The Double

In the days that followed, Tonger indeed went to the mountain every day.

The nuns at the Nunnery only felt that Tonger was leaving the house more frequently than before, but even when they secretly followed her, they found nothing amiss, and Tonger was chopping firewood with even more effort than before.

The nuns knew that Jiang Li had traded forty strands of copper coins for a basket of cakes, and every time Jiang Li stepped out of the room, she could hear their scorn. Jiang Li listened but didn't get angry, merely sitting aside with a smile. After a few times, the nuns also found it uninteresting and stopped.

Tonger would leave every night during the Hai Hour and sneak back at midnight. She was always quick-witted, managing to avoid the nuns in the temple with surprising ease. When she left, Jiang Li would wait for her in the decaying house, spending her waiting time idly, as the temple didn't have scriptures, and Jiang Li had no paper or pen. After waking up, she no longer spent her days and nights sewing shoe soles and would just sit quietly, her thoughts unknown.

However, the peaceful days didn't last long. It seemed as though they could not bear to see the mistress and servant living too serenely, and Venerable Master Jing'an began to make things difficult for them again, such as making their daily porridge not only much thinner but also looking more like leftovers from others.

"Miss, they are getting more and more excessive," Tonger said indignantly. "It must be Lady Ji stirring things up behind our backs!"

Tonger referred to the current Madam Chief Minister in Yanjing City as "Lady Ji", which was apparently also acknowledged by Miss Jiang the Second in the past. Jiang Li didn't find anything wrong with it. Initially, everyone thought she wouldn't survive and was about to die, which must have made Ji Shuran feel very comfortable. Who could have known that not only did she survive, but her disposition also improved significantly? Seeing her so happy, Ji Shuran must have felt uncomfortable and surely wanted Venerable Master Jing'an to make her own life unpleasant.

Venerable Master Jing'an wouldn't openly hit or scold Jiang Li, but to a young girl who had just reached marriageable age, going hungry and cold, to have her life plummet from heaven to earth and to feel humiliated was enough to cause her pain. Unfortunately, she was not the real Miss Jiang the Second, and it wasn't just about enduring hardship; the lowest point of her life was even lower than that of the original Miss Jiang the Second.

Having been through such depths, she felt there was nothing she couldn't get through now.

When May 19th came, the basket of cakes was empty. Tonger leaned against the basket, carefully using a wooden spoon to scoop out crumbs of cake from the bottom of the basket onto a plate, and said to Jiang Li, "Miss, you should eat some of this to fill your stomach first."

They had not eaten for a day and a night. Yesterday the nuns deliberately broke the thin porridge that was sent over, and there was no other food in the kitchen. The rest of the cakes were also given to the monkeys in the woods behind Helin Temple, leaving both of them starving.

Jiang Li looked out the window; although the mountain was much cooler than the valley below, summer was approaching and the days were noticeably getting longer. The sun was about to set, and it wouldn't be long before night fell. She said, "I won't eat. You eat."

Tonger stared at the crumbs of cake, swallowed, and shook her head, "If Miss doesn't eat, Tonger won't eat either."

"It's alright, we'll eat something better later," Jiang Li smiled.

Tonger grew even more puzzled.

Jiang Li stood up and walked to a corner of the room, where there was a large wooden chest. She opened the chest, and its largeness made its contents appear lonely and pitiful—just a few yellowed garments that didn't even fill half the chest. These were all the belongings that Second Miss Jiang had brought with her from Yanjing to the Nunnery six years ago. Perhaps there had been some valuable things in it once, but over the past six years, only a few yellowed garments remained.

Tonger also came over, and Jiang Li gently touched the garments inside, shaking out a monk's robe from among them.

Clearly, the garments made of better material were all gone, and the remaining garments were those of poorer quality, no longer suitable for the now taller Second Miss Jiang after six years. The nuns of the Nunnery certainly wouldn't make new clothes for Jiang Li, who usually wore garments that were too short for her. This single monk's robe that actually fit was left over from a Little Nun who returned to secular life this New Year, leaving behind an extra robe which just happened to not be far off from her own size.

