Chapter 2
Chapter 2: The Buddhist Scion’s Dream Wasn’t Ordinary
That night, Xiao Man dreamed again.
The same mist hovered near her bed, gray and dull, neither too close nor too far. It didn’t speak. It simply hung there—heavy as a gaze, like a debt collector waiting for her to crack.
Fear and irritation tangled in her chest until irritation won.
She sat up and stared hard at it.
“What do you want?”
The mist wriggled. The mournful voice seeped out.
“Sister… I suffer so much…”
Xiao Man sneered inside, but her face stayed still. She threw off the quilt and stepped down barefoot onto the icy floor.
One step.
Then another.
The closer she got, the more solid the mist seemed, as if it had weight and will.
This time, as if compelled, she reached out and touched it.
The sensation was strange—soft and fuzzy, cool at the edges. Absurdly, it reminded her of Little Hei, the black cat Old Madam liked to hold.
Something in her loosened. The name slipped out before she could stop it.
“Tuan Tuan?”
The mist seemed pleased, nuzzling her fingertip like a spoiled pet.
“Sister, your heart is the kindest. Pity me…”
Xiao Man pulled her hand back. Whatever fleeting softness had stirred in her died on the spot.
A wolf in a cat’s skin. That’s all.
“Take me to see Eldest Young Master,” she said, straight and steady. “You said he was trapped.”
Better one clear look than endless nights of being toyed with.
The mist went still for a heartbeat.
Then it laughed—sharp and thin, like a weasel that had stolen a chicken.
“Sister is truly decisive.”
The moment the words fell, the thing she’d called Tuan Tuan lunged.
Xiao Man’s vision went black. Her body felt yanked into an icy whirlpool, spinning until her insides seemed to shift out of place.
When she opened her eyes, she stood beside a lake that stretched beyond sight.
The water lay calm as a mirror. A veil of warm, gentle light floated over the surface—like moonlight, yet solemn, almost sacred. Sandalwood lingered faintly in the air.
Her clenched heart eased despite itself.
This didn’t feel like a killing ground. It felt like a lotus pond in a Bodhisattva’s realm.
She swallowed, thinking: no wonder people called him Innate Buddha Child. Even his dreams wore Buddha-light.
“Tsk.”
A soft snicker sounded in her mind—Tuan Tuan’s other voice, the one that carried knives.
“You really think he’s a living Bodhisattva? Don’t be fooled by the skin.”
“Go deeper. Just walk. You’ll see something you never imagined.”
The voice brimmed with gloating.
“I don’t go after an egg without a crack. If he didn’t have shameful thoughts, how could I get in?”
Yao Xiao Man’s heart jumped back into her throat.
She gritted her teeth and followed a white stone path along the lake.
After only a few steps, the world changed.
The lake vanished. The gentle light vanished.
In their place stood an ancient tree so vast it blotted out the sky. Its branches twisted like countless struggling arms reaching upward.
The earth beneath it was black-red, like soil steeped in blood.
And beneath the tree—
Incense haze curled around a fierce, glaring Buddha statue. Beside it stood another: a female Buddha with lowered brows and downcast eyes.
Cold statues. Unmoving stone.
And yet in this place, they held each other and swayed, as if they were lovers caught in a secret dance.
The male Buddha’s wrathful gaze held something else now—desire forced down until it trembled with strain. His hand rested at the female Buddha’s waist with a gentleness that didn’t belong in a furious palm.
The female Buddha kept her head bowed. Her features were hidden. Her slender waist bent in his grip, yielding with an obedience so wrong it made Xiao Man’s scalp prickle.
They danced.
The movement was eerie, intimate, far too tender for stone.
As they swayed, flakes of heavy gold paint peeled from their bodies, revealing a smooth, jade-like surface beneath. Where the gold fell away, the touch of body against body shone with a pure lotus glow—holy light draped over something unholy.
Sacred and desire. Restraint and ruin.
Two extremes fused together until the mind couldn’t look away.
Beside Lin Qing Xuan, an eternal butter lamp suddenly flared, bursting into a bright flower of flame.
The flash scattered the illusion for a breath, as if a hand had wiped mist from glass.
Yao Xiao Man froze.
The word slipped out of her mouth before she could swallow it.
“Joyful Buddha…?”
Her face went hot in an instant. She raised a hand to cover her eyes—but her fingers parted against her will, and the scene burned into her mind like a brand.
Tuan Tuan’s laughter rose again, sticky and pleased.
“I knew an otherworld soul like you would understand.”
“My good Sister, don’t block your eyes. This is a fine show.”
