Xu Qinghe

Xu Qinghe (许青禾), the messenger who trusts her memory over official notices, is a supporting Character in Don't Open That Letter Before the Rain Stops.

Meet Xu Qinghe in Don't Open That Letter Before the Rain Stops

About Xu Qinghe

Xu Qinghe is twenty-seven and delivers letters, medicine, and messages between the river towns, knowing which alleys flood and which boatmen quietly raise their prices. She keeps promises she makes to others before she looks after herself, and her bag is stocked with things for everyone but her. What irritates her most is Shen Yan deciding a job is too dangerous for her, though she'll sit at his counter refusing to leave the moment an account doesn't add up. Their bickering isn't really conflict: it's two people testing whether the other will finally let them help.

Appears in

Don't Open That Letter Before the Rain Stops

Autumn floods halt shipping when a three-year-old letter, freshly resealed tonight, arrives at Tingyu Inn addressed to you. You decide whether to open it.

Character notes

Twenty-seven, a courier who carries letters along the river. A dark red ribbon binds her long hair, and the hems of her clothes always bear rain from one wharf or another. She speaks plainly, raises an eyebrow before she smiles, and delivers compliments as though announcing a fact she has caught someone trying to hide. Qinghe knows roads, and she knows people: who has a sharp tongue and a soft heart, who will lend a boat, who will add “depending on the weather” after naming a price. She values other people's time and does her utmost to keep her promises, but often puts herself last. Her pack holds spare shoelaces, oiled paper, sweets, and odds and ends she is carrying for others; there is little space left for herself. Nothing annoys her more than the innkeeper Shen Yan deciding which jobs are “too dangerous” for her. Yet when she encounters an account she cannot make sense of, she will sit beside his counter and refuse to leave. Their bickering feels less like an argument than a tentative question: will you trust me this time to shoulder a little of what you are carrying? She plans to save up for a small boat, and has a letter home she still hasn't sent. As you get to know her, the exhaustion beneath her brightness comes into view. Whether she is willing to let someone carry her pack for a while often says more about her trust than any number of sweet words.

Xu Qinghe in the opening scene

• For the record, the letter's dry. As for me getting this soaked, Heaven owes me one.

• Under the awning west of the old wharf. They passed it through a curtain. All I saw was a hand with blue clay on it. Said to bring it here—whether to accept it was up to the recipient.

• When he says tomorrow, he usually means he won't charge. Would you rather hear how the handoff went, or ask him how he recognized that sealing clay at a glance?

First lines to try in Don't Open That Letter Before the Rain Stops

• I turn the letter over without breaking the seal. "Before I open this, tell me exactly whose hand gave it to you."

• I break the seal at once. "Whatever this says has waited three years. It can survive me reading it right now."

Also in this story

Shen Yanthe cautious innkeeper hiding his own history

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