Chapter 056
Chapter 56: The Overly Clever Twin Lotus
Dusk deepened, and night fell like a huge piece of black velvet.
Zheng Xiu Yun stood before the bronze mirror, the dim candlelight casting a pale shine across her face. She dipped a fingertip into rouge and blurred two sickly pink smudges beneath her eyes, then tugged loose a few wisps at her temples to add a frail, pitiful look. At last, she took a pitch black pill from the bottom of her makeup box and tucked it under her tongue without hesitation.
This medicine, once taken, would churn the blood and drain all color from the face within half an hour, making a person look as if struck by a serious illness.
She glanced toward the window and murmured, “The time is almost right,” then saw First Madam walking with Nanny Zhou toward the Auspicious Cloud Residence. The corner of her mouth curled in a cold, calculated smile as she gripped a pillar for support and shuffled out, every step shaky on purpose, so she would “happen” to appear in First Madam’s line of sight.
Her breath came short, her chest rose and fell hard, and she clenched a silk handkerchief so tight her knuckles stood out. Then her body swayed.
She let out a soft cry: “Ah!”
Her figure tilted, and she “weakly” toppled onto the cold gravel path. A scented sachet hidden in her sleeve also “accidentally” fell open, spilling dried petals across the ground.
First Madam’s face changed as she rushed forward to help, calling: “Xiu Yun?!”
Zheng Xiu Yun kept her eyes shut, long lashes casting fragile shadows as they trembled. Her lips were paper white, and she looked the very picture of a sickly faint.
Nanny Zhou watched the slight rise of Zheng Xiu Yun’s chest, then glanced at those deliberately taut fingertips. She sneered in her heart while keeping her face calm as she helped First Madam lift the girl. [Heh, she must have practiced this fragile look many times. That red mark on her wrist looks fresh, like she pinched herself. And the spot she chose is nice and obvious.]
Zheng Xiu Yun “slowly came to” and, on seeing First Madam, struggled to rise and salute as tears fell like broken beads: “Aunt, I am useless. I wanted to come pay my respects, but I… I…”
She choked up and let her gaze “unintentionally” drift toward the Auspicious Cloud Residence before dropping her eyes fast, pretending fear.
First Madam followed her look and frowned hard: “That Auspicious Cloud Residence… is its feng shui clashing with you?”
Zheng Xiu Yun shook her head at once, and as she moved, her sleeve slipped to “accidentally” reveal a shallow red mark on her wrist. In truth, she had just pinched it there herself.
“It has nothing to do with Buddha’s Chosen,” she said, her voice thin. “It is only my weak body…”
A few days later, Zheng Xiu Yun “happened” to pass by Yao Xiao Man’s place and, keen-eyed, noticed a flicker of fire through the crack of the window, along with a faint scorched smell.
Opportunity had come.
Putting on a look of panic, she stumbled off to find First Madam and blurted, “Aunt, something is wrong! I just saw Miss Xiao Man burning things in her room, the smoke is coming out through the window cracks. It might be a fire!”
First Madam turned pale and hurried over with her attendants.
They kicked the door open to find Yao Xiao Man crouching by a brazier, feeding in a stack of discarded sutra copying sheets. In the ashes, faint characters still showed where the fire had not fully burned through.
Startled by the commotion, Yao Xiao Man opened her mouth to explain, but Zheng Xiu Yun rushed in first and cried out as she reached toward the brazier: “Sister Xiao Man, these are Buddha’s Chosen’s hard work. You must not burn them!”
She moved “in a hurry,” but her wrist “accidentally” knocked over the brazier. Burning coals and gray ash scattered across the floor. The pages she had “saved” were torn in the “confusion.”
First Madam lowered her gaze and her face changed on the spot: the characters were clearly written by Lin Qing Xuan.
She snapped, “These are the hand of Buddha’s Chosen! How dare you destroy them?”
Yao Xiao Man’s mouth hung open; she was completely stunned.
Already on her knees, Zheng Xiu Yun cried with a look of deep guilt: “Aunt, it is all my fault. I should not have been so reckless. But each sutra character is precious. If Buddha’s Chosen finds out…” Her eyes reddened with what seemed like true regret, then she added, as if unintentionally, “Why not let me help Sister Xiao Man copy a new set? My brush cannot match Buddha’s Chosen’s, but I can make up a little…”
Hearing this, First Madam’s look softened at once as she thought, [This girl is quite sensible.]
Nanny Zhou, however, stared at the sleeve that Zheng Xiu Yun had “protected” so steadily in the chaos, and her sneer deepened: [What a neat tear. Not off by a hair. It just happens to rip the very corner with Buddha’s Chosen’s signature.]
That night, Zheng Xiu Yun bent over her desk by candlelight and carefully imitated Lin Qing Xuan’s calligraphy, stroke by stroke. Dipping her brush, she traced the lines across the rice paper with growing satisfaction.
[Buddha’s Chosen’s script is not that hard to copy.]
She blew the ink dry, then set her pages beside Yao Xiao Man’s original. The handwriting was nearly identical. Only at the paper’s corner did she touch a fingertip in vermilion and “carelessly” add the faint shape of a twin lotus.
[The Buddhist Order honors the lotus. Two blossoms on one stem mean fate and bond. A clear-sighted person like Buddha’s Chosen will understand my heart through this sign and know that I am the one who shares his mind.]
Outside, a coil of black mist circled the eaves, and Tuan Tuan’s low laughter drifted through the room. [Hee hee hee… Xiao Man could not learn this framing trick in ten years.]
[Draw a twin lotus? That only grants Lin Qing Xuan exactly what he wants. He wants that slow girl Xiao Man to show her feelings first. Silly wicked girl. Playing smart turned you dumb.]
As expected, Lin Qing Xuan noticed the extra sutra page in the corner. Pinching it between his fingers, he went straight to find Yao Xiao Man.
His tone left no room for doubt as he said: “This is not your work.”
Holding the sheet up to the light, Yao Xiao Man squinted and muttered, “The writing looks exactly the same. Even I can hardly tell. Why say it is not mine? Are you a worm in my stomach?”
He touched the faint vermilion at the corner with a slender finger and said, “You would not draw this.”
It was a twin lotus.
Yao Xiao Man looked closer and was about to argue when Lin Qing Xuan continued, his cool voice cutting through the air with quiet force: “The strokes may match, but the heart and spirit of the one who copies the sutra cannot be faked.”
Yao Xiao Man snatched the page and held it to the light again, trying to see this talk of “heart” and “spirit,” while her mind raced: [Sounds so mysterious and vague. I bet you just noticed that dumb lotus. What a show-off.]
Up on the beam, Heart Demon Tuan Tuan rolled in the black mist laughing. [I told you this wicked girl was foolish. She drew a lotus and ended up helping these two flirt right here.]