Chapter 1

Chapter 1

My father is a Buddhist.

How devout is he?

Every year, he travels all over the country to attend rituals, walks on pilgrimage with eminent monks, keeps fasting retreats, and has donated hundreds of millions to build temples.

He’s a successful businessman, a titan of the industry, and the eldest brother-the patriarch-of our Lin Family. Under his influence, the entire Lin Family believes in Buddhism.

Any company under the Lin Family sets out an altar with a Buddha statue. On the first and fifteenth of every lunar month, my uncles and aunts go on schedule to burn incense, reverent to a fault.

My younger sister Lin Zhi and our female cousins are even famous in the socialite circle as “Buddhist socialites.”

They’re all terrified of my father.

He’s a man who rarely smiles. In his youth, he was decisive and ruthless, leading his younger siblings to start a business-everyone listened to him.

So even after he embraced Buddhism in middle age and stopped intervening in company affairs, a single crease of his brow still made my uncles and aunts hold their tongues.

They fear him, so they follow his faith.

I don’t fear him, but we aren’t close-and I don’t believe.

As everyone knows, my name is Lin Wei, the eldest daughter of the head of Lin Industrial.

By the expected path, after graduating from university, I would join the family company, grind my way up, and eventually take over the Lin Family’s building materials business.

Lin Cheng has no son. I have one younger sister, Lin Zhi, born to my stepmother, Aunt Chen.

As for my mother-she died long ago.

Aunt Chen and those aunts and uncles of mine seem to treat me well, all smiles and pleasantries.

But no one’s a fool. In a family business, talking about affection in the face of profit is laughable.

So when my father proposed that I take the Three Refuges and Five Precepts, shave my head, and enter the nunnery at Daoqing Temple, not a single person objected.

I was stunned; I couldn’t accept it.

But my father saw nothing wrong. The Lin Family, he said, has karmic affinity with the Buddha; the family fortune was built under the Buddha’s protection.

Earlier that year, he’d been in poor health. Monks from a temple chanted to expel demons and purge bad karma. After he recovered, he had an awakening.

After that awakening, he wanted to send his daughter to become a nun. It would be Lin Cheng’s blessing, my blessing-Lin Wei’s-and a blessing upon the entire Lin Family.

Why me? Because I’m the eldest daughter of the Lin Family. And because I don’t believe.

The eldest daughter of the Lin Family must serve the family.

If the eldest daughter doesn’t believe, she deserves to die.

The entire Lin Family pressed me to take vows and obey.

I fought back. I ran.

I ran with Zhang Zhiyuan.

He was my boyfriend. We’d been together four years.

Haicheng’s wealthy circle is small. Zhang Zhiyuan’s family is also in construction and often did business with the Lin Family.

We got together in college, had a good relationship, and planned to marry within a couple of years.

We threw everything aside and fled to another city.

Less than a week later, my father sent people to find us.

Leading them was Zhang Zhiyuan’s father-Uncle Zhang-who had always treated me kindly.

Their family didn’t dare offend ours. I knew that.

Zhang Zhiyuan cried. He knelt to his father and wouldn’t look at me.

He’s an only son, pampered since childhood, with too much he couldn’t bear to give up.

I cried too. In the end, I went back and accepted the grand banquet they staged, monks invited with great fanfare to conduct my “Refuge Ceremony.”

Forcing someone to take the Three Refuges and Five Precepts, shaving her head and sending her into monastic life-sounds absurd.

But it’s reality.

Reality is that whoever has power sets the rules of the game-like my father.

Reality is also that the Buddha saves those with affinity-and those with money.

My Dharma name is Jingyin. I am a nun at the Daoqing Great Treasure Buddha Nunnery.

Daoqing Temple, on the western slopes of Haicheng, was first built during the Southern and Northern Dynasties. Over more than a thousand years, it has weathered countless ups and downs, ruin and revival. In the end, my father led a group of wealthy donors to fund its reconstruction, putting up eight great halls and two grand pavilions.

It’s the grandest temple in the area, covering ten thousand square meters, with the largest Mahavira Hall and the tallest Buddha Pavilion, dazzling in gold.

I took vows at Yunli Nunnery within Daoqing Temple.

Yunli Nunnery houses several hundred nuns and more than a dozen Abbesses.

Life as a nun is bitter and dull.

Up at four in the morning: morning chanting, breakfast, Buddhist rites.

After lunch: more rites, evening chanting.

When there are no rites, we work the grounds, clean, recite sutras, circumambulate the Buddha, and meditate.

A year passed like that. I was obedient. My father was satisfied.

He came to see me twice.

The first time, he said, “Weiwei, this is for your own good. I had a monk read your eight characters before-you carry a Seven Killings fate, heavy with baleful energy, harmful to both parents, destined for loneliness and hardship. Becoming a nun is good for you, and good for the Lin Family.”

