Chapter 7: Flower Demon

In the following days, Tong'er went up the mountain every day.

When the Buddhist nuns in the nunnery noticed that Tong'er had gone out more often than before, they secretly followed her but could not find anything abnormal. Tong'er had really put a lot of effort into giving the image of her going to chop wood.

The Buddhist nuns were aware that Jiang Li had used 40 strings of copper coins to buy a basket full of cakes. As long as Jiang Li left her room, she could hear the ridicule from the Buddhist nuns. Whenever she heard them ridiculing her, instead of getting mad, she looked at them and smiled. After several times, the Buddhist nuns felt bored and no longer said anything.

Every night, Tong'er would go out at the hour of the pig and stealthily come back at the hour of the rat1. She managed to avoid the Buddhist nuns without a hitch due to her cleverness and quick wit. Whenever she went out, Jiang Li would wait for her to come back in the shabby room. Doing nothing but wait for an extended period would have been very boring. Moreover, in this nunnery, there weren't any books and Jiang Li had no pen or paper. However, after she had awoken, she no longer sewed shoe soles day and night. Simply sitting calmly, one did not know what she was thinking about.

But how long could such quiet days last? Perhaps one couldn't bear to see the master and servant passing the days peacefully, so Head Nun Jing An started to deliberately make things difficult for them. For instance, the daily servings of porridge, not only were they watery, but it also looked as if someone had already eaten from them before; leaving them with the leftovers.

"Young miss, nowadays they are getting more and more excessive." Tong'er hatefully said: "Behind this, it must be the work of the one surnamed Ji!"

Currently, Tong'er called the Chief Assistant's first wife as 'the one surnamed Ji'. It could be assumed that Jiang second young miss must have tacitly approved of the nickname. Jiang Li didn't feel that there was anything wrong. In the beginning, everyone thought that she was going to die. In any case, Ji Shuran's heart must have been at ease. Who would have imagined that she would manage to stay alive? Her temper had also become better. Seeing her live happily like this, Ji Shuran must have felt uneasy. Of course she would demand Head Nun Jing An to make Jiang Li live uncomfortably.

It was not possible for Head Nun Jing An to beat and scold Jiang Li. However, in regards to dealing with a little lady who barely reached the marriageable age, to let her not eat until full and not dress warm enough, to make her feel that she had fallen from heaven to earth and to shame her, that would be enough to make her suffer. What a pity that she was not the real Jiang second young miss. Not mentioning eating bitter suffering, her life had already reached the lowest point. Compared to the original Jiang second young miss, these days ought to be much better.

To have undergone that kind of situation, and now arriving at her current experience, she also didn't feel that life was difficult.

The days passed, and it was already the 15th day of the fifth month and the basket of cakes was already empty. Tong'er swiped the sides of the basket with a wooden spoon carefully; scooping the crumbs of the pastries into a small dish. She told Jiang Li: "Young miss, first eat this to fill your stomach."

It had been a day and a night without having eaten anything. Yesterday, the nunnery's Buddhist nun deliberately shattered the plate with thin congee that she was delivering, and the kitchen had no other leftover food. The remaining pastries had all been used to feed the monkeys at the woods behind He Lin Temple. At the moment, both the two people's stomachs were rumbling with hunger.

Jiang Li lifted her head and turned her sight towards the opened window. Although the top of the mountain was much colder than the foot of the mountain, but summer was already near. The daytime had clearly stretched longer. At this moment, the sun had almost set. No matter how long it took, in the end, night would always arrive. She said: "I'm not eating, why don't you eat it."

Tong'er stared at the pastry crumbs and swallowed her saliva. While shaking her head she said: "If young miss doesn't eat, Tong'er won't eat either."

"It doesn't really matter, we will be able to order good food later." Jiang Li smiled.

Tong'er was even more unconvinced.

Jiang Li got up and walked to the corner of the room, where a large wooden trunk was placed, and opened it. Such a huge trunk, but the contents inside were pathetic. There were only a few pieces of yellowed clothes, not even filling half of the trunk. This was precisely what Jiang Li had brought from Yanjing when she arrived at the nunnery six years ago, her entire belongings. Perhaps the content inside the trunk was also somewhat valuable before. However, six years had passed, being kept for that amount of time would inevitably cause some yellowing on the clothes.

Tong'er also walked towards her. Jiang Li shifted through the clothes with both hands. From inside, a Buddhist garment was revealed.

Clearly, the clothes made of good materials inside the wooden trunk were no longer there. Only these clothes made of not-so-good materials were left. And now, six years later, Jiang second miss had grown taller and these clothes were no longer suitable for her to wear. The people in the nunnery naturally wouldn't allow Jiang Li to make new clothes. Every day, Jiang Li would wear clothes that were already too short for her. This single Buddhist cloth was given to Jiang Li this year around Chinese New Year when a young Buddhist nun was leaving the nunnery to return to normal life. As it turned out, the height of the young nun wasn't much different from her.

