He thought I was the sort of person who would willingly debase herself just to win a man’s favor.
That was, until he discovered that after I finished that dance, I didn’t speak to any of the young gentlemen there, but went alone to the rear garden.
When Sở Mộ Viễn caught up with me, he saw me writing these words on the wall.
“I do not love the world of mortals; it seems I was led astray by a past-life bond.”
After copying out this farewell poem, I hanged myself, wanting to end this hopeless life.
Only then did Sở Mộ Viễn realize that behind the Six-Yao Dance lay all manner of unspeakable suffering.
He saved me, then used the power of the Marquis of Xuanping’s household to silence the other young gentlemen and ladies who had been there, forbidding them from speaking outside about my performance of the Six-Yao Dance.
To thank him, I gave him a sword tassel I had made with my own hands.
In return, he gave me the Four Treasures of the Study.
Later, he used that sword to slay the enemy on the front lines.
With the Four Treasures of the Study, I wrote of my longing for him from the distant rear.
At last, Sở Mộ Viễn returned victorious, bearing a full set of betrothal gifts, and asked for my hand in marriage.
The wedding invitation read:
“I wish to take you as my wife and be bound to you forever.”
15
But we could not be bound to each other forever.
In my previous life, when Sở Mộ Viễn returned victorious, all he found was my charred body in the sea of flames.
That day, the undefeated Marquis of Xuanping walked out of the Shen household, staggering, his back bent like a stray dog with no home.
Everyone knew his fiancée had died, so matchmakers came flooding to his residence, urging him to contain his grief and introducing him to other women.
Sở Mộ Viễn sent them away, then went alone to a temple on the outskirts of the capital.
The temple had three thousand steps. He climbed them one by one, bowing at each, then lit an eternal lamp.
“I do not love the world of mortals; it seems I was led astray by a past-life bond. Flowers bloom and fade in their own time, always at the will of the God of Spring. Whether one leaves or stays, it is as it must be. If your head may be crowned with wildflowers, ask not where they gather.”
Sở Mộ Viễn suddenly began to weep.
He knelt before the Buddhas in the hall and bowed again and again, begging them to save me and give me a chance to begin again.
He bowed until his forehead was covered in blood, until a gray-robed figure stopped before him.
The monk regarded him with compassion, his eyes full of pity.
“The greatest suffering in this world is longing for someone.”
“Very well. I will help you.”
16
Sở Mộ Viễn never told me any of this.
It was Master Zhenyi who told me.
That day, after chanting all night for Madam, he was leaving the Shen household when he saw me seeing him off and smiled:
“Miss, my suffering is separation in life. The man who begged for your rebirth suffers from separation in death.”
“Fortunately, you have the chance to meet again. Treasure this bond.”
Beneath the moonlight, Master Zhenyi pressed his palms together before me.
Though he himself had loved without being loved in return and sought without attaining, he still hoped that lovers everywhere might one day be joined in marriage.
…
Just then, I looked at Shen Wanyong, dumbfounded, and said softly, “Do you understand now, Elder Sister?”
“The so-called talents of song and dance can win only a little affection for a time. Love isn’t that simple. It takes two hearts that understand each other and make promises to one another.”
“Perhaps the Lùyāo Dance brought him and me together, but his love for me had nothing to do with the Lùyāo Dance.”
“The ending was never going to change. He doesn’t love you for no other reason than that you aren’t me.”
“But I still have to thank you. Without you, Madam would never have adopted me, and I would never have learned Master Zhenyi’s story.”
“So I owe the peaceful happiness of this life to your help.”
17
Shen Wanyong went mad.
In the middle of the night, she escaped the ancestral shrine where she was confined, went to Concubine Zhao’s room, and squeezed her throat.
I had thought that across both lifetimes, I was the person she hated most. Only in the end did I realize that the person she truly hated most was Concubine Zhao.
In my previous life, when the marquis’s household came to ask for my hand, Concubine Zhao had rushed to Madam’s courtyard to boast.
She said she was more favored than Madam, and that her daughter was more capable than Madam’s daughter.
“Ning Nhi danced the Lùyāo Dance I taught her, and the young marquis fell in love with her at first sight. I’m not boasting, but whoever learns this dance will hold the hearts of all the men in the world.”
Shen Wanyong heard those words while accompanying Madam and took them as the truth. From then on, she became obsessed.
In this life, she endured every sort of exploitation and torment at Concubine Zhao’s hands from childhood on, all to learn that dance.
But she never imagined that in the end, it had all been a dream.
Shen Wanyong squeezed Concubine Zhao’s throat and screamed until her voice turned hoarse.
Concubine Zhao fought back with all her might, refusing to back down as she cursed her: “Useless! You’re the useless one—you couldn’t win a man’s heart, and now you blame me! If I’d adopted Miss Ning back then, she’d be married into a powerful family by now and would have brought me there to enjoy the good life!”
As they struggled, they knocked over a standing lamp.
The flames surged, then died out. The room, once gilded and lavishly adorned, was reduced to rubble, and both Concubine Zhao and Shen Wanyong perished in the fire.
Within a few short months, my father had the room renovated. A new concubine moved into the household and took up residence there. They said she was an excellent opera singer, and more than once she smugly declared in public:
“Don’t blame the master for favoring me so much. If anyone could sing The Peony Pavilion as well as I do, they’d hold the hearts of all the men in the world!”
…
The Shen household’s mess had nothing to do with me anymore.
A year later, Sở Mộ Viễn and I were officially married.
On my wedding day, dressed in my bridal robes, I bid farewell to my parents.
Madam sat in the seat of honor. This time, she was supposed to follow the custom and offer a few solemn words.