Oh, shit, so it turns out my mom’s death was my fault.

I folded my hands together, expressionless: “Guilty, guilty. This humble nun’s Dharma name is Jingyin. Benefactor, please call me Master Jingyin.”

They shaved my head, forced me into a kasaya, and then tried to gaslight me.

Lin Cheng frowned, sighed, and left.

The second time he came, I had a sudden enlightenment. I sat in meditation with him and said, “Dad, I want to take the graduate entrance exam for Haicheng Buddhist Academy. Help me register and arrange it.”

After his initial surprise, Lin Cheng was delighted and patted my shoulder approvingly.

Later, I drove Lin Cheng’s Bentley back and forth between Daoqing Temple and the Buddhist academy.

Every passerby who saw it marveled, “Damn, even nuns are driving luxury cars these days…”

Lin Cheng also gave me money once. I folded my hands and said, “No, no. Venerable Huiming instructed us to keep the monastic rules. Father, quickly take these worldly things away.”

……

In my second year as a nun, while preparing for the Buddhist Studies Graduate exam, I occasionally returned to the Lin Family home.

Of course, it was usually only after Lin Cheng repeatedly insisted that I would reluctantly agree to go back.

Ridiculously, I’m now his pride.

A daughter who has renounced the world is the pride of this Buddhist-devoted business tycoon; he’s proud of it.

At the family gathering, distinguished guests filled the room, toasts and laughter abounded.

I stood beside him in my monk’s robe and gray kasaya. Everyone looked at me with reverent eyes, folded hands, and called me Master Jingyin.

But I knew this reverence was laughable, like a robe infested with lice.

My sister Lin Zhi, wearing crystal high heels, with her seaweed-like long hair, her face porcelain white, her smile dazzling.

She linked her arm with my boyfriend Zhang Zhiyuan’s, beaming as she told all the uncles that they were getting married soon.

Zhang Zhiyuan glanced at me only once before quickly looking away.

Lin Zhi smiled gently, the corners of her lips curved, like a beautiful white swan.

The exquisite pearl necklace around the swan’s neck, each orb lustrous and round, looked just like the heirloom my mother left me.

A renunciant has severed all worldly ties. When I moved to Yunli Nunnery, they didn’t let me take anything with me.

See, everyone’s eyes on me are so complex, full of pity.

Amitabha, everyone, please don’t look at me like that. I’m a nun.

Nuns don’t lie. The Lin Family believes in Buddhism, yet they let me cry alone-that’s not quite right.

I said to Lin Cheng, “Dad, Jingyin offers congratulations to the family. Not long ago, I heard the Abbess say that many Buddhists now choose Buddhist wedding ceremonies. The couple chants the Auspicious Sutra, the abbot presides over the blessing, and they even issue a Bodhi Marriage Certificate. Would my sister’s wedding be interested in chanting sutras at the Great Buddha Hall? And by the way, pray for the Lin Family’s blessings.”

Lin Cheng, intrigued, asked for the details.

Lin Zhi and her mother’s expressions slowly changed.

I remained expressionless, maintaining a nun’s serenity.

We’re all turtles, so the whole family should be neatly together, wrapped up tight, kneeling before monks to listen to sutras.

The Lin Family’s lice-ridden robe was already a laughingstock; it’s time to shake it out.

As I thought this, the corners of my mouth curled into a trace of mockery, and then I met those teasing eyes in the crowd.

It was Qin Yue.

Qin Yue, just back from studying abroad.

The heir of Huanya Real Estate Group.

I recognized him. When my mother was still alive, she often took me back to Lishan Villa in the east of the city.

My maternal grandfather’s home used to be there, neighbors and old acquaintances with Qin Yue’s grandparents.

For as long as I could remember, every winter and summer break, I’d go stay at Grandpa’s for a bit.

Qin Yue was like a younger brother, two years younger than me.

Lishan Villa was a high-end retirement community, and every holiday we’d see some familiar playmates.

We’d all play hide-and-seek and ride scooters in the neighborhood, sharing toys.

Qin Yue was good-looking even as a child, with especially long eyelashes. His mother always liked to keep his hair in a bob, making him so pretty he looked like a girl.

The boys would tease him for it and refuse to play with him.

But I, being older, would take my sketchpad and seek him out to draw together and read picture books.

Later, he often came to Grandpa’s house to find me. At lunchtime, we’d still be following a serialized comic, and even when his grandparents came to call him, he wouldn’t go back.

Grandpa Qin would joke with my grandpa, saying, “How about we just give our grandson to your family? Every time he comes, the first thing he asks is whether Sister Weiwei is here.”