Perhaps unwilling to disappoint his friend's request, despite Xin Sanniang's strong opposition, Lin Hong still kept Zhenzhen.
The rooms in the backyard that could accommodate people were already full, so Lin Hong asked Xin Sanniang to tidy up a room in the front yard for Zhenzhen to live in. When Xin Sanniang, with a dark expression, carried a pile of bedding and pillows into the room Zhenzhen was about to occupy, Zhenzhen noticed it was the same Mulberry Quilt and Chrysanthemum Pillow set she had previously used in Lin Hong's room.
Seeing Xin Sanniang toss the bedding onto the bed with displeasure, Zhenzhen deliberately teased her, saying, "Young Master Lin is truly hospitable, even providing his own personal items for guests."
Xin Sanniang sneered, "The young master asked me to throw these away. I also told you before that if outsiders use such intimate items, the young master will never want them again. But I thought this bedding set was still perfectly fine, and it would be a shame to throw it away, so I might as well give it to you. It saves me the trouble of preparing a new set for you."
"Is that so..." Zhenzhen pondered thoughtfully, then immediately picked up the bedding and started walking out.
Xin Sanniang hurriedly called out, "Where are you going?"
Zhenzhen replied, "To the young master's room. I slept in his room for a night, so he probably won't want that room anymore either. Since it's still perfectly fine and a waste to leave it empty, I might as well go live there."
"You shameless girl," Xin Sanniang, flustered and exasperated, chased her to the doorway, "Come back here right now!"
Seeing her so angry that she kept rubbing her chest, Zhenzhen couldn't help but smile and returned to the room with the bedding in her arms.
Lin Hong did not tell Zhenzhen what time to learn the craft each day. Having not slept well for several consecutive days, Zhenzhen woke up the next morning to find the sky already bright. She hurried to the backyard and saw that Lin Hong had already returned from playing the qin outside. At that moment, he was wearing a plain headscarf, sleeves rolled up, preparing breakfast in the kitchen.
His kitchen left Zhenzhen in awe. Not only were the windows bright and the room spotless, without a trace of grease smoke, but it also exuded the fresh fragrance of fruits and vegetables. All ingredients and seasonings were neatly categorized on dedicated wooden shelves. Vegetables were arranged in order of leaves, stems, fruits, and roots, while seasonings were stored in porcelain bottles, lined up according to the size of the containers—large, medium, and small. A small amount of fish and meat hung in a ventilated area, also arranged by size, with not a single item out of place. The meat was handled extremely cleanly, with not a drop of blood or oil on the floor below. Small labels in regular script were attached to the wooden shelves and porcelain bottles below the ingredients, indicating the item's name and the time it entered the kitchen. The tidiness of the kitchen was almost comparable to that of a study.
When Zhenzhen entered, Lin Hong was using clean plum blossoms and snow collected from the garden's flowers and trees to cook porridge with white rice. Seeing Zhenzhen, he remained silent, quietly finished his task, washed his hands, and then returned to his room, asking Xin Sanniang to bring the porridge to him. Zhenzhen stood there bewildered, unsure of 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 proceeded in the same manner. Lin Hong completed them in silence, offering no explanations or teaching Zhenzhen any skills. Even when Zhenzhen actively asked him questions, he did not answer, only sharing the prepared food with her afterward.
After dinner, Zhenzhen couldn't help but seek him out and ask if he could teach her. Lin Hong stood by the pond, using a plum branch to guide the returning crane. Only after the crane took the branch and flew back to the island did he turn his head slightly to Zhenzhen and say, "Haven't I already taught you for a day?"
The next day, Zhenzhen arrived early in the kitchen to help Xin Sanniang clean the vegetables picked in the morning, arranging them on the wooden shelves according to Lin Hong's classification. She followed San Niang in washing the utensils he might use, controlling the stove fire, wiping the furniture, sweeping the floor, preparing tea, and getting everything ready for his arrival.After entering, Lin Hong glanced around and immediately noticed something amiss. He walked straight to the wooden shelf holding seasonings, where Zhenzhen had inadvertently swapped the positions of the salt and pepper jars while cleaning. He returned them to their original places. The placement of the knives was slightly off, so he adjusted them back before using them.
While he cooked, Zhenzhen stayed by his side, anticipating his next move. If he needed a knife, she would retrieve it a moment earlier, holding it on a cloth towel and handing it to him precisely when required. Knowing that Lin Hong washed his hands after handling each ingredient before touching another, she prepared a basin of water in advance and offered it to him as soon as he set the knife down. As for the seasoning jars, she didn’t need to hand them over—the shelf was to the left of Lin Hong’s workspace, and he knew the position of each jar so well that he could reach out and retrieve the exact one he needed without even looking up.
By the end of the day, Lin Hong’s attitude toward Zhenzhen had softened slightly. When she asked him questions, he would answer. For instance, when Zhenzhen inquired about the chicken soup noodles she had eaten in his room, he explained that it was called "Plum Blossom Soup Noodles," made by kneading dough with white plum and sandalwood powder, rolling it into wonton wrappers, and cutting it into plum blossom shapes with a five-fen iron mold. He also casually mentioned that the wintersweet tea she had drunk that day was called "Blooming Wintersweet Tea," made by plucking wintersweet buds from branches with a bamboo knife, sealing both ends with beeswax to prevent them from opening, and preserving them in honey. When brewed with hot water, the fragrance remained intact, just as if the blossoms had freshly opened on the branch. However, he wouldn’t volunteer information on topics she didn’t ask about, leaving her to observe and learn on her own. Still, Zhenzhen considered this 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 felt lighthearted enough to joke around. Lin Hong chopped scallions swiftly, and the resulting pieces were all exactly the same length. Zhenzhen picked out a few and compared them one by one. Seeing this, Lin Hong said, "No need to compare—they’re all the same." In the afternoon, Zhenzhen quietly went to the vegetable garden, picked a scallion, chopped a few pieces in her room, and brought them to the kitchen, mixing them in with Lin Hong’s scallions. She deliberately picked out one piece and showed it to him: "Teacher, this scallion piece is longer."