For instance, to serve my husband and honor my parents-in-law.
But Madam said none of those things.
She was silent for a long while. At last, she said softly:
“Ning’er, you have to be happy.”
That was something she had never known in the first half of her life.
…
After seeing me off, Madam placed the divorce agreement she had prepared in front of my father.
My father was stunned.
Then came his fury. He roared, “Lu Jiangyun, have you gone mad? The Lu family will never allow you to divorce!”
Madam nodded. “That’s right. That’s why I went back to the Lu family and severed ties with them.”
My father’s eyes widened.
He couldn’t believe it.
A woman divorcing her husband and cutting ties with her birth family.
How was she supposed to live in this world?
A moment later, my father came to his senses. He pointed at Madam, his fingertip trembling. “I understand now! You think your daughter has latched on to the Marquis of Xuanping’s household, so you’ve got someone to rely on!”
Madam looked at my father in confusion. “Why would I need someone to rely on?”
“As for wealth, I’ve done business for years. I have enough to live on for eight lifetimes, and even if you put the Shen and Lu families together, they’re not as rich as I am.”
“As for safety…” Madam picked up the precious sword that had rested in her room for nearly twenty years and drew it from its sheath. Its icy, snow-bright gleam instantly lit the whole room. “Master, instead of worrying about me, you’d better worry about yourself.”
At last, Madam left the Shen household, where she had lived for more than ten years.
She settled the division of property down to the last detail. She took absolutely nothing belonging to the Shen household, and they wouldn’t get so much as a scrap of the farmland and shops she had bought, either.
My father was so furious he took to his bed. When he finally began to recover, he discovered the estate had fallen into such disrepair it was barely recognizable.
With the matriarch gone, all that remained were his pretty concubines—women who knew how to spend money but not how to save it. They schemed one by one to win his favor, but when it came to managing the accounts, every last one of them was clueless.
With no other choice, my father thought of taking a second wife. But the respectable families in the capital had long heard of his “glorious track record” of favoring concubines and abusing his wife. None of them wanted to marry their daughter off to suffer at his hands.
With no other choice, my father had to go beg Madam.
“Madam, I was wrong before.”
“I regret it. I don’t want to divorce you. Let’s forget everything that happened and have you come back to me.”
“From now on, you’ll still be mistress of the Shen household. No one will ever outrank you.”
Madam drank her tea.
A moment later, she poured the rest of it at my father’s feet.
“The feng shui in this house has been bad lately. Why do evil spirits keep coming in?” Madam said. “Mama Wu, when you have time, invite a Taoist priest to perform an exorcism.”
My father’s face turned from pale to red. He wanted to fly into a rage, but couldn’t, and Mama Wu ushered him out.
After he left, Madam turned toward the screen. “All right, come out.”
Only then did I come out, grinning.
She shot me a look. “You’re getting more and more ill-mannered. He may be your birth father, but you couldn’t even be bothered to come out and see him. You hid back there just to watch him make a fool of himself.”
I didn’t care. “The people who love me are my real family. He wanted to beat me to death over a hairpin once. Whoever wants him can have him.”
So whenever it was time to visit my birth family, I went to see Madam and never set foot in the Shen household.
Madam still lived in a room as cold as a snow cave. There was nothing in it but an incense burner and a statue of Buddha.
But I knew better now.
I knew the agarwood burned in that incense burner cost more than burning gold.
She had always been a woman of hidden wealth, simply too lazy to show it off. The world was often ignorant, mistaking pearls for fish eyes.
Madam washed her hands and lit incense before the Buddha, still as cool and detached as ever.
She said to me, “Tell me how things have been going for you at the marquis’s household.”
I was already mistress of the marquis’s household, but at once I turned into a student being quizzed by her teacher. I didn’t dare slack off for a moment, and lowered my head to report:
“Since I took charge of the household, I’ve finished taking inventory of the shops, houses, and properties. The servants are all under control, and I’ve dealt with the unruly ones—punishing the minor offenders lightly and the major ones severely, as a warning to the rest.”
“I also heard a bit of news: His Majesty will soon open trade with the Western Regions. So I used my dowry to buy horses, tea, silk, and porcelain in advance, and I’ve scouted suitable spots near the main road to open inns. In the future, that income won’t go into the marquis’s household accounts. It’ll be capital for my daughter to make her own way in life.”
I thought I’d turned in a pretty good report.
But Madam simply said, “Who asked you about any of that?”
Huh?
She looked at me.
The room fell silent for a long while.
Madam sighed. “Of course I know you’ve learned well the things I taught you.”
“What worries me are the things I didn’t teach you.”
I understood.
I lowered my head, my face slowly turning red. “He… he treats me very well.”
“I’m happy every day when I’m with him.”
At last, Madam smiled with satisfaction.
She had once told me that as women, we must claim one of two things: money or love.
Now it was my turn to tell her—why not be a little greedy and have both?
Madam looked toward the window, where a jade vase held a branch of brilliant red plum blossoms.
Beyond the window, night was falling, and the moon shone like silver. A gray-robed monk carrying a flower hoe brought fresh plum blossoms.
Beneath the moon, he bowed.
Madam bowed in return.
Through the vivid red plum blossoms by the window, I gazed into the distance and vaguely glimpsed a spirited young man and woman.
“When I return victorious, I’ll marry A Vân.”
“All right. Just don’t make me wait too long.”
18.
Actually, it wouldn’t matter if she had to wait a long time.
Because no matter how the world changed, those who loved one another would eventually meet again.
From then on, they would cross a thousand miles without regret, and travel together through ten thousand leagues of water.
—THE END—