1
Those were dry, miserable days at work. Every day when I got home after work, my resentment was even stronger than a ghost’s.
Sometimes I worked overtime until midnight. By the time I got home, I was a vengeful ghost among vengeful ghosts.
Whenever that happened, the ghosts in the whole building didn’t dare breathe too loudly when they saw me.
It was downright unnatural.
The Water Ghost still pinned me down to sleep every day.
When I caught him, he quietly retreated into the darkness. Once I was fast asleep, he’d creep back on top of me.
When I realized I couldn’t stop him, I cut his hair so it covered half his face. If he wanted to pin me down, fine. Now it was hard to say who was taking advantage of whom.
I thought life would go on like that. Until I got a call from Phất Quang.
He said our master had passed away.
2
Truthfully, the old man’s face had grown a little blurry in my memory.
It had been eight years since I was fifteen, and I hadn’t returned to the temple or seen him once.
I’d thought that a man like the old man would outlive me.
How could he have died so suddenly?
3
I went back to the temple.
When I left, I’d thought I’d never see him again for the rest of my life.
But now, I was seeing him again. Only he couldn’t see me.
The old man lay in an ordinary coffin. Aside from being more gaunt and dry-looking, he was no different from before.
I stared blankly. I almost expected him to climb out of the coffin the next second and beat me up.
But I waited a long time, and he still lay there with his eyes closed.
Suddenly, tears streamed down my face. “You damned old man! Didn’t you say you’d keep an eye on me for the rest of my life?”
“Didn’t you say you’d drag me back if I ever went astray?”
“So what’s this about you dying now?!”
But he still didn’t move.
My senior brother knelt beside me, his expression calm. “Junior sister, before Master passed, he kept mentioning you.”
“He said you’d grown up, and that was good. He was very relieved.”
I drew my sword and drove its sharp blade through the coffin lid. “Who asked you to be relieved?”
“You just died like that. Who am I supposed to vent all this resentment and hatred on now?! Who gave you permission to die just like that?!”
No one answered me.
I threw down my sword and left.
4
The year I was born, the snow fell heavily.
Everyone thought I’d be a boy.
But I was my mother’s sixth daughter.
My father wanted to throw me away.
My mother’s heart softened time and again, until she met a Taoist priest.
The Taoist priest looked at me in my swaddling clothes, and his expression suddenly changed.
“Few ties to family, a hard fate and scant blessings—the star of heavenly solitude!”
My father had already wanted to abandon me, and now he had a perfectly respectable excuse.
My mother suddenly began treating me like a poisonous snake, too.
And so I was abandoned.
To justify their actions—or, more accurately, to make them seem righteous—my parents spread the word throughout the village that I was born under the star of heavenly solitude, destined to bring misfortune to my mother, father, and future husband.
“It’s not our fault. The child was born with a bad fate.”
So even when someone in the village wanted to give me a bite to eat, they’d shrink away as soon as they heard about my fate.
I was only three months old. Who could I possibly have cursed to death?
I was cold and hungry, crying day and night.
Finally, someone couldn’t take it anymore and brought me to an orphanage.
I grew up in the orphanage until I was five.
Because I could see ghosts, everyone else always thought I was lying to get attention.
But I wasn’t lying.
The other children bullied me, but at least I was alive. That was until a mischievous ghost showed up at the orphanage.
People didn’t believe me, but they started to fear me. That went on until a Taoist exorcist arrived.
It was that same Taoist priest.
It had to be that same Taoist priest.
He exorcised the ghost, then deliberately revealed my fate.
And so, naturally, every misfortune was blamed on me.
The orphanage shunned me as if I were a plague and immediately kicked me out.
The Taoist priest asked, “Do you want to come with me?”
I had no choice but to go with him. But when we reached the temple, the first thing he did was drive a peachwood sword through my palm.
He scolded me sternly. “You dare drive ghosts to harm people!”
I cried and said I hadn’t done it.
He thrust the sword another inch deeper. “You’re so young, yet your heart is cruel and your mouth is full of lies.”
I gritted my teeth, sweat dripping from my forehead as pain washed over me. “So what if I did?! They hit me first!”
“They stole my food, tore my clothes, and slapped me. Why can’t I get revenge?!”
“You didn’t stand up for what was right then, so why are you pretending to be a good person now? Was I just supposed to let them bully me?!”