Lin Hong glanced at it and said, "This isn’t one I chopped."
Zhenzhen asked how he could tell. Lin Hong replied that the color and surface texture showed it had been picked in the afternoon.
Zhenzhen widened her eyes and examined it carefully but couldn’t discern any difference in color or texture.
Lin Hong picked out the scallion pieces Zhenzhen had mixed in one by one, then asked her seemingly casually, "Can you prepare a dish for me?"
Zhenzhen was taken aback. "Teacher wants to see me cook?"
Lin Hong nodded. "The day I invited you to eat Cloud-Skimming Hotpot, it was because I didn’t know your preferences. I chose a hotpot-style dish, giving you the freedom to season the dipping sauce to your own taste—whether stronger or milder, it was entirely up to you. Now, you want me to teach you culinary skills, but I don’t know what you can do, what you want to learn, or what you lack. I don’t want you to passively accept my instruction. I hope you’ll take the initiative, so both of us can discover what you truly need, rather than having you mindlessly imitate my methods regardless of whether you like them or not."
Zhenzhen’s gaze swept over the fruits and vegetables in the room as she quickly reviewed the dishes she knew how to make. But in the end, she suggested the most unexpected one: "Can I stew a taro?"The moment the words left her mouth, she felt immense regret, inwardly berating herself for such a foolish choice. Yet she heard Lin Hong reply gently, "Alright, then let's roast one taro."
Zhenzhen thus selected a large taro and buried it in the ash pile of the kitchen's charcoal-fired stove. Estimating the time needed for the charcoal to roast it thoroughly, she dug the taro out from the ash. Worried about dirtying the kitchen floor, she held it in her hands and ran outside to pat it clean before returning to the kitchen. She peeled the taro and offered it to Lin Hong to taste.
Lin Hong examined the taro inside and out, took a small taste, and said, "Not bad." Then he stood up and walked toward the fruit and vegetable rack. "I'll roast one too."
He took a large taro himself, washed it, wrapped it in damp paper, then boiled some yellow wine. He coated the damp paper wrapping the taro with the boiled wine and its dregs, soaking it thoroughly. He then instructed Zhenzhen to remove the charcoal from the stove and replace it with rice bran husks before placing the tightly wrapped taro into the ash pile of the rice bran husk fire.
Once the taro was roasted, he removed the wrapping paper. The taro inside remained very clean and had been heated evenly. After peeling, the flesh revealed an extremely tender white color. At Lin Hong's gesture, Zhenzhen took a bite and felt the soft, glutinous aroma and warmth fill her mouth, with a faint hint of sweet, mellow wine fragrance. Its fragrant, cooked flavor far surpassed the one she had roasted.
Zhenzhen praised it repeatedly and added, "Such a delicious taro must have a beautiful name, right?"
Lin Hong smiled slightly. "Yes, it's called Earthly Elixir Taro." He then explained, "Using wine and its dregs adds a warming and nourishing effect, making it most suitable to eat hot in winter." Seeing Zhenzhen enjoying it immensely, he suddenly asked her, "That day on the mountain when I was playing the qin and we met, the taro you were eating had already gone cold, hadn't it?"
Zhenzhen nodded. "Yes, it was so cold on the mountain, it had long gone cold."
"Don't eat it like that anymore," Lin Hong advised. "Cold taro breaks the blood and isn't good for the body."
Zhenzhen lowered the hand holding the taro, somewhat uncertain: Is Teacher Lin... concerned about me?
Though she clearly felt happy, a pang of sorrow rose in her nose. She stole a glance at Lin Hong, only to see he had already turned away and was calmly starting to prepare the next dish.
However, Teacher Lin wasn't always this kind. As someone who was evidently destined to become a Zen master one day, he occasionally made Zhenzhen guess at the Zen meaning behind his occasional remarks.
One day, Zhenzhen and Lin Hong's page boy, A Che, were watching him practice calligraphy in the study. A Che chatted with them, saying that the neighbors were now gossiping about her identity, speculating that she was a maidservant the young master had taken as a concubine. Zhenzhen expressed that she didn't mind, saying she didn't interact with them anyway, and their opinions wouldn't affect her life—let them talk. 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 people will say you're lustful?"
Lin Hong turned his head to look at her, took another sheet of paper, and quickly painted with the brush he had just used for writing. With a few sparse strokes, he sketched a young girl whose clothing and features bore a striking resemblance to Zhenzhen. After finishing the painting, he silently pushed the ink-drawn figure toward Zhenzhen for her to see. Zhenzhen studied it carefully and guessed, "Teacher means to show everyone that you see me like this painted figure, maintaining a distant perspective?"
Lin Hong slowly shook his head.
Instead, it was A Che who spoke bluntly on his behalf: "The young master means that in his eyes, you are black and white—there isn't much color to be lustful over."Zhenzhen glared at Lin Hong, who remained composed, though a flicker of amusement passed through his eyes. Unable to vent her frustration at Teacher Lin, she picked up a nearby duster and swept it toward A Che, who was still snickering to himself.
(To be continued)
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