I was a female scripture teacher who recited sutras for the madam of the household.
Yet in the middle of the night, someone cornered me behind the incense-draped curtains and asked me who was better-looking: him or the Bodhisattva.
That night, I did not choose the Bodhisattva.
Unfortunately, after barely three months, he came to bid me farewell.
I thought he had simply grown tired of me, so I agreed without fuss.
From then on, he lived beneath the glow of red lanterns, lost in endless pleasure, while I returned alone to the ancient Buddha and my solitary lamp.
Who would have thought that later, when he learned I had been drowned in a pond… He went mad.