Chapter 6
Yi Nuo~
Hot mung bean soup is usually my favorite, but not today. Ya Qi intentionally knocks my bowl as she walks by, causing it to end up in my lap, covering me with thick red soup. “Oops, I’m sorry, Yi Nuo,” she says, not looking sorry at all and smirking. She lifts the bowl from my lap, uses her chubby index finger to sweep the sides, and flicks the rest of the soup from the dish onto my face. “There, you still looked hungry,” she states and saunters off, shaking her big rear and snickering with her devotees trailing her every step.
In a past life, I must have stolen her husband or done something to deserve the torment I’m enduring from Ya Qi, who seems to relish taking advantage of my period of silence and knowing I can’t argue back. During the rest of our meal, Feng Jun Hei scowls into her bowl and suggests, “We should smother her in her sleep tonight,” while a few girls at the table nod in agreement.
Although I am Ya Qi’s primary target, her bullying affects everyone around her. As the only daughter of a Marquis who donates generously to the temple, Ya Qi appears to believe she is above facing consequences for her actions. This misguided conclusion is further encouraged by the Abbess, who turns a blind eye to Ya Qi’s behavior while unfairly blaming others, mainly me.
The Abbess’s mysterious and silent demeanor leaves me wondering if she is the leader of a clandestine sect of assassins. Initially seated with the senior sisters at the main dining table, she suddenly looms behind me, peering down the center of her nose and wearing a stern expression. “Yi Nuo, go change immediately. Since you persist in disrupting meal time for everyone, you will dine alone in my chamber. Now go and transcribe the Lotus sutra ten times and expect to spend the night in my bedchamber under my watchful eye,” she commands.
Mother Abbess’s room was where I slept as a baby. There was once a crib where there is now a cot that is too small for me. My feet dangle off the edges, but nobody notices or cares. If there is someone who pays attention to me, it’s Xingyu, my senior, who is the closest thing I have to a real sister. We apprentices are all paired with a qualified teacher who is to help and guide us towards enlightenment. I’m fortunate Xingyu is mine and warm, different from stone-faced Cai Wei, who knew my birth mother, and glares hatefully at me constantly.
Xingyu came to the temple late in her life. Some say she was a first madam who ran a great household that got kicked out when she couldn’t have children. Others gossip that she is a princess from the previous dynasty who was forced to watch her entire family slaughtered by the current emperor. Still, I can’t imagine the latter because she is the most devoted and gentle, as if she has only seen good in life. Still, with narrowed, long, nearly black eyes, the shape of almonds that curve into perfect crescents when she smiles, and lips like rose petals, she is the loveliest and could easily be a princess.
Xingyu quietly enters the room, closing the door behind her while I’m changing, and places a bowl of piping hot Mung bean soup on the little nightstand by the cot. I’m glad someone noticed I didn’t get to eat, but I can’t help but glower at the injustice of it all. When my mouth turns downward into a deep frown, she giggles behind her hand and sits on my makeshift bed, tenderly stroking my hair.
“Yi Nuo, you must not be upset or hurt. The Abbess mother is harshest on you because she favors you most,” she tells me, and my mouth drops in sheer disbelief. If I were allowed to speak, I would have some choice words to share and request not to be favored so much.
Xingyu pulls from her robe a rolled parchment. “Take these five transcripts of the Heart Sutra, then you’ll only have to do five more. You can replicate my penmanship so they match.”
Abbess Lian Qian~
Yi Nuo grumbled and snored while Abbess Lian Qian chuckled. Initially furious about being sent away, Yi Nuo didn’t realize that the Abbess was actually saving her to have a peaceful meal without being bothered by Ya Qi.
She wiped the remnants of mung beans from her dinner off Yi Nuo’s mouth and then covered her dangling feet with a blanket. Before that, she lovingly caressed her feet, reminiscing about how small they used to be, fitting into her hands. Witnessing her daughter’s growth was a poignant reminder of how quickly time passed.
