Flowers bloom and wither, marking another year.
The young wife Guo Shaolan sat dejectedly before her dressing table, too lazy to groom herself. Glancing at the enticing spring scenery outside the window, she couldn't help sighing and muttering to herself, "Spring has come, flowers are blooming, other couples are out enjoying the spring together. But as for me, I'm left alone in an empty room."
She faced the dressing mirror, smiled bitterly, and continued, "My husband Renzong went south to Xiangzhong for business, and for years there's been no sign of him, not even a word—how it makes me worry!" Two streams of tears flowed down her cheeks.
Suddenly, she spotted a pair of swallows darting through the doorway, perching on the beam and chirping affectionately. Their arrival breathed a faint spark of life into the room. She stared at them in a daze, unable to utter a word.
So swallows built their nests on the beams, raising their young...
Every morning, Guo Shaolan would sit before her dressing table and repeat her words...
Spring passed, and autumn arrived.
Two old swallows circled the beams, playing and fluttering, while their young in the nest beat their wings, eager to fly—it seemed they were preparing to head south, their stay here nearly over.
One day, she looked at the swallows and said, "Swallows, oh swallows, you have lived in my home for so long; you must know my heart's troubles. You are returning to the south and will surely pass through Xiangzhong. If you are willing to help me, please take a letter to my husband, and I will be grateful to you for the rest of my life."
An old swallow unexpectedly flew down from the roof beam, landed on the dressing table, and quietly gazed at her.
She was overjoyed, quickly took out paper and brush, and after a moment's thought wrote swiftly: "Longing for you, my husband, straining my eyes; return home soon, so we may be reunited. Your wife, Guo Shaolan." She folded the paper into a strip, wrapped it around the swallow's ankle, and tied it tightly with red silk thread.
The old swallow took flight, circling the beam three times before bowing to Yan Zifu three times in farewell.
The swallows flew away.
She chased them out the door, offering blessings for them, and for herself as well.
Later, the swallow miraculously delivered Guo Shaolan's poem directly into the hands of her husband, Ren Zong.
"The idiom 'Tying a Poem to a Swallow's Foot' later came to describe sending a message across a thousand li."
Source: Wang Renyu (Five Dynasties), *Anecdotes of the Kaiyuan and Tianbao Eras*, Chapter "The Letter-Carrying Swallow"
Meaning of the Idiom: Later, the Chinese idiom "燕足系诗" came to describe how sending a message across a thousand li.