In the following days, Tong’er indeed went into the mountains every day.
The nuns at the nunnery only felt that Tong’er went out more frequently than before, but when they secretly followed her, they discovered nothing amiss. Tong’er simply worked even harder at chopping firewood.
These nuns knew that Jiang Li had exchanged forty strings of copper coins for a basket drawer of pastries. Whenever Jiang Li walked out of her room, she could hear these nuns’ mockery. After hearing it, Jiang Li didn’t get angry. She just stood to the side smiling at them. After several instances of this, those nuns also found it boring and stopped talking.
Every night Tong’er left at the hai hour and would sneak back only at the zi hour. She had always been clever, and avoiding the nuns in the nunnery went surprisingly smoothly. When she went out, Jiang Li would wait for her in the dilapidated room. However, waiting was very boring. There were no Buddhist scriptures in this nunnery, and Jiang Li had no paper or brush. After waking up, she no longer sewed shoe soles day and night. She would simply sit quietly, not knowing what she was thinking about.
The peaceful days didn’t last long. Perhaps unable to bear seeing the master and servant live too peacefully, Master Jing’an began making things difficult for them again. For example, the daily porridge not only became much thinner but looked more like someone else’s leftovers.
“Miss, they’re becoming more and more excessive now,” Tong’er said resentfully. “It must be Ji Shi causing trouble behind the scenes!”
Tong’er called the current Chief Minister’s wife in the capital of Yanjing “Ji Shi,” which was apparently something the former Second Miss Jiang had tacitly approved of. Jiang Li didn’t think there was anything wrong with it. At first, everyone thought she couldn’t survive and would die soon, so Ji Shuran must have been very comfortable in her heart. Who knew she would not only survive but her temperament would also become very good. Seeing her live so happily, Ji Shuran was surely uncomfortable and must have instructed Master Jing’an to make her uncomfortable.
Master Jing’an wouldn’t openly beat or scold Jiang Li. However, for a young girl who had just reached the age of hairpin ceremony, not having enough to eat or warm clothes to wear, making her feel that life had fallen from heaven to earth and feel humiliated was enough to make her suffer. Unfortunately, she wasn’t the real Second Miss Jiang. Setting aside whether she could endure hardship or not, even the lowest point of her life was much lower than where the original Second Miss Jiang was now.
Having reached that kind of state before and now being at this level, she didn’t feel there was anything she couldn’t endure.
By the nineteenth day of the fifth month, the basket drawer of pastries was already empty. Tong’er leaned over the basket edge and carefully used a wooden spoon to scoop out the pastry crumbs from the bottom of the basket into a small dish, asking Jiang Li: “Miss, eat a little of this to fill your stomach.”
They had gone without food for a day and a night. Yesterday, the nuns in the nunnery had deliberately knocked over the thin porridge that was brought, and there was no other food in the kitchen. All the remaining pastries had also been taken to feed the monkeys in the forest behind Helin Temple. Both of them were now ravenously hungry.
Jiang Li raised her eyes to look out the window. Although the mountain was much cooler than below, summer was approaching, and the daylight had already noticeably lengthened. At this moment, the sun was about to set, and before long, it would be nighttime. She said: “I won’t eat. You eat.”
Tong’er stared at the pastry crumbs, swallowed, and shook her head: “If Miss doesn’t eat, Tong’er won’t eat either.”
“It’s fine. We’ll eat something good later,” Jiang Li smiled.
Tong’er was even more puzzled.
Jiang Li got up and walked to the corner of the room. In the corner sat a large wooden chest. She opened it. The chest was extremely large, which made the things inside look pitifully sparse. There were only a few yellowed garments, not even filling half the chest. This was all of Second Miss Jiang’s possessions that she had brought from Yanjing to the nunnery six years ago. Perhaps there had once been some valuable items inside, but over the six years here, all that remained were a few yellowed garments.
Tong’er also walked over. Jiang Li’s hands smoothed over the garments inside and shook out a gray robe.
Obviously, the garments of better material in the chest were already gone. The remaining garments were of poor material and by now, six years later, were no longer suitable for the grown Second Miss Jiang. The people at the nunnery naturally wouldn’t make new clothes for Jiang Li. What Jiang Li usually wore were ill-fitting clothes that were too short by a section. This sole gray robe had been given to Jiang Li this year during New Year’s when a young nun had renounced her vows and had an extra robe. It happened to fit Jiang Li’s size fairly well.