The Goddess had been correct. Abbess Lian Qian had been given something more precious than gold, more valuable than all the jade in the world. Yi Nuo, her treasure, was like the daughter she never had, and she recognized Yi Nuo’s greatness from the moment she was born.
Yi Nuo came into the world from her late birth mother’s womb with eyes wide open, exhibiting a curious demeanor and concentration as she stared intently at Abbess Lian Qian, an uncommon sight for a newborn. In contrast to infants with pointed heads or purple, wrinkled skin, she had a perfectly shaped head adorned with silky black wavy hair and skin as pink and soft as a peach. Rather than crying, she cooed and extended her pink, dimpled hands towards the Abbess, who was deeply moved to tears, experiencing a profound connection akin to that of a birth mother meeting her child for the first time.
The Abbess was the one who fed Yi Nuo her first bottle. In the seclusion of her bedchamber, she breastfed the baby as the virgin nun had begun to produce milk. Abbess Lian Qian also gave Yi Nuo her first solid food, a roasted sweet potato. She guided the toddler’s first steps, heard her first word—”Dada”—a surprising sound in the all-female convent, and ground the ink for Yi Nuo’s first brushstrokes at age three. With tiny hands gripping the brush, Yi Nuo carefully painted, “天堂 Tiāntáng—Heaven.”
Ye Hua~
When Bai Lianhua intercepts the servant and reads the message from Kunlun Mountain before I do, I am not bothered. She and I have no secrets between us. “Brother-in-law has finally ended his seclusion,” she reads the message, intently observing my reaction, or lack thereof. “He says he is planning to visit the High Goddess in Qingqui. I don’t understand why he had to inform you of his personal activities,” she says, dropping the message and embracing my waist, turning her face towards mine. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they reconciled and brother-in-law had a child with her?” she asks with a profound interest that she tries to hide but fails, as I can see right through her and her fierce jealousies.
I have loved two women in my life. Qian Qian was my first. She and her love shaped me into the man I am today, and losing her shattered my world. The longing for her reincarnation during the 50,000-year wait consumed me for what felt like an eternity, each passing second heavy with the weight of my grief that was smothering me to death. Then, soft as a breeze, Bai Lianhua appeared in my life.
Bai Lianhua captured my heart with her beauty, her spirit, and her unwavering devotion. I watched her grow over bowls of noodles, drawn to her like a moth to a flame, all the while holding back from my desires until I could no longer resist her allure. Then I surrendered to my needs and made her mine.
Our first night together was a stolen moment amidst the clouds and rain pattering on the rooftop above us, the humidity clinging to our skin as we shared our passions. The pain in my heart melted away, the world fading into the background as our desires enveloped us. I recall watching her sleep as the morning light filtered through the curtains, wondering if I had been too hasty in a moment of weakness. Then I discovered Bai Lianhua carried Qian Qian’s soul within her, which made all my concerns and hesitancies vanish. Despite my choice to be with her before knowing this, a sense of profound contentment washed over me. I even questioned whether I was deserving of this flawless and beautiful love story. I decided I was, for I had waited lifetimes and paid my dues tenfold; however, in retrospect, it was quite arrogant of me to make such a conclusion.
I returned her to her celestial palace, although she never felt comfortable there and preferred to share my bedchamber instead. After ridding myself of my harem, I reinstated her as my legitimate and only wife, my Empress Bai. Our love blossomed once more like the osmanthus flowers she now favored over her peach trees, as we spent our days exploring the Heavens. I took her back to our cottage on Mount Junji, to the place and bed where A-li was conceived. It is likely that I planted my seed in her during one of our nights entwined in passion on earth.
