Two Challenge Letters Never Sent

Gu Tingchuan stepped out from behind the ferryboat. He looked first at her shoes, then at her sword. “The stones are slick.”

“That isn't what a challenge letter says.”

From inside his robe, he took a worn, folded sheet of paper. It was the challenge Shen Xiu had written five years ago, then left beneath the drawer of the tea pavilion. She drew out the letter she had received today. On the back of each, in the same small hand, was one line: If the rain is too heavy, another day will do.

They had each written an escape route where the other could not see it.