A small space
These days, the small Buddhist temple in the east courtyard was a constant source of incense. Madam Qin clasped her hands together, reverently chanting sutras. She had pledged to abstain from killing and eating meat for the rest of her life in exchange for Liu San's health, hoping that her compassion for her son would be noticed by the heavens, and that the Bodhisattva would grant her wish. She gazed at the densely packed handwritten sutras beneath the flickering candlelight, her self-righteous compassion and moving presence comforting her.
"How is the North Courtyard these days?" Mrs. Qin asked, kneeling in front of the Bodhisattva with her hands clasped together and her eyes closed.
Aunt Chuanfang stood in front of the Buddhist temple, not daring to cross the threshold. She replied, "Madam, Haitang said everything is normal."
Mrs. Qin frowned slightly and said nothing more, continuing to turn the Buddhist beads and chant scriptures.
During the days when Yulan wasn't around, Liu Er developed a habit of looking up at the moon. He began to understand why poems often mention moonlight whenever they mention longing. A hazy moonlight filtered through the lattice window, pouring into a corner of his book. There were no crickets in that corner; the crickets had leaped out of his travelogues and lived in a free world.
The Liu family's space was very small. Aside from Mr. Liu's main hall and Madam Qin's east courtyard, the rest were very close together. Several courtyards in the west courtyard were only a person's width apart. If a noise was heard in one courtyard, it could be clearly heard in the other.
Concubine Yun, who was born into a family of actors and practiced her opera skills every day, was often gossiped about by the other concubines. In the past, Yulan even helped to stir up trouble. But now things are different. Concubine Yun has regained her favor and every day she sets up a stage in the courtyard to perform her masterpiece, "A Dream in the Garden":
You know, my lifelong hobby is nature
No one sees the beauty of spring.
Not taking precautions against the beauty of the fishes and geese,
I am afraid that the flowers will be ashamed and the moon will be hidden, and the flowers will tremble with sorrow.
Yun was not young anymore. In her youth, she had been beautiful and charming. Over the years, her face had been adorned with cosmetics, but her figure remained as charming as ever. Unfortunately, having fallen out of favor for years, and now pregnant, her figure had quickly lost its former charm, leaving only a hint of its allure. She had once again summoned her old opera singing skills and practiced them in the courtyard. She dreaded a return to the hardship of her former life, without fine clothes or jewelry, and with those cunning servants eager to take advantage of her.
Whenever she stood on the stage, Aunt Yun felt like she was back in her youth, with spectators sitting in the audience, spending huge sums of money on her. She still remembered that Master Liu was the one who paid the most, so she followed that man.
She once naively believed that any man who was willing to spend money on her was the one who loved her the most and was the support she had been looking for for most of her life.
The courtyard where Aunt Yun lived was called "Peony Pavilion". There were several peonies planted in the courtyard. I thought it was a careful arrangement by Mr. Liu, but later I found out that it was a converted greenhouse and they were just too lazy to move the peonies out.
The Liu family was supposedly wealthy, but in reality, they had long been on the decline. Master Liu was a poor manager, living off his father and brother's inheritance. He hadn't seen any income, but his spending was substantial. Concubine Yun felt she had been shortsighted and misjudged the right person. Perhaps if she continued singing for another two years, she'd meet someone better, definitely someone better than Master Liu.
Unfortunately, there are no more young men in the audience watching Aunt Yun perform, only a few little maids working there to support her.
"Yuping, do you think I look good today?" Aunt Yun, dressed in a theatrical costume, swung her sleeves and covered Yuping's head.
"You look good. Auntie looks good no matter what." Yuping has two dimples when she smiles, which makes her look particularly sweet.
"You are the sweetest little girl. The master is coming today. Go to the kitchen and order some of his favorite dishes." She smiled and touched Yuping's face. "It would be great if I could give birth to a child with a sweet mouth like you."
"How dare I compare myself to my aunt's child?" Yu Ping said, and then she went to the small kitchen. All the way there, she kept muttering to herself: How could a bastard born of a shameless actor and a groom be compared to her? After all, she was still an innocent child born in a family.
She threw the rosewood food box onto the table and called for the slanted-eyed maid to come out and order. When the maid heard Yuping's voice, she hurried out with a flattering smile, "What would Madam Yun like to eat today? We have her favorite goose in the kitchen. We can make some braised goose meat."
"The master is coming tonight, you can take care of the arrangements," Yuping said and left.
The squinting old woman respectfully saw Yuping off and said that she knew the master's taste best and would make sure to arrange everything properly.
At night, Master Liu came to the Peony Pavilion to sit down and there was a table full of delicious dishes. He only touched his chopsticks a few times, but when he saw the shiny greasy skin of the goose meat soaked in old sauce, he felt sick and asked someone to take it away.
Concubine Yun was quite puzzled. She was the one who was pregnant, so how could she become the man who couldn't eat meat? She kept wondering in her heart, and took a few more chopsticks of the fattest goose meat and stuffed it into her mouth before letting Yuping remove it.
Her lips were slick with the grease of the marinade. As she chewed the goose, her already plump lips smoothed out every line, leaving her mouth greasy and smooth, making it even more unappetizing. Master Liu simply stopped looking at her and asked about the child.
Perhaps it was the heat, and he was feeling weak and his appetite had dwindled. He didn't eat much and felt lazy and listless. He dozed off right after dinner. Aunt Yun sat by the bed, fanning gently with a palm-leaf fan. Only when she saw Master Liu start snoring did she let Yuping continue fanning him and find a soft couch to rest herself.
