Perhaps not wanting to fail his friend’s trust, despite Xin Sanniang’s strong opposition, Lin Hong still kept Zhenzhen.

The rooms for lodging in the back courtyard were already full, so Lin Hong had Xin Sanniang clean out a room in the front courtyard for Zhenzhen to live in. When Xin Sanniang carried a pile of bedding and pillows into the room Zhenzhen would occupy with a dark face, Zhenzhen discovered that set was exactly the paper mulberry covers and chrysanthemum pillow she had used before in Lin Hong’s room.

Seeing Xin Sanniang unceremoniously throw the bedding and pillow onto the couch, Zhenzhen deliberately teased her: “Master Lin is truly hospitable, giving guests his own personal items to use.”

Xin Sanniang sneered: “These are what the young master told me to take out and throw away. I also told you before that if outsiders use such personal items, the young master won’t want them anymore. But I saw this set of bedding and pillow was still perfectly good, and it would be a waste to throw it away, so I’ll give it to you instead, saving me from having to prepare a new set for you.”

“I see…” Zhenzhen appeared thoughtful, then immediately picked up the bedding and pillow and started walking outside.

Xin Sanniang hurriedly shouted: “Where are you going?”

Zhenzhen said: “To the young master’s room. I slept in that room for one night, so the young master definitely won’t want that room anymore either. I see that room is still perfectly good, and it would be a waste to leave it empty. Why don’t I go live there instead.”

“You shameless girl,” Xin Sanniang chased to the doorway in exasperation, “Come back here right now!”

Seeing her so angry she was clutching her chest, Zhenzhen couldn’t help but smile and returned to the room with the bedding and pillow.

Lin Hong didn’t tell Zhenzhen what time each day to learn skills. Having not slept well for many consecutive days, when Zhenzhen woke up the next day, it was already broad daylight. She hurried to the back courtyard and saw that Lin Hong had already returned from playing qin outside. At this moment, he was wearing a plain colored cap and had tied up his sleeves, preparing breakfast in the kitchen.

His kitchen left Zhenzhen amazed. Not only were the windows bright and tables clean without a trace of cooking smoke, it also gave off the fresh fragrance of fruits and vegetables. All ingredients and seasonings were categorized and arranged on their designated wooden shelves. Vegetables were arranged neatly in order of leaves, stems, fruits, and roots. Seasonings were stored in porcelain bottles, arranged in rows by container size from large to medium to small. A small amount of fish and meat hung in a ventilated area, also arranged by size in perfect order. The meat was processed very cleanly with not a drop of blood or oil on the floor below. The wooden shelves under the ingredients and the porcelain bottles all had small regular script labels noting the item names and the time they entered the kitchen. The cleanliness of the kitchen could almost rival that of a study.

When Zhenzhen entered, Lin Hong was cooking porridge with washed plum blossoms, snow collected from the garden’s flowering trees, and white rice. Seeing Zhenzhen, he said nothing and silently finished cooking. After washing his hands, he returned to his own room, having Xin Sanniang deliver the porridge to his room. Zhenzhen stood there in a daze, not knowing what to do, when she suddenly saw Xin Sanniang bring her a bowl of porridge, saying it was the young master’s instruction.

Lunch and dinner were the same. Lin Hong completed them in silence, not opening his mouth to explain or teach Zhenzhen any skills. Even when Zhenzhen took the initiative to ask him questions, he wouldn’t answer. He would only share the food with Zhenzhen to taste after finishing.

After dinner, Zhenzhen couldn’t help but go find him to ask if he could teach her. Lin Hong stood by the pond, using plum branches to guide the returning cranes. After the cranes took the plum branches and flew back to the island, he turned his head to Zhenzhen and said: “Haven’t I already taught you for a whole day?”

The next day, Zhenzhen came to the kitchen early to help Xin Sanniang clean the vegetables picked in the morning, arranging them on the wooden shelves according to Lin Hong’s classification. Following Sanniang, she washed all the utensils he might use once over, controlled the stove fire, wiped the furniture, swept the floor clean, and prepared tea water to welcome his arrival.