Her whispers of my name in our bed, a realm of infinite pleasure where everything else seemed irrelevant, completely captivated me. I frequently lost myself in her silky skin and long hair, touching her until I memorized every curve of her body during our cherished moments – more than I can remember. When she shivered under my touch, her breath hitching, I felt grateful to my father, the creator of all things, for allowing me to have my wife back. However, my gratitude was premature, as after three hundred years and five children with Bai Lianhua, my first love, the real Qian Qian, returned. The poignant irony now is that Bai Lianhua is dying.
Qian Qian was resurrected. Though she refuses to be in the same room with me unless there are others present, and even then, she keeps herself at four arms’ length. Our children told me that when she gained consciousness, I was the first person she asked for. Upon learning that I had remarried someone we believed carried her soul, she expressed relief, feeling assured that I had moved on and wasn’t alone, and in truth, to her, it seems like I have. However, I find myself questioning if I indeed had, especially since I believed Bai Lianhua was a younger version of Qian Qian and was waiting for her to develop into the woman I knew fully.
“Ye Hua, did you hear me? Would you resent them if the High Goddess and your brother-in-law reconciled? Unless, of course, you have other plans and regret marrying me,” Bai Lianhua asks me again, growing impatient for my response. “Regrets? No, I wouldn’t change a single moment with you,” I reply, tenderly kissing her forehead. It’s relatively accurate, but I do have a regret.
Not leaving a single one of Qian Qian’s treasured peach trees is a regret; it would have shown her she wasn’t forgotten.
Mo Yuan~
“Perhaps White Lotus’s purpose has been fulfilled, and her passing has paved the way for your existence,” I say softly, my voice barely above a whisper, letting the words float into the silence that hangs heavy in the air. Bai Qian sits before me, her slender frame hunched over, her face hidden behind her delicate hands as if soothing herself from the weight of being with Ye Hua and Bai Lianhua.
Slowly, she lowers her hands, the faint sound of her bracelets clinking delicately echoing. When her eyes finally meet mine, they are wide and luminous, shimmering with an unexpected delight that catches me off guard. I had half expected her to run the other way, kick me out of the Fox Den, or slap me because my presence was unwelcome. Instead, she rushes to her feet, coming towards me with the same girlish expression I’ve seen hundreds of times when she greeted me at the end of my seclusions.
Other than her clothing and style, which reflect her maturity, she doesn’t look much different from the first day she became my student. There’s that same spark in her eyes that chases away the shadows of doubt in my mind and makes my heart beat a bit faster, just like before. Some old habits are hard to break.
She stands close, the tips of our shoes touching, just a breath apart. The space between us crackles with unspoken words, a tension that has built over countless shared glances, fleeting moments, lifetimes, and, of course, death.
“Bai Qian,” I whisper, pulling her name from the depths of my heart, feeling the warmth of her presence surround me. Her breath catches, and I detect a hint of uncertainty flickering in her eyes as she ponders how to address me. I can almost hear her brain churning. Is she viewing me as her teacher or the villain who once held her captive against her will, of which I am both? But to my surprise, she chooses to address me by name. “Mo Yuan,” she says, indicating that she sees me as a man.
“Is this really happening? Seeing you again suddenly makes everything more real and solid,” she states, her feminine voice trembling slightly as if testing the solidity of the ground beneath her. “Real.” The word hangs between us like a fragile promise. I take a step nearer, closing the distance, and manage to nod.
“Yes, it is,” I reassure her, my heart racing at her vulnerability and maybe mine. I reach out tentatively, brushing a tendril of hair away from her face, allowing my fingers to linger against her skin. “Welcome back. You’ve worked hard, but I knew you would return to us.”
“Thank you for believing in me, Mo Yuan,” she answers. Her words are somber, yet her eyes widen with joy and something more profound—a feeling beyond mere happiness. It is absolute understanding, a silent recognition of the challenging journey we both undertook, forming a unique bond as we both escaped death and returned from the other side.
“What do we do now?” she breathes as I take her hands in mine. I reply, “We walk and talk, and then you can show me where your family hid you.”