Normally, Jiang second miss would never wear this Buddhist cloth. Seemingly, in order to convince herself in this way that although she was here, she was different from the Buddhist nuns. There would be a day when she would return to Yanjing to be the young miss of the Jiang family. But this time, Jiang Li had no other choice but to put on this Buddhist cloth to wear as she was going to meet some people tonight. Wearing clothes that were too short and appearing in front of people would be inappropriate and showed that she lacked manners.

Tong'er asked: "Young miss wants to wear this?"

Jiang Li nodded and said: "Let's put this on right away."

By the time she had changed dressing and put on the Buddhist cloth properly, the sun had already completely disappeared in the horizon. Nighttime at the top of Mount Qingcheng was imminent.

Tong'er asked: "Where are we going?"

"Naturally, to get something to eat." Jiang Li replied laughingly.

Tong'er was puzzled up until Jiang Li led her to the front of the nunnery's main hall. In the main hall, there were sacrificial offerings in front of Buddha. It was not very likely to see any worshippers coming here within 10 days to half a month. Most of the worshippers would go to the close-by He Lin Temple. Jiang Li walked to the front of the ancient clay figure of the Buddha. There was a saucer filled with fruits on top of the incense table. Jiang Li picked one up, handed it to Tong'er and said, "Eat it."

Tong'er turned pale with fright. At that time, all the nuns in the nunnery were asleep and they would not come here. Tong'er said in a small voice: "Young miss, this is the fruit for Buddha to eat!"

"En," Jiang shrugged her shoulders, "so?"

"Tomorrow, those Buddhist nuns would discover the missing offering early in the morning. Then what should we do?" Tong'er paced back and forth while waving her arms. "It is better if we go back, okay?"

"It doesn't matter." Jiang Li comforted her, "Even if we are discovered, nothing will happen."

"But this is Buddha's," Tong'er remained hesitant, "Us eating the sacrificial offering is too disrespectful."

Hearing what she said, Jiang Li laughed. She said indifferently, "This Buddha clay figurine has a hard time protecting itself, and you still hope that it could save and protect you? It's just a mere clay figure with the image of a person. So what if we don't respect it? We ourselves have to walk our own path. It is not good to lean on Buddha."

Tong'er was dumbstruck while looking at Jiang Li. The previous Jiang second young miss would not say this kind of shocking things.

Right then, a soft laughter suddenly sounded from overhead. The laughter was very soft, but at night, in the quiet and empty Buddhist main hall, it was especially clear.

Tong'er raised her head wanting to see, and she foolishly pointed her finger to a distant place at once, while stammering: "Flo-flower demon?"

Since who knows when, a person was sitting at the roof of the Buddhist main hall. This person wore dark clothing from head to toe but his cloak had a deep red embroidered peony. It appeared particularly gorgeous and flirtatious.

The pale moon and the scattered night mist illuminated the man's countenance on the roof. His long flying eyebrows slanted up towards the temples, looking especially dashing, complimenting a pair of almond-shaped phoenix eyes with long, long eyelashes. His nose bridge was straight and tall, and his thin lips were slightly hooked up, giving an impression of a smile. Yet, people felt as if it contained some ridicule. At the corner of his eye, a dark-red mole the size of a rice grain could be spotted. With the moonlight cast on his face, it gave the impression of someone who was not from this world, producing a lingering emotion.

Fang Fei had exhausted her life on the fourth month when the peach blossoms at the top of Mount Qingcheng just started to bloom. They bloomed in the evening, and slowly, they bloomed layer by layer. In the middle of the fifth month, the beautiful and sentimental color of the peach blossoms also couldn't shadow this man's elegant and graceful bearing.

Jiang Li was dressed in a gray Buddhist nun attire, her fine, black hair flowing down her shoulder like a waterfall. She looked like a virgin flower that was just about to convert to Buddhism. As she raised her head towards the roof to look, her serene gaze coincidently interlocked with the man's gaze.

One was quiet and exquisite, yet indifferently standing aloof from worldly affairs. The other gorgeous and flirtatious, attracting people to lose their souls. The distance of three thousand worlds collided. Half bright and beautiful like the spring days, half dark like the abyss. The bright and beautiful was just a facade while in actuality, the abyss was more of a tempting gift.

The two people looked at each other from the distance, mutually making eye contact to assess each other.

Without warning, a wild thought crossed Jiang Li's mind and made her astounded.

How come it was him?

My reaction when I first read this back in April when Lime TLed it...

...it sent me straight away to MTL the whole novel!

And here arrives what everyone was waiting for! The appearance of.... The author's long-winded descriptions of beauty, using all kind of comparisons and adjectives that are not always understandable!! Thankfully this time it was not too bad (maybe because I wasn't the one to tl it? But yeah definitely not a rival to XJX's descriptions)... well I must confess I liked that paragraph about the worlds colliding (lol kinda alike to that fake chapter of mine>.<), very poetic and really describing their essence well. I remember many months ago when Lime was tling this description part she would come ask me for help and we had quite a few laughs with all the flying eyebrows, phoenix eyes and all that stuff x) Oh yeah, and I wonder what our flower demon guy was doing at such hours in this paltry temple... I honestly have no idea, and I don't think the author mentions it again aish