Lying on the couch, she gazed at the crude stage outside the window. She had originally thought of singing a song for Master Liu tonight, but it seemed Master Liu no longer cared about watching operas. Instead, he'd been going to the vanilla garden more often to listen to music. He found her crude when he saw something elegant.
She almost forgot how many years she had been in the Liu family. Sometimes when she looked at Mr. Liu's face and thought of the days when she was neglected, she wished she could strangle him to death and become a widow to start over.
Fortunately, fortunately. Aunt Yun touched her belly and comforted herself softly.
"He's my mother's lucky star."
Many years ago, there was a family with ten children. Because they were too poor, they sold their youngest daughter to an opera troupe. The child was only five or six years old and had no name. All they knew was that the family's surname was Yun, and since the child was the ninth in the family, they called her Yun Jiu Niang.
The old troupe owner still remembered the scoundrelly way that family bargained, and always said to Jiuniang: "I bought you at a loss. If you can't sing well, don't blame me for selling you to a brothel."
Perhaps Jiu Niang was born with a rebellious streak. She refused to comply with the old boss's words and launched into a tirade like a shrew. Perhaps it was because she had been like this since childhood, and the old boss had gotten used to it over time. Later, when he got older and hard of hearing, he still missed it.
Later, the old boss watched Jiu Niang enter the Liu family, and she was never seen again after she was covered with a veil.
Before leaving, the old troupe leader sat backstage, looking at the empty stage all night long. Finally, he packed up an old box and gave it to Jiu Niang. It was his late wife's dowry.
The night was thick. Yun Jiuniang looked at the old, moth-eaten box and wondered how the old master had fared over the years. Was he still alive?
The next day, at daybreak, Master Liu left, no one knew where he had gone, and he hadn't even had breakfast. Concubine Yun asked Yuping to go to the kitchen to get breakfast, and after a few quick bites, she went to relax in the garden.
The weather is scorching hot these days, so I can only go for a stroll in the early morning or evening when it's still cool. This yard isn't very big, so I can walk around it in a few steps, and I can walk around it several times without even getting out of breath.
Madam Yun sat on the covered bridge, watching the comings and goings in the East Courtyard. She feared that Liu San, the medicine potter, had fallen ill again after only a few days of study. She touched her stomach, feeling that seeing all this so early in the morning was unlucky. She dragged Yuping back and met Master Liu, who had just emerged from the vanilla garden. He looked refreshed, a completely different person than the previous night. As he passed by, he acted as if he hadn't noticed Madam Yun coming towards him and simply brushed past.
After the person had gone far away, Yu Ping finally spoke, "That person's methods were quite clever. He lured the person away before daybreak."
"Masters just like to try new things. If they stop, that's when things will go wrong." Concubine Yun touched her belly. She knew she couldn't keep her favor, so she could only hope for a safe birth. That would give her a sense of security for the rest of her life. Liu Er was an illegitimate child, and Liu San was even less likely to live long. If it was a boy, Concubine Yun wouldn't have to worry about the rest of her life. A girl would be fine too; she could have a companion, better than being alone and helpless.
She took out the amulet she had obtained from Fengqing Temple, clasped it in her palm and prayed, praying for the child to be healthy.
In the small Buddhist temple in the east courtyard, Madam Qin knelt neatly before the Bodhisattva day after day, closing her eyes and asking Chuanfang, "Has the word spread?"
Aunt Chuanfang looked at the statue of the Bodhisattva and didn't dare to say anything. She just lowered her head and made hesitant sounds from her throat.
"It's done. Let's go to Fengqing Temple tomorrow and ask the Immortal for help on behalf of my poor son." Mrs. Qin kowtowed a few more times, praying to the Bodhisattva statue in front of her.
Master Taixu of Fengqing Temple looked at Liu San's birth date with a whisk in his hand, stroked his beard, sighed deeply, and said profoundly, "This person has a connection with Taoism. It would be better to send him to a Taoist temple to convert and live a long life."
Madam Qin's face was solemn and she pondered for a long time. She thanked the Taoist priest respectfully, but did not do what he asked. After returning, she locked herself in the small Buddhist temple again. The sandalwood incense and green lanterns in the ancient temple allowed her to calm down. What did she care about the quarrel outside?
What did it matter to her? She was just a poor mother, a wife not respected by her husband, a daughter forgotten by her father.
She is just a poor woman trapped in a Buddhist temple.
She looked up at the kind-looking statue of Bodhisattva and devoutly burned another stick of incense.
During the days when Yulan didn't go to find Liu Er, she learned to write her own name: Ye Feichun.
She squatted under the tree, using a branch to write in the soil over and over again. When she saw someone approaching, she would stomp on it to erase the writing. Although her writing was not very good, she felt more fulfilled than ever before. Now she not only wanted to learn to read and write, but also wanted to learn to write articles and poems.
She sat on the swing in the north courtyard, gazing at the square sky overhead, the sun burning her eyes fiercely. She tried to take off her shoes and socks and stand on the swing. Although she was wobbly and unsteady, she smiled from the bottom of her heart as she watched the light seep through her fingers through the mottled shadows of the trees.
She wanted to see farther, farther, so she swung the swing higher. She wanted to climb over the wall and see if the scenery outside was better than this small courtyard, better than the Liu family's.
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Note: ① Quoted from the excerpt "Dream in the Garden" from the Kunqu opera "The Peony Pavilion" where the drunk is helped home.
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