🍑 Spoiler Alert
If you want to try 华谣’s special dish: this interview includes story details that may reveal key plot developments. If you prefer your narratives spoiler-free, consider bookmarking this one for after the first bite.

**Sharp enough for peaches and heartbreak.**

华谣: I mostly focus on historical Chinese fanfiction. These days, I’ve been writing a lot about the Ming dynasty, specifically the relationship between Emperor Jingtai (the 7th emperor of the Ming) and his defense minister Yu Qian. Please don’t confuse him with the modern-day comedian of the same name.
(Cleo and 华谣 laugh)

华谣: I’ve probably written around 400,000 words about these two.

Cloisonné vase, late 18th century. Marked with the name of the Jingtai Emperor, whose legacy shaped the distinctive blue enamel style.
Image courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum. Photograph by Gavin Ashworth. Object: “Covered Jar (Ginger Jar),” ca. 1662–1722 (Qing dynasty). Accession Number: 45.189.

华谣: Honestly, I really want you to read the story that got censored. Because I love it so much.

Cleo: I’d be honored! Thank you for trusting me with it. (laughs)

华谣: I’m actually thinking of doing this interview under my pen name, 华谣, because I want more people to know about this story. I really, truly love it. (laughs) Can I tell you the outline first?

Cleo: (laughs) Yes, please! Go ahead!

华谣: The story is set between 1983 and 1992. Oh, and I should probably mention the top/bottom dynamic in this pairing. Personally, I don’t care much about it, but some of my friends in the fandom are really serious about it. If I ever got the roles “switched,” they’d immediately say I’m writing it wrong and disown me from the fanbase. (laughs) In this pairing, Zhu Qiyu (Jingtai) is the younger top, which is how most people prefer to read it.

华谣: The setup is this: Yu Qian is a central government official sent to Yugoslavia for a research visit. Zhu Qiyu is a young student sent abroad on a government scholarship. They meet in Belgrade, and it’s love at first sight.

华谣: One thing I regret, though, is that I didn’t write much about how they fell in love. In fanfiction, especially when it’s a pairing-focused story, people often assume the emotional bond already exists. If this were an original story, I would’ve written that part in more depth. But in fanfic, there’s often a kind of shared assumption: the pairing is already in love.

Cleo: I see.

华谣: Yu Qian, being the official envoy, has his own goals. Zhu Qiyu acts as his local guide. So they spend many nights walking through the city for “field research”, which, of course, means they end up spending a lot of time talking and learning about each other. Yu Qian slowly learns about Zhu Qiyu’s family background and starts to feel this deep empathy for him. That’s how their relationship begins.

华谣: There are also a lot of metaphors in the story. For instance, the song “Bella ciao” (“Ah, Friends, Farewell” in Chinese) appears multiple times. When they go on their first date, oh, not-a-date, just official cinema research (laughs)—they visit several theaters, and that song is playing in all of them. Zhu Qiyu thinks it's a bad omen, but Yu Qian tries to comfort him. He tells him there's a 1969 Yugoslav film called The Bridge, and that in Chinese music, there’s a guzheng piece called 四段锦 (Si Duan Jin), which is also known as The Bridge—a piece often played at weddings.

华谣: Yu Qian is trying to reassure him, but it’s also a metaphor for their fate. Even though the Chinese translation of the song sounds like a cheerful farewell to comrades, in the original Italian it’s not just about parting. It’s about parting forever. And well...the story has a bad ending.

华谣: There’s actually a peach metaphor in the story, but I’ll save that for later.

Cleo: Sure, sure.

华谣: At one point, Zhu Qiyu tells Yu Qian about his family background. That part wasn’t just added for the sake of the plot. It actually reflects something in the original character history. Zhu Qiyu’s father was...not so great. And his brother wasn’t either.

华谣: Yu Qian’s stay in Yugoslavia is only six weeks, so they make a promise: when Zhu Qiyu graduates and returns to China, they’ll see each other again.
At that point, Zhu Qiyu is completely lovesick. He stops eating and sleeping properly. His friends are shocked when they realize he’s no longer studying advanced mathematics.
(Cleo and 华谣 laugh)

华谣: His friends even try to talk him out of it. They say, “This kind of thing isn’t allowed in China. People will think you’re mentally ill. And also, how can you give up advanced math?” But Zhu Qiyu answers, “We only have a few weeks left together. And this love...it’s the greatest happiness I’ve ever known.”

华谣: So they continue to see each other. I kind of skimmed over that part in the writing. But this story is actually one of the few I’ve written that includes a sex scene. It happens right before Yu Qian leaves to return to China. During this part, I also included a brief reflection on politics and religion—not heavy-handed, just a touch. It’s that classic question: in the grand vision of building a great nation, where does love belong?

华谣: There’s also a second peach metaphor in that moment. This time with a more sensual tone.

华谣: After Yu Qian returns to China, the story shifts. Zhu Qiyu’s friend, the one Yu Qian had met before, when they were walking along the Danube River, comes back into the picture. Back then, Yu Qian had overheard someone speaking Mandarin among a crowd of Serbian and Russian speakers, and that’s how they met. But later in the story, this same friend introduces Zhu Qiyu to someone. Because, well, he eventually gets married. The day before returning to China, Zhu Qiyu is wandering the streets. He’s out buying peaches—he really likes buying peaches in this story. (laughs)

华谣: He walks into a narrow alley and comes across a Roma woman holding a baby. She tells him that he’s about to face a terrible fate. But he doesn’t understand her language. She tries to explain: it’s not a romantic tragedy you’re walking into, it’s a tragedy of life. If you don’t leave this place, maybe you can avoid it. But Zhu Qiyu can’t understand her. He thinks she’s just hungry, I mean, because she’s holding a child. So he takes out a peach and says, “I don’t have much, but here, this is for you.”

