The bitter winter of the twelfth lunar month. Roasting over a twig fire in the hearth, petting cats, and admiring blossoms, the leisurely life of Yi Capital passed day after day.
Each day brought one more task—
Tending to the horse.
And expenses increased a bit as well.
Keeping a horse in the city was truly troublesome.
Ordinarily, the Northern Yuan horse possessed a strong digestive capacity and remarkable resilience on rough feed; without heavy labor, it did not require grain feeds. Yet in the city, gathering grass was impossible, so they had to spend money on fodder and constantly clean up after it. Fortunately, ever since Song You had spoken with it, the animal remained entirely quiet. Otherwise, disturbing the neighbors would not only invite trouble, but weigh heavily on his own conscience.
The twelfth lunar month was clearly drawing to a close.
Soon it would be the first Spring Festival Song You would spend entirely alone since coming to this world.
A few days prior, the Daoist priests of Fuqing Palace had a pilgrim living in Yi Capital deliver a letter, inviting Song You to spend the new year at Qingcheng Mountain. They said if he went, he should arrive on the twenty-eighth. After pondering it, Song You ultimately decided not to go. Yet he had no way to reply to the Daoist priests of Fuqing Palace, and he wondered how long they might have waited before the mountain gates that day.
Constable Luo had also come with an invitation, which Song You had politely declined.
Even Prefect Yu had sent a letter.
Song You had agreed to none of them.
The winter plum blossoms had bloomed for a long time. By New Year's Eve, the flowers still remained, defying the frost and snow, standing proud against the bitter cold.
Song You calculated the dates in the courtyard. Three Flower Lady had transformed into human form, yet she still could not shake her feline habits, loving to walk along the courtyard walls and rain eaves.
The timing for the new year was quite fitting this year, as the Start of Spring fell just a few days after the holiday.
He remembered arriving in Yi Capital after the Start of Autumn; once the Start of Spring passed, roughly two seasons of autumn and winter would have gone by.
A voice came from atop the courtyard wall overhead.
"Are we leaving?"
Song You raised his head to look, seeing the little girl standing barefoot on the very peak of the courtyard wall's rain eaves. The rooftop ridge was inherently narrow and slippery, yet she stood with absolute steadiness, gazing down at him from her commanding height.
This cat truly possessed a pair of discerning eyes.
"I've told you already, Three Flower Lady, do not climb up onto the roof to walk when you are in human form. People will mistake you for a demon."
"Three Flower Lady is a demon."
"It will disturb the neighbors."
"There's nobody in the houses over here."
"It's impolite."
"Fine, fine."
Though she spoke thusly, she showed no intention of coming down, merely continuing to stare at him:
"Are we leaving?"
"We leave after the Start of Spring."
"How long until the Start of Spring?"
"A few days."
"Why wait for the Start of Spring?"
"The Start of Spring is the beginning of the year. Vital breath is flourishing, all things revive, and it's a good time to start a journey."
"I don't understand."
"Come down quickly."
"Bring me a ladder."
"You can clearly jump down."
"People will mistake me for a demon."
"..."
Song You went to fetch a ladder for her, and also brought her shoes.
Three Flower Lady put on the shoes, feeling quite awkward, and as she looked around the room, she inevitably felt a touch of reluctance.
Six months was a very long time for a cat.
This place was already filled entirely with her scent.
"Then what are we going to do these next few days?"
"We need to invite the landlord over to inspect the house."
"What's house inspection?"
"It means this is someone else's house, rented to us. So when we return it to them, we must invite them to take a look and see if we've broken the house."
"And after the inspection?"
"We have to go say goodbye to the storyteller."
"What else?"
"Celebrate the new year."
"Three Flower Lady knows about the new year."
"Three Flower Lady possesses great wisdom."
"That's right."
"Once we set off this time, we will be traveling farther and farther from home."
"I don't know what home is."
Song You turned his head to meet her gaze and fell silent for a moment. Seeing only pure clarity in her eyes, he remained silent for another moment, not knowing what to say.
The fourth day of the first month was the Start of Spring.
The fifth day marked the exact completion of six months of renting the courtyard.