After Lin Hong entered, he glanced around briefly and could see what was wrong. He walked directly to the wooden shelf holding seasonings and put the salt bottle and pepper bottle, which Zhenzhen had inadvertently switched positions while wiping the shelf, back in their original places. The knife placement was also slightly off, which he first adjusted back to the original position before using again.

When he cooked, Zhenzhen stayed by his side the whole time, figuring out what he would do next. When he needed a knife, she would retrieve it slightly in advance, holding it with a cloth and handing it to him at the right time. Knowing that Lin Hong washed his hands after handling each type of ingredient before touching another, she prepared a basin of water in advance and offered it at the appropriate time after he set down the knife. As for seasoning bottles, she didn’t need to hand them to him, because the shelf holding the seasoning bottles was to the left of where Lin Hong worked. He knew the position of every seasoning by heart and could accurately retrieve the bottle he needed with just a reach of his hand, not even needing to look up.

After this day, Lin Hong also showed Zhenzhen a slightly better expression. When Zhenzhen asked him for guidance, he would answer. For example, when Zhenzhen asked about the chicken soup noodles she had eaten in his room, he said they were called “Plum Blossom Soup Cakes,” made by mixing flour with white plum and sandalwood powder water, rolling it into wonton wrappers, then using a five-part iron chisel to cut them into plum blossom shapes. He also told Zhenzhen that the wintersweet flower tea she drank that day was called “Blooming in Hot Water Wintersweet.” It was made by using a bamboo knife to pick wintersweet buds from flower branches, sealing the head and tail of the buds with beeswax to prevent them from opening, then preserving them soaked in honey. So when drinking, brewing with hot water would not damage the fragrance, just like when they first bloomed on the branch. However, he wouldn’t proactively teach anything Zhenzhen didn’t mention. Everything was for her to observe and comprehend herself. But Zhenzhen already felt this was quite significant progress—at least through her efforts, he was willing to communicate with her.

On the third day, they spoke even more, and Zhenzhen even had the mood to joke around. Lin Hong cut scallions quite quickly, and the chopped scallion pieces were all exactly the same length. Zhenzhen picked out some pieces and compared them one by one. Seeing this, Lin Hong said: “Don’t compare them, they’re all the same.” In the afternoon, Zhenzhen quietly went to the vegetable garden to pick a scallion, cut a few pieces herself in her room, brought them to the kitchen, and mixed them in with the scallions Lin Hong had cut. She deliberately picked out one piece to show him: “Teacher, this piece of scallion is longer.”

Lin Hong glanced at it and immediately said: “This scallion wasn’t cut by me.”

Zhenzhen asked how he could tell. Lin Hong said that just by looking at the color and surface texture, he could tell it was picked in the afternoon.

But when Zhenzhen opened her eyes wide to look carefully, she couldn’t see any difference in color or texture.

Lin Hong picked out the scallion pieces Zhenzhen had mixed in one by one, then suddenly asked seemingly casually: “Can you cook a dish for me to see?”

Zhenzhen was startled: “Teacher wants to see me cook?”

Lin Hong nodded: “That day when I invited you to eat Stirring the Rosy Clouds, it was because I didn’t understand your taste preferences, so I chose the method of boiling water to blanch meat slices, giving you the right to season it yourself, letting you adjust the dipping sauce for accompaniment. The depth and intensity of flavor were all for you to decide freely. Now you want me to teach you culinary arts, but I’m not clear about what you know, what you want to learn, and what you lack. I don’t want you to passively accept my teaching. I hope you’ll take the initiative to do things, letting both you and me discover what you need, rather than having you thoughtlessly imitate my methods regardless of whether you like them or not.”

Zhenzhen’s gaze swept over the fruits and vegetables in the room one by one. In her mind, she rapidly went through all the dishes she knew how to make, but what she finally said was the most inexplicable: “May I roast a taro root?”

As soon as the words left her mouth, she felt extremely regretful. She was inwardly despising this foolish choice when she heard Lin Hong answer gently: “Very well, then roast a taro root.”

