Chapter 7: Flower Demon
In the following days, Tong'er indeed went to the mountains every day.
The nuns in the nunnery only noticed that Tong'er went out more frequently than before, but even when they secretly followed her, they found nothing amiss—Tong'er simply chopped firewood more diligently.
These nuns knew that Jiang Li had exchanged forty strings of copper coins for a basket of pastries. Whenever Jiang Li stepped out of her room, she would hear their mockery. Jiang Li, however, showed no anger and merely watched them with a smile. After a few such encounters, the nuns grew bored and stopped.
Tong'er left every night at the hour of Hai and sneaked back only at the hour of Zi. Being clever by nature, she avoided the nuns in the nunnery with surprising ease. While she was out, Jiang Li waited in the dilapidated room. The waiting was tedious, for there were no scriptures in the nunnery, and Jiang Li had no paper or brushes. Since waking up, she had stopped sewing shoe soles day and night, instead sitting quietly, lost in thought.
But their peaceful days did not last long. Perhaps unable to bear seeing the master and servant live so tranquilly, Jing An Shitai began to harass them again. For instance, the daily porridge became much thinner and looked more like leftovers.
"Miss, they’re going too far now," Tong'er said resentfully. "It must be Ji Shi scheming behind our backs!"
Tong'er referred to the current Grand Secretary’s wife in Yanjing City as "Ji Shi," a term Second Miss Jiang had tacitly approved in the past. Jiang Li saw nothing wrong with it. Initially, everyone thought she was on the verge of death. No matter what, Ji Shuran must have been quite pleased. Who would have thought Jiang Li not only survived but also became more composed? Seeing Jiang Li so content surely discomforted Ji Shuran, who must have instructed Jing An Shitai to make Jiang Li’s life miserable.
Jing An Shitai did not openly beat or scold Jiang Li, but for a young girl who had just come of age, being underfed and poorly clothed—feeling life had fallen from heaven to earth—was humiliation enough to cause suffering. Unfortunately, Jiang Li was not the original Second Miss Jiang. She could endure hardship, and the lowest point in her life had been far worse than the current situation.
Having experienced such depths, the present circumstances no longer felt insurmountable.
By the nineteenth day of the fifth month, the basket of pastries was empty. Tong'er leaned over the basket, carefully scooping the crumbs from the bottom with a wooden spoon into a small dish, and asked Jiang Li, "Miss, have some of this to fill your stomach first."
They had not eaten for a full day and night. The previous day, the nuns had deliberately spilled the porridge delivered to them, and the kitchen had no other food. All the remaining pastries had been fed to the monkeys in the woods behind Helin Temple, leaving both of them starving.
Jiang Li glanced out the window. Though the mountains were much cooler than the plains, summer was approaching, and the days had noticeably lengthened. The sun was about to set, and night would soon fall. She said, "I won’t eat. You have it."
Tong'er stared at the pastry crumbs, swallowing hard, but shook her head. "If you won’t eat, Miss, then Tong'er won’t either."
"It’s fine," Jiang Li smiled. "We’ll have something better to eat later."
Tong'er grew even more puzzled.Jiang Li rose and walked to the corner of the room, where a large wooden chest stood. She opened it—the chest was so spacious that its contents appeared pitifully sparse. Only a few yellowed garments occupied less than half the space. These were all the possessions Second Miss Jiang had brought with her when she arrived at the nunnery from Yanjing six years ago. Perhaps there had once been valuables among them, but after six years, only these faded clothes remained.
Tong’er approached as Jiang Li ran her hands over the garments, shaking out a Buddhist robe from the pile.
Clearly, the finer clothing had long since disappeared from the chest, leaving only coarse fabrics that no longer fit the now-taller Second Miss Jiang after six years. The nuns naturally never provided Jiang Li with new clothes, so she usually wore ill-fitting garments that were too short for her. This single Buddhist robe had been given to her during the New Year when a young nun left the order, leaving an extra robe behind. It happened to fit Jiang Li reasonably well.
