In the Buddha hall, the Guanyin Bodhisattva gazed down at this scene with a smile.

Huiru gasped violently, staring fixedly at Yan Sanhe, her lips trembling, her eyes forbearingly red.

Meanwhile, Yan Sanhe’s gaze slowly moved from her face down to her hands.

What kind of hands were these?

Even though she was now the abbess with a young nun to attend her, these were still rough hands with abnormally broad knuckles.

Someone with such hands had surely lived a very hard life since childhood.

Yan Sanhe forced herself to steel her heart and deliver a killing blow: “Huiru, the Bodhisattva is watching you!”

These words shattered Huiru’s last bit of resistance.

She lowered her eyes and said hoarsely, “Actually, I was jealous of her.”

Even as clever as Yan Sanhe was, she hadn’t anticipated this reason.

The five poisons of those who leave home: greed, anger, delusion, pride, and doubt.

Jealousy was a form of anger, not hard to overcome. Yet Huiru, as abbess of Water Moon Nunnery, after so many years of cultivation, still couldn’t overcome this one anger…

“What were you jealous of?”

Yan Sanhe’s gaze immediately softened.

“It’s all right. There’s only you and me here, and the Bodhisattva. The Bodhisattva is magnanimous and can tolerate all under heaven. She certainly won’t blame you.”

Huiru looked up, gazing silently at Yan Sanhe, suddenly understanding.

She never dreamed that the evil she’d harbored in her heart for eighteen years would finally be confessed to a young woman.

“The Bodhisattva actually knows what’s in my heart.”

She choked out, “For eighteen years, there hasn’t been a night when I didn’t confess the evil in my heart before the Bodhisattva. It was useless. I still envied her, always envied her.”

“What did you envy about her?” Yan Sanhe asked again.

“Miss Yan, do you believe in fate?”

“I do!”

Huiru looked at the young woman before her. Her face held a calmness and determination beyond her years, inspiring inexplicable trust.

So she said, “Fate has both good karma and bad karma. Jingchen and I belonged to the latter.”

That year when she followed the old abbess to open the nunnery gate, from the first moment she saw Jingchen, her heart felt vaguely uncomfortable.

That person was very beautiful—far beyond what the word “attractive” could describe.

Her face was white, her neck was white, and her exposed hands were also white. That kind of white wasn’t ordinary white—it was lustrous white, glowing white.

She thought then, such snowy skin paired with black hair, wearing the finest clothes—what a beautiful sight it would be!

The old abbess asked, “What is your name?”

That person answered, “A lonely wandering ghost in the human world.”

The old abbess asked again, “Why do you want to leave home at Water Moon Nunnery?”

That person answered again, “The path of the human world has reached its end.”

The old abbess asked further, “Have you heard of finding life in desperate straits?”

That person answered again, “The living must all meet their end.”

The old abbess’s expression changed slightly. She stared at her for a long while, then said, “Very well. Since you come from the red dust, I shall call you Jingchen.”

Everyone present was shocked.

In just a few words, not only was she admitted through the nunnery gate, she was also given a dharma name—something that had never happened at Water Moon Nunnery.

Yet she herself, to enter Water Moon Nunnery, had knelt at the gate for five days and nights without food or water until she fainted. Only then did the old abbess order someone to carry her inside.

Even so, the old abbess secretly observed her for a full three months before bestowing a dharma name.

“Miss Yan.”

Huiru’s eyes were dull and lifeless. “Do you know what the greatest injustice in this world is?”

Yan Sanhe smiled faintly without answering. She knew Huiru had the answer in her heart.

“The greatest injustice in this world is that no matter how hard you try, desperately try, you still can’t compare to that person.”

Huiru said, “Can’t compare in looks, can’t compare in intelligence, can’t compare in being liked, and most terrifying—can’t even compare in luck.”

After Jingchen came to Water Moon Nunnery, the old abbess clearly favored her greatly, saying she had perception and Buddha-nature.

The old abbess personally taught her Buddhist doctrine. Three months later, she could sit and discuss Buddhism with the old abbess.

From the Diamond Sutra to the Great Compassion Mantra, from the Great Compassion Mantra to impermanence, from impermanence to cause and effect, then to reincarnation…

She herself just sat beside them, ears pricked up listening.

She understood every character clearly, understood every sentence clearly, but strung together—what did it mean? She didn’t understand.

She had to go back and ponder for ten days or more before comprehending the meaning of a few sentences.

Later, she replaced the old abbess in teaching the nuns, teaching even better than the old abbess. The most profound Buddhist scriptures, when spoken from her mouth, were immediately understood.

The nuns in the nunnery all liked her, all gathered around her. Whoever had something they couldn’t understand would go ask her.

“Did you ask?”

“I often asked, and she always answered, without any airs.”

Huiru took a deep breath. “I told her I was too stupid, so stupid even the Buddha disdained me. She said the Buddha wouldn’t disdain stupid people—the Buddha would especially pity them.”

Yan Sanhe’s eyelid twitched. Someone who could say such words was no simple person.

“Did she know you were jealous of her?”

Huiru shook her head.

Yan Sanhe asked, “So on the surface, you two were always on good terms?”

“Yes!”

Huiru looked ashamed.

“During her first three months at the nunnery, the old abbess arranged for her to share a room with me. Precisely because of those three months, our bond was deeper than with any other nun in the nunnery.”

No wonder Jingchen entrusted her with matters after death.

Huiru smiled bitterly. “The old abbess actually intended to hand Water Moon Nunnery to her, but she refused, so it fell to me.”

She would never forget how, before the old abbess breathed her last, she gripped Jingchen’s hand tightly, reluctant to close her eyes.

And she too stood vigil beside them for a day and night.

Yet the old abbess’s eyes never once moved even slightly toward her.

“Why didn’t she accept?”

Yan Sanhe frowned. “There must be a reason?”

Huiru closed her eyes. “She said Huiru was honest, diligent, and ambitious, while she was ultimately a person of meager fortune.”

Yan Sanhe’s heart jumped. She said she was a person of meager fortune?

Why?

“Miss Yan.”

Huiru asked, “Do you know the phrase ‘food given in contempt’?”

Yan Sanhe’s brows knitted together. “You feel that receiving Water Moon Nunnery from the old abbess’s hands was accepting food given in contempt?”

Huiru opened her eyes and looked at Yan Sanhe. Rather than answering, she asked, “Do you know what I was most jealous of about her?”

Yan Sanhe shook her head.

Huiru said, “I was jealous that even when picking up a child, she picked better than me.”

Yan Sanhe asked, “You mean Mingyue is more outstanding than Lan Chuan?”

“That girl wasn’t exceptionally outstanding, just likable. Sweet-mouthed, always smiling when speaking and doing things, not a bit of temper.”

Huiru suddenly laughed.

“If you got angry with her, she wouldn’t get angry—she’d actually coax you. If she did something wrong, she’d just look at you with teary eyes, not saying a word, letting you scold and hit her however you wanted.”

Yan Sanhe frowned slightly.

This temperament was somewhat like Xie Sanye’s.

“Miss Yan, do you know?”

Huiru paused. “Actually, that day Old Master Tang and Madam Tang originally had their eye on Lan Chuan—Lan Chuan!”