The usual Second Miss Jiang never wore this well-fitting gray robe. It seemed that only this way could she convince herself that she was different from the nuns here, that she would return to Yanjing one day to be a young miss of the Jiang family. However, the current Jiang Li had no choice but to put on this gray robe, because she would be meeting someone tonight, and appearing before people in clothes that were too short would be somewhat too improper.
Tong’er asked: “Miss wants to wear this one?”
Jiang Li nodded. She said: “This one it is.”
By the time she had finished putting on the gray robe, the sun had completely disappeared, and the night on Mount Qingcheng was about to arrive. Tong’er and Jiang Li kept watch by the room’s small kerosene lamp until long after the hai hour had passed. Only then did Jiang Li stand up and say: “Let’s go out.”
Tong’er asked: “Where to?”
“To eat, of course,” Jiang Li smiled.
Tong’er was full of doubt until Jiang Li brought her to the Buddha hall at the front. The Buddha hall enshrined a female Bodhisattva. Sometimes the nunnery wouldn’t see a single worshipper for ten days to half a month—all the worshippers went to the nearby Helin Temple instead. Jiang Li walked to the clay-sculpted Bodhisattva. On the altar table sat offering fruits. She picked up the dish and handed it to Tong’er. “Eat.”
Tong’er was greatly shocked. The nuns in the nunnery were all asleep at this moment and wouldn’t get up during the night. Tong’er said in a small voice: “Miss, these are offering fruits for the Bodhisattva!”
“Mm,” Jiang Li shrugged. “So what?”
“What if those nuns discover it first thing in the morning?” Tong’er waved her hand. “We’d better put it back.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Jiang Li comforted her. “Even if they discover it, there’s nothing they can do.”
“But this is the Bodhisattva,” Tong’er still didn’t dare accept it. “If we eat the Bodhisattva’s offering fruits, it’s a great disrespect to the Bodhisattva.”
Hearing this, Jiang Li smiled. She said lightly: “Clay Bodhisattvas can barely protect themselves. How can you still expect her to save and protect you? Since she’s just a clay-sculpted human figure, what does it matter whether you respect her or not? The path is walked by oneself. You can’t rely on Bodhisattvas.”
Tong’er stared at Jiang Li dumbfounded. The former Second Miss Jiang would never say such shocking and unconventional things.
She was still in a daze when suddenly a light laugh came from above their heads. The laughter was soft, but in the quiet night, in the unpopulated Buddha hall, it seemed particularly clear.
Tong’er looked up and was instantly stunned. She pointed into the distance, stammering: “F-flower… Flower demon?”
On the roof of the small Buddha hall, a person sat, appearing at some unknown time. This person wore black clothing but was draped in a long deep red cloak embroidered with black peonies, making him appear exceptionally enchanting and gorgeous.
The moon was bright and the mist thin. The white fog of the night dispersed layer by layer at this moment, inch by inch illuminating the features of the young man on the roof. His long eyebrows swept diagonally into his temples, exceptionally flamboyant. He had a pair of long, narrow, amorous phoenix eyes with long lashes. Below his straight nose bridge, his thin lips slightly curved upward as if in a smile, yet also made people feel his smile carried a hint of mockery. At the slightly hooked corner of his eyes was a rice-grain-sized deep red mole, adding a trace of lingering affection to his side profile that in the moonlight was so beautiful it seemed not of this mortal world.
When the April flowers in the mortal world have all fallen, the mountain peach blossoms begin their bloom. The peach blossoms on Mount Qingcheng bloomed late. By mid-May, they blossomed layer upon layer. The gorgeous and passionate color of the peach blossoms couldn’t take away even a fraction of this person’s elegance. Rather, he among them transformed the peach blossoms covering the mountains and fields into mere embellishments, while he himself seemed to exist beyond the ten thousand zhang of soft crimson, wearing a faint smile, coldly watching the people of the mundane world struggle bitterly within it.
Jiang Li wore the gray robe of a nun. Her long hair was unbound, her jet-black tresses cascading behind her like a waterfall, as if she were a lotus-flower immortal boy taking refuge at the Buddha’s feet. She held a candle and looked up, her gaze calm, meeting precisely with the eyes of the man on the roof.
One clear, detached, and removed from worldly strife; one gorgeous, enchanting, and soul-stealing. The three thousand great worlds were neatly split in two—half bright as a spring day, half dark as an abyss. That brightness was an illusion, but the abyss was an alluring gift.
The two gazed at each other from afar, their eyes meeting in a clash of arms.
No one saw the flash of surprise that passed through Jiang Li’s heart.
How could it be him?
My enchanting, bewitching son has appeared! Handsome or not, handsome or not—I ask you, isn’t he! Handsome! Or not!