Second Miss Jiang never wore this fitting monk's robe in ordinary times, as though only in this way could she convince herself that she was different from the nuns here, that one day she would return to Yanjing and resume her life as a lady of the Jiang Family. Yet now, Jiang Li had to put on this monk's robe because she had to meet someone tonight, and it would be too disrespectful to show up in front of others in a garment that was too short.

"Are you going to wear this one, Miss?" Tonger asked.

Jiang Li nodded and replied, "Yes, this one."

By the time she had donned her monk's robe, the sun had completely vanished, and the night was about to descend upon Green City Mountain. Tonger and Jiang Li, the two of them, watched over the small kerosene lamp in the room, waiting long past the Hai Hour before Jiang Li stood up and said, "Let's go out."

Tonger asked, "Where to?"

"To eat something, of course," Jiang Li said with a smile.

Tonger was full of doubts until Jiang Li took her to the temple at the front. The temple was dedicated to a female Bodhisattva, and sometimes the Nunnery wouldn't see a single worshipper for ten days to half a month; worshippers all went to the nearby Helin temple instead. Jiang Li walked up to the clay Bodhisattva, where fruits were offered on the altar. She picked up the plate and handed it to Tonger, "Eat."

Tonger was shocked, the Nuns of the Nunnery were all asleep at this hour, and none would wake during the night. She whispered, "Miss, these are offerings for the Bodhisattva!"

"Hmm," Jiang Li shrugged, "So what?"

"What will the Nuns do once they discover this in the early morning?" Tonger gestured with her hands, "Let's put it back."

"It's alright," Jiang Li reassured her, "they can't do much even if they find out."

"But this is the Bodhisattva," Tonger still dared not accept, "If we eat the Bodhisattva's offerings, it's a great disrespect to her."

Hearing this, Jiang Li laughed. She calmly said, "If the clay Bodhisattva can hardly protect herself, how can you expect her to save and protect you? Since it's only a clay effigy, what does respect or disrespect matter? One forges their own path, and relying on a Bodhisattva won't do."

Tonger gaped at Jiang Li in astonishment; the former Second Miss Jiang would never say such shocking things.

While she was still in a daze, suddenly, a soft laughter came from above, light, yet in the silence of the night, in the deserted temple, it was distinctly clear.

Tonger looked up and was instantly dumbstruck. Pointing at something in the distance, she stammered, "Flower... Flower Demon?"

Somehow a person had taken a seat on the roof of the small temple. This person was dressed in black, wearing a long cloak embroidered with dark red and black peonies, which made him appear exceptionally enchanting and striking.

The moon was bright, and the mist was thin. The white fog of the night began to disperse layer by layer, revealing the young man's countenance sitting on the roof. His long eyebrows slanted up into his temples brazenly and he had a pair of narrow, expressive phoenix eyes with long lashes. Below a straight nose were thin lips, slightly curved up as if smiling, yet there was a sense of mockery in his smile. At the corner of his eye, marked by a tiny, dark red mole, his already otherworldly handsome face in the moonlight seemed even more enthralling.

In the mortal world, the fragrant flowers of April have withered, but on the mountain, the peach blossoms have just started to bloom. The peach blossoms of Green City Mountain bloom late; by mid-May, they burst into layers of dazzling beauty. Even the passionate and vibrant peach blossoms couldn't outshine this man's allure. Instead, amidst them, he turned the riot of flowers into mere backdrops, as if he existed outside the luxurious folds of soft crimson, smiling faintly with austerity, coldly observing the struggles of the mortal world from afar.

Jiang Li, dressed in the grey robe of a nun, with her long hair unbound and black as a waterfall down her back, resembled a fairy child of the Lotus Flower under Buddha's tutelage. As she held up the candle and looked up, her gaze was calm, meeting the man's eyes on the roof.

One was serenely detached, at peace with the world; the other was stunningly seductive and soul-snatching. The orderly three-thousand worlds were cleanly split in two, one half bright as a spring day, the other dark as an abyss. The brightness was an illusion, while the abyss was a tempting gift.

The two gazed at each other from afar, their eyes meeting like the clashing of blades.

No one saw the flash of surprise that flickered through Jiang Li's heart.

Why was it him?