Just after the Shangsi Festival, crimson lanterns hung high throughout the Xie estate.
Today was the day the household’s two legitimate young ladies were to be betrothed.
Before dawn, Yuanyuan, the maidservant on night duty in the eldest young lady’s chamber, heard her mistress’s faint cry of pain and immediately whispered, “Young lady?”
She lit the lamp and drew open the thin silk bed curtains.
There sat Xie Zhaozhao in plain white undergarments, clutching her chest, her face pale, her gaze cold and lifeless.
“Young lady, did you have a nightmare?” Yuanyuan quickly pulled up the quilt and wrapped it around her, soothing her in a soft, gentle voice.
Xie Zhaozhao frowned slightly, staring at Yuanyuan’s somewhat youthful face.
Then she looked at the pink gauze curtains, and the spotless pear-blossom mirror on the dressing table beneath the casement window.
Were those fifteen years of being deceived and humiliated in the Pingyang Marquis Manor merely a dream?
No—the searing, bone-deep pain she’d felt at the moment of death was far too vivid, too clear in her memory. It was no dream!
She released Yuanyuan’s hand, pushed aside the bed curtains, threw on a robe, and rose from the bed.
The room was decorated with elegant restraint. A silk screen painted with spring rivers, moonlit flowers, and gold-floral latticework divided the space into inner and outer sections. Against the wall stood a gilded bronze incense burner shaped like a bamboo joint with silver accents, gently releasing wisps of fragrant smoke.
This was the boudoir she had occupied for sixteen years in the Xie estate.
She extended a slender, fair finger and lightly brushed it across the zither painted with azure skies and phoenixes riding the wind, then asked, “What day is it today?”
“The third day of the third month, in the thirtieth year of Emperor Hui’s reign—the auspicious day when you and the heir of the Pingyang Marquis exchange Birth-date Marriage Proposals!”
Exchange Birth-date Marriage Proposals?
She had been reborn!
Back to age sixteen, to the day she was betrothed to Gu Chengyan.
In her previous life, she had married into the marquis’s household with a lavish dowry—ten li of red bridal gifts, a hundred shopfronts, a thousand qing of fertile farmland. The sheer opulence had caused a sensation.
He had ridden a tall horse, elegant and distinguished, and solemnly promised her father and brothers: “I will never take a concubine for my entire life.”
Her father and brothers had been deeply moved.
He had gently held the red silk bridal ribbon, attentively cautioning her to mind her step at every turn. On their wedding night, he had clasped her wrist, gazed devoutly into her eyes, and drained the Nuptial Cup in one go.
But when the red candles had burned down to their last, he kept dawdling, refusing to come to bed. Finally, he dropped to his knees, his eyes reddening: “During a spring hunt years ago, I was bitten by a wild dog. It injured my body. I… I cannot…”
Her blushing face had turned deathly pale, yet bound by propriety and grateful for his honesty, she had taken his hand and helped him rise.
Rare is a priceless treasure; rarer still a devoted husband. She had stayed, never raising the matter of separation.
In the fifteen long years that followed, no matter how many times her mother-in-law cursed at her indirectly or insinuated that she was barren, she bore it all in silence. In public and in private, she protected his dignity, concealing his affliction.
Perhaps out of a sense of inferiority, he rarely visited her courtyard. When he did, he would sit for a while and gently speak of this and that happening in the outside world. Whenever her mother-in-law or others in the household made trouble for her, he would firmly take her side.
She had constantly thanked heaven for sending her such a devoted husband.
He was brilliantly talented, a master of commerce, wealthy enough to rival a nation, and rising swiftly through the ranks.
He kept himself pure, preferring to adopt children rather than take concubines.
His gentleness was unmatched, his devotion intoxicating—who could say he was not a worthy match?
She defended him at every turn, let him use her dowry as he pleased, and never hesitated when he sought favors from her father and brothers.
Alas, only at her death did she learn that all his tender affection had been a means to devour her dowry and squander the Xie family’s connections and resources to pave the way for his mistress.
He was not incapable. With his mistress, he was vigorous indeed.
He had indeed remained with one woman for his entire life—just not with her.
Heaven had given her another chance, yet she was destined to be entangled with him for another lifetime, wasting her heart once more?
No, impossible!
Gu Chengyan, you must know that Buddha has a thousand faces—compassion is Buddha, solemnity is Buddha, punishing evil and promoting good, slaying demons when encountered—that too is Buddha.
The Xie family owed a debt of gratitude to the Marquis’s household. Before his death, her grandfather had promised that the legitimate daughter of the Xie family would marry into Pingyang Marquis’s household.
In her previous life, she obeyed her elders’ orders and married.
In this life, let whoever wanted to repay that debt go repay it.
