Jing Xin said: “I want to know as well — which is why I came running out here in the middle of the night. But I’d barely arrived when the music stopped, and then you appeared.”

“You said the piano sounds every time it rains. When did this start?”

“About half a year ago, I suppose. Every time it rains, some people can hear the piano. It always plays the same piece — that one called ‘Love,’ ‘Love Something-or-Other.’ And then last month, Venerable Hui Xiu passed away.”

Shi Ting’s eyebrow rose. “Hui Xiu is?”

“In our nunnery, the order of seniority follows the dharma name. The ‘Hui’ generation includes those who once lived here — Hui Yuan, the late Hui Xiu, Hui Qing, and our current abbess Hui An. The generation below them goes by ‘Jing’ — such as Jing Chi, Jing Xu, and so on.”

“How did Hui Xiu die?” Yan Qing asked with curiosity.

A layer of dread rose in Jing Xin’s eyes. “You may not believe me, but Venerable Hui Xiu was found hanged inside the waterfall in the back mountain.”

“She climbed up into the waterfall and hanged herself,” Jing Xin said, her eyes widening involuntarily. “The thing is, that waterfall — you simply cannot climb it. Not without the ability to fly.”

“Hui Xiu could not have flown up there,” Yan Qing said, finding this deeply puzzling.

“You haven’t seen the waterfall yet, honored patrons. It truly cannot be scaled. Only an immortal could fly up to it.” Jing Xin spoke with solemn conviction, clearly afraid they would not believe her.

“Let’s go inside and take a look first,” Shi Ting said, putting aside the question of the waterfall for now, and striding into Hui Yuan’s quarters.

The courtyard ground was all mud, marked only by a few shallow footprints — leading in and out, they must all have been left by Jing Xin.

The floor inside the room was completely dry, with no trace of anything having happened. The piano seen during the day still stood in its place, its white gauze covering arranged neatly as before.

Shi Ting went over the window fastenings once more — all were locked from the inside, with no sign of having been opened.

He stepped forward and lifted the gauze from the piano, then ran his hand lightly across the keys and the seat. His brow furrowed slightly. He said nothing.

“There’s no sign of anyone having been here at all,” Jing Xin said, clearly terrified. “If no one was here, then who played the piano? That — that’s impossible.”

“A piano does not play on its own. Someone was certainly here before we arrived.” Yan Qing checked every corner of the room. “Whoever this person is, they are truly remarkable — coming and going like a ghost.”

Jing Xin swallowed hard. “Though it would earn a reprimand from the Buddha to say such a thing inside a nunnery — could it be a ghost? Could Venerable Hui Yuan’s spirit have lingered here all this time, unable to leave, and so on rainy nights she plays that sorrowful piece, ‘Love Unreachable’?”

“Was it raining the day Hui Yuan died?” Shi Ting asked suddenly.

“I was still a small child then, but I remember that day’s rain was particularly heavy — it poured down from morning to night.”

Yan Qing’s eyes lit up: “Did you know Ling’er?”

“Yes — she was Venerable Hui Yuan’s disciple. She played the piano beautifully. When she came to study here, I used to like playing with her.”

“Did she ever talk about her family or home?”

Jing Xin thought carefully, shook her head — then, just as the shake was halfway through, seemed to remember something. “Oh, wait. There was one time when we were playing together and I said a kind of wild flower growing on the mountain had a lovely fragrance. She said there was no scent in the world that she could not identify. When I asked her why, she said her home had all kinds of fragrances — many, many different kinds.”

Fragrances?

“So I wondered — could her family have had something to do with making fragrances?”

Yan Qing and Shi Ting exchanged a look. Jing Xin’s words seemed to cast a single ray of light along an otherwise utterly obscure path.

Outside, the rain had finally stopped. Jing Xin stifled a yawn. “Honored patrons, I must go back to sleep. I have morning chanting at dawn.”

“Then we’ll head back as well.”

Jing Xin offered a careful reminder: “Honored patrons, please don’t mention tonight’s events to our abbess. She’ll surely punish me.”

“Has Venerable Hui An never heard this piano music herself?”

“She has. She even had it investigated — but like you tonight, the investigation found nothing. And so, as time passed, everyone came to believe…” Jing Xin paused. “…that it was Venerable Hui Yuan’s spirit at work. The abbess held several major rituals in hopes of soothing her. But as you can see, they haven’t done much good. At least, though the music sounds on rainy nights, nothing else has happened aside from Venerable Hui Xiu’s unfortunate death at the waterfall. Over time, people simply grew accustomed to it.”

When Shi Ting and Yan Qing returned to their guest quarters after hearing Jing Xin’s account, the rain had completely stopped.

“Shi Ting, did you notice anything?” Yan Qing knew him better than anyone — even the subtlest flicker in his expression could not escape her.

“Someone was definitely in that room before we arrived,” Shi Ting said. “Both the piano keys and the seat still held warmth.”

Yan Qing said with a touch of humor: “So that confirms the piano player was a living person.”