“This is the lust trial. Your Eldest Young Master’s necessary hurdle. Look at it—our Buddhist Scion who ‘doesn’t touch women’ has been stuck here for far more than a day or two.”
“The moment I entered, I found this lovely place. Tsk. The desire in his heart is heavier than ten ordinary men put together.”
“Too bad my cultivation isn’t deep enough to grow a woman’s body. Otherwise, why would I need you? I would’ve thrown myself at him long ago!”
Xiao Man’s mind buzzed, as if hornets had nested behind her eyes.
Did it know? Did it know she wasn’t from this world?
The voice clung. The images pressed in, filthy as smoke.
Just as the stench of it all threatened to tip her into faintness, the massive ancient tree trembled.
Every entwined shadow froze.
At the center of that debauched ground, a ring of soft Buddha-light spread outward without warning, rippling like water and shoving the writhing figures aside.
In the heart of that glow, a figure slowly appeared.
Lin Qing Xuan.
He wore white monk’s robes. He sat cross-legged, eyes closed, posture solemn, almost untouchable.
But sweat beaded across his face—fine and dense. His brows were knotted so tightly they looked carved into pain.
Golden Buddha-light spilled from him in rings—only to be seized by gray halos rising from the surrounding bodies. The gray wrapped around the gold like venomous snakes, drilling and biting, forcing their way toward him.
Gold and gray tore at each other in silent violence.
“Sister,” Tuan Tuan whispered, voice trembling now, half thrilled and half afraid. “Look. The main act.”
“He’s suppressing his heart demon with his own cultivation.”
“Tsk. But the harder he presses it down, the harder it rebounds. That Joyful Buddha—he planted that cause himself. Now it’s borne fruit. He can’t pull it out even if he wants to.”
As the words fell, Lin Qing Xuan’s eyes snapped open.
Xiao Man’s breath caught.
Those eyes held none of his usual cool pity. What looked back from them was blood-red struggle, muddled and lost—like a man drowning in mud.
His gaze swept the dream wildly, searching—searching—for something to cling to.
Then, suddenly, it fixed.
Straight toward where Yao Xiao Man stood.
Distance didn’t matter.
Her heart seized as if an invisible hand had closed around it.
He saw her?
No.
He didn’t see her.
He sensed something clean in this filthy dream—a breath that didn’t belong.
“Damn it!” Tuan Tuan shrieked, panic slicing through the voice. “He found us! The Buddhist Scion relic bead on him is in empathic resonance with you, otherworld soul!”
A brutal force yanked at Xiao Man from behind.
Before she could move, the mist wrapped her up. The world flipped and spun like cloth in a wash tub. Sky and ground traded places.
Then everything went black.
When she woke the next morning, Xiao Man’s head throbbed.
All night, her mind had replayed the tree, the Joyful Buddha, and Lin Qing Xuan’s face—beautiful, strained, beaded with sweat, caught between light and shadow.
The Eldest Young Master who was always restrained, always polite, always ready to enter the order… had hidden such shameful darkness in his dreams.
All day she drifted, thoughts slipping from her grasp.
While wiping a carved fruit tray in Old Madam’s room, her hand slipped.
Clack.
The tray shattered into pieces.
It wasn’t a priceless antique, thank Heaven—but Xiu He still marched over, hands on hips, brows drawn sharp.
“Xiao Man! What’s wrong with you today—did you skip your meal, or did you leave your soul somewhere?”
“You can’t even do something this small. If Old Madam gets startled, I’ll skin you!”
Xiu He scolded her until Xiao Man’s ears rang, then fined her the cost of the tray.
Half a month’s wages.
Yao Xiao Man’s heart clenched with pain, but she didn’t dare argue.
At last night fell.
Xiao Man lay on the hard bed in her tiny room, and her heart beat like a drum.
She was afraid.
Afraid that the moment she closed her eyes, the thing called Tuan Tuan would drag her back into Lin Qing Xuan’s dream.
Being forced to witness someone’s darkest privacy felt worse than standing naked in a crowd.
She rolled over and clung to one thin thread of luck.
At least she served in Old Madam’s courtyard. If she were assigned to Lin Qing Xuan’s place, seeing him day after day, how would she face the Buddhist Scion after what she’d seen?
And what did Tuan Tuan mean—relic bead, otherworld soul, empathic resonance?
The moment Lin Qing Xuan’s calm face rose in her mind, the ancient tree rose with it, and the twisted, gleaming dance beneath its branches.
This living Bodhisattva…
Perhaps his heart had been soaked through with lust long ago.