The Taoist priest laughed three times. “Just as expected of someone born under the star of heavenly solitude, wicked by nature. Arrogant and quick to seek revenge, just as I thought.”
He pulled out the sword, and blood immediately gushed from my palm.
“But now that you’ve entered my order, I won’t let you do evil again!”
“From now on, your name is Phất Liễu. You are my disciple, Minh Phương, the Taoist priest. You must start over, obey me, and fight evil to do good!”
From then on, I became the old man’s disciple.
He taught me to read and write, to chant sutras and pray for blessings, and to draw talismans to exorcise ghosts.
The old man was strict. Whenever I made a mistake or got lazy, he beat me until there wasn’t a single unbruised spot on my body.
He wouldn’t let anyone visit me, much less let me apply medicine.
He wanted me to hurt, to be hardened through hardship. But little by little, people at the temple couldn’t bear it anymore.
First, my senior brother secretly brought me medicine. Then the junior uncle who managed the kitchen sneaked me food. After that, my senior sister brought me snacks whenever she went down the mountain.
I don’t know when it happened, but one day I looked back and realized so many people cared about me.
Somehow, the resentment and anger in my heart began to ease.
Time flowed by like water, and hatred and affection waxed and waned. I still hated the old man, but I no longer wanted to kill him.
When I was fifteen, I ran away down the mountain for the eighth time. I thought this time would be like all the others: they’d quickly catch me and drag me back, then beat me.
But they didn’t.
The old man didn’t come down the mountain to look for me.
I breathed a sigh of relief. I was finally free. But my heart felt empty.
I always thought that one day I’d go back and get revenge on the old man.
I never thought it would be goodbye forever.
5
That night, my senior brother came to find me and handed me a letter.
“Master told me to give it to you.”
Without hesitation, I crumpled the letter and threw it away.
My senior brother’s expression didn’t change.
“Junior sister, do you know that Master approved of everyone’s kindness to you all those years? Most people at the temple depended on him to survive. If Master had truly hated you, none of us could have cared for you.”
My fingers dug into my palm. “What are you saying?”
My senior brother bent down and rubbed my head. “Master… went to such painstaking lengths for you.”
“When you first arrived, I once asked Master why he had to be so harsh with you. He said your fate carried a murderous aura and was full of resentment, and that your temperament could easily go astray. You’d be incredibly difficult to teach. Unless he took extreme measures, he couldn’t temper your character.”
“At first, he wanted to let you die in the winter you were born, so you could avoid a life of hardship, harming both yourself and others, and bringing disaster.”
“But when he saw you again, Master couldn’t bear it. He said Heaven cherishes life. The first time he met you, he’d harmed you; the second time, he had to save you.”
“Master said he didn’t mind if you hated him. Hatred can help people survive, but only love can make them happy.”
“That’s why Master had us teach you to love. Little junior sister, we all want you to be happy.”
“Master included.”
After my senior brother left, I stood there dazed for a long time. At last, I picked up the crumpled letter.
I opened it.
[Little Liuniu, by the time you read this letter, I’ll be dead. Truthfully, there’s nothing I want to say. You’ve grown into a very good child. You don’t need me to teach you anything anymore. That puts my mind at ease. I’ve always taught you to be kind, punish evil, and stamp out violence. I even taught you to sacrifice yourself for others, without a thought for yourself.
But now, the last thing I want to teach you is this: Live to please yourself. Don’t let others hold you captive. It’s all right to be a little selfish. Don’t let yourself live in misery.
From here on, walk your own path freely.]
The letter fell to the ground.
That damn old man. He wouldn’t let me hate him, but I couldn’t bring myself to love him either.
6
When I returned, the Water Ghost was waiting for me at the gate.
I was surprised. “What are you doing here?”
He looked at the temple behind me. “Waiting for you.”
I was shocked. “You really have no idea how high the sky is or how deep the earth. Do you even know what kind of place this is?”
He paused. “I know.”
“You know, and you still dared to come?”
He lowered his eyes. “But you were crying.”
Me: “...If I had a condition that made me unable to stop crying, wouldn’t you be in trouble?”
He looked at me without saying a word.
I sighed. “Come on. Let’s go home.”
At the foot of the mountain, I turned and looked back at the temple standing quietly there.
Master, goodbye.