Zhenzhen then selected a large taro root and buried it in the ash pile of the charcoal fire in the kitchen’s ground stove. Estimating when the charcoal fire would have roasted it done, she dug the taro root out of the ash pile. Worried about dirtying the kitchen floor, she carried it outside herself to pat it clean, then returned to the kitchen, peeled the taro root, and invited Lin Hong to taste it.

Lin Hong looked at the taro root inside and out, tasted it slightly, and said: “Not bad.” Then he stood up and went toward the fruit and vegetable shelf. “I’ll roast one too.”

He selected a large taro root himself, washed it clean, wrapped it well with wet paper, then boiled some yellow wine and applied the boiled wine and lees to the wet paper wrapping the taro root, thoroughly soaking it. Then he had Zhenzhen remove the charcoal fire from the ground stove and replace it with chaff fire, before placing the tightly wrapped taro root into the chaff fire ash pile.

After the taro root was roasted, he removed the wrapping paper. The taro root inside was still very clean and had been heated evenly. After peeling, the exposed flesh was extremely tender and white. At Lin Hong’s indication, Zhenzhen tasted it and felt that the glutinous, fragrant, soft, and harmonious sensation accompanied by heat filled her mouth. There was also a faint trace of mellow wine fragrance, and the aromatic cooked flavor far surpassed the one she had roasted.

Zhenzhen praised it repeatedly, then said: “Such delicious taro root couldn’t possibly not have a beautiful name, right?”

Lin Hong smiled slightly: “It does. It’s called Earth Ganoderma Elixir.” Then he explained, “Using wine and lees has a more warming and nourishing effect, most suitable for eating hot in winter.” Seeing Zhenzhen eating with great enjoyment, he suddenly asked her: “When I was playing qin on the mountain and met you that day, the taro root you were eating had already gone cold, hadn’t it?”

Zhenzhen nodded: “Yes, it was so cold on the mountain, it had long since gone cold.”

“Don’t eat cold taro root anymore,” Lin Hong instructed. “Cold taro root disrupts blood circulation and is bad for the body.”

Zhenzhen lowered the hand holding the taro root, somewhat uncertain: Is Teacher Lin… caring about me?

Though she clearly felt happy, there was a surge of sourness in her nose. She stole a glance at Lin Hong and saw he had already turned around and begun calmly making the next dish.

However, Teacher Lin wasn’t always so kind. As someone who would obviously become an old Chan master someday, he would occasionally make Zhenzhen guess at the Chan meaning he sometimes revealed.

One day, Zhenzhen and Lin Hong’s book boy A’Che were in the study watching him practice calligraphy. A’Che chatted with them idly, saying that now the surrounding neighbors were speculating about her identity, all guessing she was a concubine the young master had taken. Zhenzhen expressed that she didn’t mind, saying she didn’t associate with them anyway, so their opinions wouldn’t affect her life—let them say whatever they wanted. A’Che muttered: “You may not care, but people will say the young master is lustful.”

Zhenzhen then asked Lin Hong: “Teacher Lin, are you afraid of people saying you’re lustful?”

Lin Hong turned his head to look at her, took another piece of paper, and quickly drew with the brush he had just used for writing. With just a few strokes, he outlined a young girl whose clothing characteristics were quite similar to Zhenzhen’s. After finishing the drawing, he silently pushed this ink figure for Zhenzhen to see. Zhenzhen studied it carefully and guessed: “Teacher, are you trying to show everyone that you look at me like looking at a person in a painting, maintaining distance and observing from afar?”

Lin Hong slowly shook his head.

It was A’Che who answered for him with his straightforward manner: “The young master is saying that in his eyes, you are black and white, without much color to be lustful about.”

Zhenzhen stared wide-eyed at Lin Hong. Lin Hong remained composed, with only a hint of amusement floating through his eyes. Zhenzhen couldn’t help but feel annoyed, but it wasn’t appropriate to vent at Teacher Lin, so she could only pick up the duster beside her and sweep it toward A’Che, who was still snickering to himself.