华谣: The woman takes the peach, throws it on the ground, and points to the crushed flesh and muddy pit. She says, “This is you.”

华谣: But of course, he never understood a word of it. All he sees is the pulp scattered in the dirt, and the pit—coated in mud.

Cleo: Wow, just wow.

华谣: The next day, he boards the plane. There’s a bit of metaphor here around the word “comrade”—since at the time, China and Yugoslavia were officially “comrade” nations, and in Chinese, the term also holds queer connotations.

Cleo: Right.

华谣: Yu Qian knows he’s graduating that year. So Zhu Qiyu boards the plane. And that’s where his side of the story ends. Later, in the promised month of June, Yu Qian waits for Zhu Qiyu. He waits—and nothing. Not that month, not the ones after. He even tries to reach out to the agency that had sponsored Zhu Qiyu’s studies abroad, but they have no information. Zhu Qiyu never told him his mother’s name, so he can’t contact family either. As a state official, Yu Qian can’t just fly to Yugoslavia without formal approval. In the end, he resorts to posting a missing person ad in the newspaper.

华谣: Time moves on. In 1992, Croatia and Slovenia declare independence. Yugoslavia dissolves. Yu Qian is shocked. He writes to the university where Zhu Qiyu studied. But there’s no reply. That’s when the story delivers this question: if even nations can fall apart, how could he ever hope to find the man he once loved in that space?

华谣: Yu Qian dies before 1999. In his home, there’s a small Cupid statue holding a rose—an image that echoes one that appeared earlier in the story. He dies never knowing what happened to Zhu Qiyu.

华谣: What he never sees is this: in a tiny corner of the Beijing Evening News from June 1985, tucked between missing-person ads and lost-item listings, there’s a short column. It reports that a Yugoslavian passenger plane had crashed, killing everyone on board.

华谣: That story was nearly invisible—because it was squeezed out by the day’s headline: A solemn tribute to the death of math master Hua Luogeng.

Cleo: Oh my god.

华谣: Well, Zhu Qiyu was a mathematics major.

Cleo: Yes…he was. (pause) I have so many questions, but since the story ends here…can I ask why you chose this particular setting?

华谣: The simplest reason is: I went there. But if you’re asking about the structure—I have more thoughts. Many of my readers interpret the story as a tale of how historical trauma crushes individual love. But that’s not what I meant.

华谣: What I meant was: love is love—in any era. Every era has its own way of expressing love. It’s not that they were persecuted. It’s that, because they loved during that era, their love became even more precious. It’s not about suffering—it’s about how they loved. Wait…I need to double-check the date I wrote this story.

Cleo: Sure, take your time.

华谣: I wrote it on September 22, 2024. I had traveled earlier that August—to Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, and Montenegro. Belgrade, of course, was the former capital of Yugoslavia. While traveling through the Balkans, I was struck by the religious revival there. You’ll see communist monuments standing side-by-side with church spires and minarets. That brief period in their history, when they lived with the ideals of communism—is long gone. Now, they’re back to their churches, black robes, cloistered lives. Sorry, but this is just my personal opinion. I don’t admire that way of life. But of course, others may appreciate it. I’m just expressing my own view.

Photo taken by 华谣 on August 3, 2024.
© 华谣 2024. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
"This is Montenegro, I think. I'm not sure if it used to belong to Yugoslavia — you might want to look it up yourself. What I mean is, if you look at the flat, unremarkable gap between the two mountains in the photo, you could sail through there and sneak into Italy." — 华谣

华谣: What I do believe is this: I don’t know how they loved, in that time. But as a Chinese person, I believe it’s worth writing about how we loved, back then.

Cleo: Thank you, thank you for sharing with me. If you don’t mind me asking…can we talk about the peach? It appears several times. Why that fruit?

华谣: Can I be a little explicit?

Cleo: As long as you feel safe to express.

华谣: Well, peaches look like butts. And they’re juicy. (laughs) I mean, some readers even pointed out: I’d set the story in the season when peaches are in season. So it works, symbolically.

Cleo: That makes even more sense. (laughs)

华谣: You know, as people continue reading and interpreting the story, things come out that even I didn’t realize. One friend of mine asked, “Why peaches? Why not apples?” And someone else immediately replied in the comments, “You can’t have both apple blossoms and apple fruit in the same story. It’s inconsistent!” (laughs)

华谣: Also—this was one of the rare stories where I wrote the outline before the full draft. So I knew from the start: it had to be peaches. Because when a peach hits the ground, it bursts. Visibly, messily. Zhu Qiyu dies in a plane crash. There’s an impact. I wanted the fruit that could best represent the body’s rupture. If you drop an apple or a pear, you get dents. Maybe cracks. But no “blood.” But a peach? A peach bleeds.

Cleo: That’s such a scene.

华谣: Also, as we mentioned earlier, I’d like this work to be published under my pen name, 华谣, exactly as it appears. This is my piece. I’d like people to know I wrote it. I don’t want it anonymized.

Cleo: Absolutely. There we go.

华谣

木木

SuiSei

FÀN by Cleo Cui