult for everyone and wronged Miss Yu, so she had secretly come to arrange a divorce under the guise of sending gifts.

I was so upset after hearing that, I found an excuse to delay it. When Yu Minghua found out, she had a big fight with me.

I can't go back to the barracks, I can't go back to Kyoto, and now I can't go back to my home on the border. I have to divorce my innocent wife, an orphan who has suffered so much injustice and pain, yet she still thinks of others. I am a selfish bastard.

In his distress, he got drunk and scribbled a few lines on the wall of a restaurant. Because he had no money, when he went to pay for the wine the next day, he found that the second half of the poem had been completed.

I asked the waiter and chased after him. It turned out to be Yang. She didn't expect it was me. She was surprised and said goodbye calmly and left.

The Northern Huns drove the Northern Qiang to this border town, perhaps seeing the city's defenses as weak and preparing to take advantage of the situation. The soldiers and civilians of my border town rose up to resist. I have been a soldier for many years, and although I am now a civilian, I naturally went up to the city to fight, but I saw Yang Shi there as well.

I asked Yang to leave, but she refused, saying she'd spent a lot of time at the border in her youth, practiced horseback riding and archery, and that an extra person would be a much-needed advantage. Seeing her fearless, almost disregarding her own life, I moved closer to her, only to find she'd blocked an arrow for me. As she collapsed, her eyes were distorted, and she simply said, "This is good, this is the best way to die."

I was devastated when I heard this. If I had agreed to the divorce, she would have returned to Kyoto. I pushed a perfectly good girl to the point where she would have died."