The water clock showed it was now the hour of Yin!
By the hour of Si, the old madam and the marchioness of Pingyang Marquis’s household would arrive—less than three hours remained.
Xie Zhaozhao furrowed her brows slightly. Her eyes inadvertently fell upon the string of agarwood prayer beads on the dressing table, and an idea struck her.
“Yuanyuan, grind the ink.”
She hastily wrote a letter and handed it to Yuanyuan along with the prayer beads, instructing: “The southern city gate opened at the hour of Yin. Go quickly to Huguo Temple and give this letter and the prayer beads to Master Yuanji. Ask him to come to the residence without fail by the hour of Si.”
“Yuanyuan, this is of utmost urgency to me.”
Yuanyuan saw her eyes slightly reddened, misted with tears, and without asking the reason, immediately tucked away the prayer beads and letter and left the courtyard.
Huguo Temple was not far from the city—just halfway up the mountain outside the walls. With Yuanyuan’s martial skills, an hour on horseback would be more than enough.
The morning sunlight of the hour of Chen streamed through the lattice window, casting a warm glow on her pale hands. From outside came the sound of Yuanyuan’s quick, light footsteps.
“Miss, Master Yuanji will arrive shortly!” Yuanyuan said excitedly.
She set down the sutra she had been silently reading, took the prayer beads, and rubbed them thoughtfully. Her tense little face finally broke into a faint smile.
Dressed in her finest, she left the courtyard—she was going to welcome the living Buddha Yuanji.
“Fate comes as heaven decrees, fate departs as one seizes it; sow such a cause, reap such a fruit…”
A madcap monk, clad in a shabby, unkempt robe, shuffling along in straw sandals with toes poking through, barged unceremoniously into the Xie residence in the capital.
The mad monk Yuanji—he was a living Buddha on earth. But he wandered the four corners of the realm, his whereabouts ever unknown. Even the Emperor had to rely on fate to catch a glimpse of him.
For noble families, a living Buddha gracing one’s doorstep was fortune cultivated over several lifetimes.
The central gate of the Xie residence swung open to welcome the living Buddha.
Yuanji wasted no ceremony, shuffling his sandals as he made his way toward the Wutong Courtyard.
Once inside, he paid no heed to guests, offered no greetings to anyone, and ignored the tea offered to him.
He walked straight to the incense table and picked up the Union Marriage Proposal bearing the names of Xie Zhaozhao and the Young Marquis Gu.
As if just learning to read, he mumbled through it word by word, then immediately tossed it to the ground.
“No good, no good—this is no wedding announcement, this is a death notice! I had hoped to beg a cup of wine, but I can’t drink it now, can’t drink it!”
He turned and made to leave.
The old madam picked up the two marriage proposals and asked urgently: “Living Buddha, have you seen something amiss?”
“I see no wedding wine—only rivers of blood, vermilion gates shrouded in dust, and graves filling the entire estate.”
The old madam was so startled that her prayer beads dropped to the floor. She pressed her palms together and pleaded: “Living Buddha, this marriage cannot be made?”
“It cannot, it cannot—great inauspiciousness, great inauspiciousness!”
Great inauspiciousness—then surely it could not be made.
The living Buddha’s words could not be doubted.
“Then… is it that the Xie family and Pingyang Marquis’s household cannot be joined in marriage?”
“Others are unaffected—only these two must not wed.” The mad monk had already walked out of the Wutong Courtyard.
As he stepped out, he encountered Xie Zhaozhao hurrying over from the covered corridor.
Xie Zhaozhao bowed to him, and her eyes reddened instantly: “Master, it has been so long!”
Her face was unchanged, yet two lifetimes had passed.
The mad monk paused briefly, grinned, and muttered in a demented fashion, “Clouds return to clouds, dust returns to dust—it’s all settled now! Om mani padme hum…”
In the blink of an eye, he had vanished.
Xie Zhaozhao kowtowed respectfully in the direction where Master Yuanji had departed.
A great weight had been lifted from her heart.
Her marriage to the heir of the Marquis of Pingyang was now utterly impossible in this lifetime.
Delighted, Xie Zhaozhao walked with a light step and a smile on her face, heading toward her grandmother’s Wutong Courtyard.
She rounded the ornamental screen gate and stepped onto the bluestone path, then paused.
By the waterside pavilion and winding corridor, two figures in the distance were strolling toward her, chatting as they admired the spring scenery of the Xie estate.
On the left was her elder brother, Xie Yu.
On the right was a man clad in a purple robe embroidered with round medallion patterns and gold-threaded waistband, draped in an ink-black cloak. Tall and handsome, standing like a pine or bamboo, his gaze was serious and sharp, his bearing steady and noble, exuding an unmistakable air of refined distinction.