Chapter 1

Chapter 1

When I was six, I went with my grandmother to pay homage to the Buddha.

I was still young then, newly arrived at the temple and utterly lacking in reverence.

Looking at the enormous golden Buddha statue, I neither knelt nor bowed. Instead, I tilted my head and smiled.

As if an old friend had returned.

The Old Abbot looked at me for a long while and said that in my previous life, I had been a tiny candleflame before the Buddha.

My ties to the mortal world were shallow, my affinity with Buddhism deep. I was pure and noble beyond measure.

Back then, I was far too naive to understand that such an auspicious prophecy concealed endless partings and suffering.

Parting in life, separation in death. Dwelling beneath Guanyin’s seat, dying in a ruined temple.

Looking back, ten years passed like a dream, and every event seemed to fulfill that prophecy.

Shallow ties to the mortal world, deep affinity with Buddhism.

Only the words pure and noble were likely where the Old Abbot had miscalculated.

A girl who died in the mud-what about her could possibly be pure or noble?

Yet when I opened my eyes again,

there was no wind or snow around me, no Guanyin.

Time had flowed backward to the spring when I was fourteen.

The Marquis of Loyalty and Valor’s Estate was still glorious and at the height of its power. My childhood sweetheart was still tender and considerate.

Only the newly formed red mole between my brows seemed to remind me-

that on a snowy, windy night, inside a ruined temple,

the “next life” I had promised that person had been granted to me by the Buddha.

The year I turned fourteen, the young granddaughter of the Marquis of Loyalty and Valor’s Estate did three things.

On a spring night, I stepped into my grandfather’s study.

I begged my grandfather to beware an insignificant minor officer in the army.

One year later, that officer would defect to our political enemies and fabricate evidence, pinning my grandfather to the pillar of shame on charges of treason and collusion with the enemy.

And my grandmother, consumed by grief and rage until her blood surged upward, would die in the carriage on her way to the palace to plead his case.

The moonlight was like water. My grandfather gazed at me for a long time.

He did not ask how I knew that officer’s name, nor did he marvel at when I had come to understand so much about court affairs.

He only asked me, “I heard you had a nightmare last night. Are you feeling better now?”

The candlelight was faint, the shadows blurred.

My grandfather smiled and spoke just as he always had, not at all like that cold, bluish-white figure lying in the coffin.

I lowered my lashes and nearly burst into tears.

That summer, I visited Zhenguo Temple frequently.

The Empress Dowager was devoutly Buddhist and had invited a statue of Guanyin from Zhenguo Temple into the palace.

She needed a noble young lady of distinguished birth to recite the Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtra for her.

That duty, half a year later, would fall to the Ninth Princess.

And because of the Empress Dowager’s favor, the Ninth Princess would seize my marriage without restraint and demote me to life in a temple.

But now, when the Empress Dowager inquired, the abbot recommended me.

After all, who could be more suited to recite Buddhist scriptures than me, the reincarnation of a candleflame before the Buddha?

In late autumn, I went to see Pei Shu.

Ever since I woke in the spring, I had repeatedly refused his requests to meet.

When the elders of our two families met at banquets and mentioned the betrothal, my grandmother only smiled and said, “Childhood jokes-how can those be taken seriously?”

The upright, well-mannered young man finally could not help writing to ask me:

“Ruoci, what have I done wrong?”

And now, amid the rustling fall of autumn leaves, he asked the same question again:

“Ruoci, what have I done wrong?”

Counting both my past life and this one, nearly two years had passed since I last saw him.

The young man’s temples were as sharply cut as if by a blade, his eyes black and bright as lacquer. He was truly refined and handsome.

No wonder the Ninth Princess fell for him at first sight and insisted on being with him even with lives on her conscience.

But Master Pei, you had been close to me since we were children. How could you not know that so long as you said one word of parting, I would never cling to you?

What I had been waiting for was your true heart.

And you should not have stayed silent amid my tears.

Your silence was indulgence toward the Ninth Princess, and it was also the knife that stabbed into me.

You had your brilliant future. I had my reputation and pride.

But you never considered me.

The sun slanted west at dusk, and weary birds returned to their nests.

The rosy glow fell upon the young man’s shoulders, making him look especially tall and handsome.

I lifted my head to look at him, my smiling eyes curved.

“Master Pei, do you love me?”

The young man froze, then said softly, “Ruoci, I…”

“You love me,” I said.

The tips of Pei Shu’s ears reddened, and he awkwardly looked away.

But I had already continued:

“You love that I am the Marquis of Loyalty and Valor’s only bloodline. You love that I am the famed candleflame before the Buddha. You love that I am the one the Empress Dowager personally chose to serve beneath Guanyin’s seat. You love so many versions of me-”

I paused softly, then spoke the answer that had circled in my heart thousands upon thousands of times.

“But the one person you do not love is me, Song Ruoci.”

Pei Shu’s face instantly turned ashen.

And I only felt sorrow.

“Master Pei. In this life, you will never love anyone. You only love yourself.”

After we looked at each other for a long time, Pei Shu left, his soul seemingly lost.

He was still dressed in white, still composed and elegant, yet his steps were unsteady and stumbling.

I stood beneath the corridor and silently watched him go.

Master Pei, there was once someone who saw you as her unwavering companion for life, who imagined growing old with you, surrounded by children and grandchildren.

But that girl died in the winter when she was sixteen, and her heart had frozen solid too.

I gently closed my eyes.

A single tear slid from the corner of my eye, and in the end, vanished without a trace.