Chapter 10

Chapter 10

After we returned to Bai Mansion, Lady Bai gnashed her teeth and cursed her son for his dissolute behavior.

After that, she hardened her heart and administered a round of family punishment so severe that she even snapped the ancestral cane kept in the manor.

Once, while I was airing books for Lady Bai, I passed by Bai Yupu’s little courtyard and saw that he seemed to be in rather good spirits. Draped in a frost-white robe, he was leafing through a yellowed book in his hands. When he reached a part that pleased him, he even forgot to drink the medicine the maid was holding to his lips.

“Look at the lady in this book. A jade cicada in her hair, dressed all in red, one woman and one horse, riding a thousand li alone…”

“Tell me, do such extraordinary women truly exist in this world?”

The maids listening to him giggled. “Women are frail by nature. How could they be as skilled at riding as men?”

“Exactly!”

“The lady our young master dreams of only exists in dreams, doesn’t she?”

The young man neither agreed nor disagreed. He simply kept smiling as he turned the pages in his hand.

It was clearly the bitter depth of winter, with dust and wind filling the sky, yet not a speck seemed to touch him. He looked elegant and fresh, his posture especially casual and especially striking, as though any idle movement he made could set a person’s heart wandering.

I stood outside the courtyard, hesitating over whether I should leave.

In the next moment, however, he lifted his head and suddenly winked at me.

Me: …

It should have been a greasy sort of gesture, but when he did it, it seemed rather free-spirited and endearing.

It was impossible to feel any dislike for him.

The beautiful maid was still feeding him medicine one spoonful at a time, and Bai Yupu, looking carefree, accepted it mouthful by mouthful as though it were only natural. But I could not help wondering whether he and these maids were in the sort of relationship I imagined…

At that thought, my cheeks instantly burned. I lifted my foot and fled!

I had only gone a few yards when I heard the maid behind me chide him coquettishly, “Young master, what are you looking at?”

“A flower.”

“Spring hasn’t come yet. Where would there be flowers?”

“The flower blooms first in my heart, and only then in my eyes.”

At that, the maids’ laughter chased after me for a long way.

“Our young master is talking nonsense again!”

I knew Bai Yupu had only been teasing me, so I never went near his courtyard again.

That night, while I was wiping down the old nun, I saw a pageboy poking his head in and peering around the doorway. When he saw me look over, he tossed a snow-white scroll onto the ground, turned, and ran.

While the old nun was sleeping, I quietly opened the painting to take a look.

In the painting was a young woman.

She rode a white horse, wearing a sharp, fiery-red riding outfit. Her long black hair was bound with a jade cicada clasp, falling over her chest like a dark waterfall. She was dignified and beautiful, yet heroic and valiant.

What caught the eye was the object hanging at her waist.

Judging by its shape, it actually looked like… a wooden fish?

Could this be a painting of me?

Thinking back to the lady he had spoken of that day, the one who roamed the world, a strange, aching itch suddenly rose in my chest and swiftly crawled through every part of my body, crashing about in my very marrow, making every inch of flesh hurt…

Before I knew it, I had dug bloody marks into my palm!

As I stood there in a daze, the old nun on the bed suddenly sat up.

“Oh, how I regret it! I was too cautious, always looking ahead and behind, and so I missed a fine match!”

She shouted those words, then before I could react, she pitched her voice high and began to sing, “Who in this world is as lonely and wretched as I~~ Why must I shave my head for such a fate~~”

She looked mad to me, but the clarity in her expression made her seem not mad at all. It was truly frightening!

“Venerable, is there something you wish to tell me?”

Her eyes widened at me, but she only barked, “Begone!” as though driving me out.

In terror, I grabbed the scroll and fled through the door. Yet the mad nun’s strange tune still followed close behind me like a shadow.

“Now I shall leave the bell tower and Buddha hall far behind~~

“Down the mountain I will go, to seek a young man!

“Let him beat me, scold me! Let him mock me, laugh at me!

“With all my heart, I refuse to become a Buddha!

“I will not recite Prajna Paramita!”