“There’s no rush, there is still time for an entertaining play tonight,” Jiang Ruan said with a small smile. She thought about the question she had asked Li Mi whilst in the carriage: “Daren, do people on the way to the capital have to pass this temple?”
“Yes,” Li Mi replied. “This temple is the only building within a radius of several tens of li[1].”
[1] Li ( 里 ) – ancient measure of length, approximately 500m.
Jiang Ruan broke off her train of thought in time to hear Lian Qiao ask, curiously, “What entertaining play?”
“Lu Zhu.” Jiang Ruan answered.
Lu Zhu came into the room and said, all smiles, “Everything has been arranged, Miss.”
It was late at night in the depth of winter, and surrounded by inky blackness, dead silence presided over the temple. Only the sound of the cold wind, like a whimper, could be heard.
The lamps had been completely extinguished. The only light remaining was a wisp of moonlight from the waning moon, shining on the snowy land. At that moment, huge dark clouds rolled overhead, completely blotting out the faint moonlight. Under the heavens, the earth was shrouded in a blanket of darkness.
In the silent darkness, several furtive figures suddenly appeared in the courtyard. The figures paused at a few rooms, glancing inside for confirmation, before entering one of the rooms in a single file.
Into the noiseless silence of the courtyard dropped one or two soft chimes of small bells.
The maiden in the darkness opened her eyes, pupils gleaming with a hint of chilliness. She smiled faintly and whispered, “Lian Qiao, Bai Zhi.”
Both servant girls nodded in unison, got up, opened the door, and walked out.
Jiang Ruan stood in the middle of the room. She had already laid out everything in the room next door, but had not slept there. Instead, she had hidden in this adjoining room the whole time. She had in fact set herself up as an easy target[2].
[2] Weng zhong zhuo bie ( 瓮中捉鳖 ) – 瓮中 = jar, 捉 = to catch; 鳖 = turtle; lit. to catch a turtle in a jar; fig. to go after an easy prey.
In her previous life, she had also lived in a similar temple, but her recollection of that time was extremely vague. She could only remember that the monks and the abbot had made things difficult for her, but whether this was deliberate or due to some other reason, she had not been able to figure out back then. The food she was given had been extremely meager, and the condition of the room she slept in had been extremely harsh. However, on hindsight, it must have been at the instigation of Xia Yan and her daughter. Back then, they had needed her as a pawn in their scheme to enter the palace, so they had made things difficult for her only for a short while before letting her go. Now that she had been given a new lease of life, and was returning to the Jiang fu[3] with great fanfare and the status of the highly righteous daughter of the first wife, she was afraid that Xia Yan and Jiang Su Su would not be too happy.
[3] Fu ( 府 ) – compound, estate or mansion; usually the residence of a noble or powerful family. So Jiang fu refers to main residence, i.e., Jiang mansion.
On this final day, they still wanted to block her return to the Jiang fu. However, this time, what they wanted was her life!
Due to the temple’s remote location and consequent lack of monetary offering, they had taken Xia Yan’s silver and was doing her bidding. Thus the ‘few’ kind-hearted monks who had remained had ‘considerately’ advised Jiang Ruan to place the male and female members of her party in separate rooms to preserve her reputation. So if something were to happen, she would have no one to call for help, and could only endure it all by herself!
However, today, she was an evil spirit who had returned from hell, and in this play they were putting on, she alone had the key role to demand someone’s life!
The faint chime of bells came from the neighbouring room; it was a secret code. Excellent. She had released a large quantity of poisonous smoke into the room, and Lu Zhu had taken the antidote earlier. Once the people that Xia Yan had sent entered the room, their part (in the play – continuation of the ‘entertaining play’ metaphor)was – to be trampled on. At day break, she planned to throw the bodies of these people in front of the temple’s statue of Buddha. Li Mi was an officer and would naturally have to investigate. As to how the abbot and monks would explain all this, well, they would have to concoct a plausible explanation by themselves.
Jiang Ruan tidied her skirt in preparation to open the door and go to the neighbouring room to check on the situation. She had just reached the door when it was shoved open violently, and a figure slipped in quickly from outside. Startled, Jiang Ruan hastily took a few steps back. The other party, seemingly, had not imagined that someone would be in the room either, and did not react immediately. In that split second, Jiang Ruan, having moved too quickly, stepped carelessly on her oversized skirt and toppled backwards in the prelude to a fall.
Upon seeing her fall, the other person moved swiftly and reflexively stretched out a hand to grasp her waist. For a brief moment, their bodies were pressed close to one another and Jiang Ruan’s face touched the black material of his clothes, patterned with black mythical creatures (qilin)[4]. She went blank. In a twinkling of an eye, the dark clouds receded, and moonlight flooded the room through the window. Jiang Ruan looked up into a pair of eyes as cold as a dead star.
[4] Hei Lin ( 黑麟 ) – 黑 = black, 麟 = Chinese mythical creature, also known as a Chinese unicorn. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qilin.
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