The Black Horse
That year, he left the military and returned to civilian life, boarding a ship bound for the Jiangnan region. The common soldiers in the barracks summed up their yearning for women in a single saying: Since ancient times, beauties have hailed from Jiangnan. Much later, facing her—that spirited, roguish woman who flirted with ladies more smoothly than any man—he was utterly perplexed: Among the gentle, water-like beauties of Jiangnan, when had this black sheep slipped into the flock?