Shi Ting laughed.

“But how did this person manage to vanish without a trace?” Yan Qing pressed her brow. “When we were nearly at the courtyard gate, the music was still playing. The moment we reached the gate, it stopped. We moved quickly — and that courtyard has only one entrance. The windows were locked from the inside. There were no footprints on the ground except Jing Xin’s. There is no reason this person should have disappeared so completely before our eyes.”

“That person was certainly not Jing Xin,” Shi Ting said with certainty. “The footprints led only to the well platform inside the courtyard and back out — Jing Xin must have been hiding behind the windlass at the well. And Jing Xin doesn’t know much about music; she couldn’t even recall the full title of that piece. Someone with the skill to play that composition would have the name on the tip of their tongue — it becomes a kind of instinct that cannot be faked.”

“I don’t think it was her either. If it truly had been, she would have had to be concealing herself very deeply indeed.”

“And then there’s Hui Xiu — from what Jing Xin described, her death was highly suspicious.” Shi Ting had not imagined that this small nunnery of Baiyun would harbor so many strange and inexplicable secrets. They had come originally only to investigate Qian Lan, and had somehow ended up entangled with matters of the supernatural.

Yet it could not be said their visit had yielded nothing regarding Qian Lan, either. The place where Qian Lan had once lived ought to have had some connection to fragrances and fragrance-making. With this thread in hand, while the investigation remained far from clear, at least the path was no longer entirely dark.

Early the next morning, Shi Ting and Yan Qing rose. They intended to go and see the waterfall in the back mountain.

Though two months had passed since Hui Xiu’s death, Jing Xin’s account had stirred their curiosity enough that they wished to see the place for themselves.

The one who brought their breakfast was Jing Xin again — simple congee and side dishes, plain but flavorful.

“Didn’t you have morning chanting?” Yan Qing noticed the dark circles under Jing Xin’s eyes. Clearly she had not slept well the night before.

“The abbess has gone somewhere — no one knows where. Morning chanting had no one to lead it, so everyone dispersed.”

“Venerable Hui An is not here?” Yan Qing set down her spoon and took her hand from her congee bowl.

“Someone already went to check her quarters. She’s not there. She’s not in the main hall in front, either.”

Shi Ting suddenly felt a dark premonition stir. “Does she normally miss morning chanting?”

Jing Xin shook her head. “Never. She is an extremely punctual person. She would only arrive early — never absent.”

“Let’s go,” Shi Ting said, and he and Yan Qing both stood.

The entire nunnery was searching for Hui An. As the abbess, her sudden disappearance had naturally caused considerable commotion.

“Where on earth has the abbess gone?”

“Could she have gone down the mountain?”

“That’s impossible. I just checked her room — the clothes she wears when going down the mountain are all still there. They haven’t been touched.”

“That’s strange, then. She hasn’t gone down, and she’s not in the nunnery — so where is she?”

Everyone searched and whispered among themselves.

“Does your abbess have any particular habits or activities she favors?” Shi Ting asked Jing Xin.

Jing Xin said: “The abbess has lived in this nunnery since she was a child. Her life’s ambition has been to expand Baiyun Nunnery and make it the largest and most renowned temple in the surrounding area. Ever since she became abbess, the nunnery has indeed grown more and more. Two new prayer halls have been built, the divine images have been gilded, and worshippers come in a constant stream.”

“Then she has been a remarkable abbess,” Yan Qing said admiringly. “The nunnery has truly grown in size and stature.”

“The abbess devoted herself wholeheartedly to the nunnery’s interests. Anything that benefited the nunnery, she would do — no matter how many hardships she had to endure.” Jing Xin let out a soft sigh. “She has never missed morning chanting. Every day she is up at five o’clock sharp, without ever sleeping in.”

Yan Qing thought back to her meeting with Hui An the day before. She had indeed struck her as a person of strict self-discipline and diligent purpose.

“Do you think the abbess might have gone to the back mountain?” a young novice suddenly called out from the crowd.

“How could she? Ever since Venerable Hui Xiu’s death, the abbess has never once gone to the back mountain,” another novice immediately denied this.

Shi Ting looked at Jing Xin: “Do you know the path to the back mountain? Take us.”

“Of course.” Jing Xin said: “I was actually planning to take you to see the waterfall today anyway.”

Jing Xin was still young in years, and of a warm and lively disposition — not much like a true renunciant.

When word spread that Shi Ting intended to go to the back mountain, the others all made to follow. Whether or not Hui An was back there, it had to be checked before any conclusions could be drawn.

And so a considerable group set off together for the back mountain.

The path to the back mountain had once been a narrow, treacherous trail. Hui An had since solicited donations from devout patrons and had it widened into a broad stone-paved road.

Following the stone path all the way to the end brought them to the back mountain, where a waterfall formed a remarkable and singular sight.

As the group was arriving in succession, sharp-eyed Jing Xin spotted, high up on the waterfall in the distance, a faint silhouette — swaying gently back and forth with the force of the rushing water.