Ordinarily, Second Miss Jiang never wore this well-fitting Buddhist robe, as if doing so would convince herself that she was different from the nuns here—that one day she would return to Yanjing as a young lady of the Jiang family. But now, Jiang Li had no choice but to wear it, for she needed to meet someone that evening, and appearing in shortened clothing would be too improper.
Tong’er asked, "Are you going to wear this, Miss?"
Jiang Li nodded. "This one will do."
By the time she had put on the Buddhist robe, the sun had completely disappeared, and night was descending upon Qingcheng Mountain. Tong’er and Jiang Li kept watch by the dim kerosene lamp in the room until long after 9 p.m., when Jiang Li finally stood and said, "Let’s go out."
"Where to?" Tong’er asked.
"To eat, of course," Jiang Li replied with a laugh.
Puzzled, Tong’er followed Jiang Li to the front hall of the nunnery. The hall housed a statue of a female bodhisattva. Sometimes, the nunnery went ten days or half a month without a single visitor, as most pilgrims went to the nearby Helin Temple. Jiang Li walked up to the clay statue, picked up a plate of offerings from the altar, and handed it to Tong’er. "Eat."
Tong’er was horrified. The nuns were all asleep and wouldn’t wake until morning. She whispered, "Miss, these are offerings for the bodhisattva!"
"Hmm," Jiang Li shrugged. "So what?"
"What will we do when the nuns discover this tomorrow morning?" Tong’er waved her hands anxiously. "We should put them back."
"It’s fine," Jiang Li reassured her. "They can’t do anything even if they find out."
"But this is the bodhisattva," Tong’er still didn’t dare take the plate. "Eating her offerings is a great disrespect."
Hearing this, Jiang Li smiled faintly. "A clay bodhisattva can’t even protect itself. How can you expect it to save or guard you? Since it’s just a clay doll, what does respect matter? We make our own paths—relying on a bodhisattva won’t work."
Tong’er stared at Jiang Li in stunned silence. The former Second Miss Jiang would never have uttered such shocking words.
As she stood there dumbfounded, a soft chuckle came from above. The sound was light, but in the silent night and empty hall, it was strikingly clear.
Tong’er looked up and froze, pointing into the distance as she stammered, "F-flower... flower demon?"On the rooftop of the small Buddhist hall sat a figure who had appeared unnoticed. Clad in black, the person was draped in a long crimson cloak embroidered with black peonies, creating an aura of striking and bewitching allure.
Under the bright moon and thinning mist, the night's white fog gradually dissipated, illuminating inch by inch the youthful man's features on the roof. His long, sharply arched eyebrows swept dramatically toward his temples, accentuating a pair of narrow, expressive phoenix eyes fringed with lengthy lashes. Below his straight nose bridge, thin lips curved slightly upward as if smiling, yet carrying a hint of mockery. At the outer corner of his eyes, a grain-sized crimson mole added a touch of lingering charm to his already ethereally handsome profile in the moonlight.
"April's blossoms fade in the mortal realm, while mountain peaches begin to bloom." On Qingcheng Mountain, peach blossoms bloomed late, unfolding layer upon layer by mid-May. Yet even their vibrant, passionate pink could not steal an ounce of this man's radiance. Instead, amidst them, he turned the sprawling peach blossoms into mere embellishments, as if standing beyond the realm of worldly allure, wearing a faint smile while coldly observing mortals struggling in their earthly pursuits.
Jiang Li wore a gray Buddhist robe, her unbound black hair cascading like a waterfall down her back, resembling a lotus fairy child devoted at Buddha's feet. Holding a candle, she lifted her gaze calmly, her eyes meeting the man's on the rooftop.
One embodied serene purity and detachment from worldly strife, the other exuded dazzling allure that captivated souls. In the vast universe, they cleanly divided existence into two halves—one bright as a spring day, the other dark as an abyss. The brightness was but an illusion, while the abyss offered a tantalizing gift.
Their distant gazes met and clashed like crossed blades.
None could see the flicker of astonishment in Jiang Li's heart.
Why him?
My dazzling, provocative son has made his entrance! Isn't he handsome, isn't he dashing? I ask you—isn't. He. Handsome!
(End of Chapter)
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