Song You thought it over: there was no reason to invite someone to inspect a house on New Year's Day. According to the customs of Yizhou, the second day required visiting graves to pay respects to departed elders, after which one had to return to maternal relatives and visit friends and family. He feared that until the fifth or sixth day, there might not be a single moment of free time. Reckoning it this way, the days before the new year were truly far more convenient than the days after.
He might as well go invite the landlord over today.
About an hour later, the landlord arrived.
The landlord was a man in his thirties, dressed like a scholar, surnamed Tang with the given name Zhong and the courtesy name Xincheng.
He had long since heard that the person renting this place was an eminent master, and this was also the only tenant who had stayed long-term in the courtyard in recent years. He had even come to Song You to beg for talisman papers previously, so at this moment he naturally showed the utmost respect.
Steeling his courage to carry out a brief inspection, he found the small courtyard undamaged.
"Sir, everything is in order."
"Then I'll leave on the fifth."
"Tang has one more matter to ask of you, sir..."
"Please speak."
"Previously in this courtyard..." Tang Zhong looked left and right. Although he felt no physical discomfort, he still harbored some dread, and his speech was rather hesitant. "Previously in this courtyard... there was something... rather unclean. I have heard that you are deeply accomplished in the Dao, sir, and I wonder if you have... if you have already rid the place of it?"
Song You glanced at him and simply said:
"That was merely a wisp of lingering soul and obsession; unless one's heart is burdened with guilt, there is no need to fear it."
From the very beginning, Song You had seen at a single glance that the female ghost had never harmed anyone, nor did she possess the ability to do so. Since he was merely a passerby temporarily lodging here, he could not be bothered to expend the effort, and thus never concerned himself further with her story.
It was only after having lived here for a long time—seemingly at the end of last month, or perhaps the beginning of this one—that Constable Luo had happened to mention it to him.
This woman was originally a courtesan from a pleasure house, later married to the eldest son of the Tang family. Her husband was none other than the elder brother of this very Official Tang standing before them. The two had been deeply in love, and for a time their romance was celebrated as a fine tale. Later, however, fighting broke out in the north, and the eldest son of the Tang family followed a familiar general into military service, wishing to achieve great merits and protect his country. Yet within a few years, all contact was cut off. The woman kept vigil alone in her empty boudoir, yearning for her husband, and gradually grew depressed, passing away from the world not long after.
For a time, this story touched many people in Yi Capital.
This courtyard belonged to the eldest son of the Tang family and her.
Now the male master was entirely without news, and the female master had also died. As their only remaining relative, Tang Zhong naturally took the courtyard into his hands. Yet the woman's obsession ran too deep, and her lingering soul refused to dissipate for a long time. Neither dared to move into the courtyard nor could it be rented or sold, leaving Tang Zhong helpless.
When Song You first heard the tale, his heart was deeply moved as well.
He was touched both by this genuine love of rare existence in a feudal era—an obsession transcending life and death—and he pondered deeply that this story was entirely different from what he had originally imagined.
The female ghost's lingering soul was hidden extremely deep and was difficult to track down, which truly could stump quite a few folk practitioners who ate from this trade. Yet with a region as vast as Yizhou, it was not as though capable individuals were completely lacking, and yet she had stubbornly remained here for several years. Song You had originally assumed there must be hidden circumstances within it, just like stories in novels: either the woman's background before death was extraordinary, or it involved other twisted and turns matters. Yet he never imagined that the reason this female ghost's lingering soul and obsession had existed here for years without being resolved was simply because of the surrounding society's widespread sympathy and emotional resonance toward her.
Having grown accustomed to thinking in complex terms, for a moment he almost dared not believe that it was merely people's simple and pure goodwill.
And so Song You felt a sudden enlightenment, and so Song You praised its marvel, and so once again he clearly recognized that this was a real world. Even though this era was backward and ignorant, it still possessed warmth and color.
Though past and present differed, human hearts remained connected.
If it came to understanding the female ghost before her death, Song You could not compare to the neighborhood residents; if it came to suffering the impact caused by the female ghost's presence, Song You could not compare to the neighborhood residents either. Since the neighborhood residents all chose to tolerate and endure it, and Constable Luo lived directly across the alley with a character and duty that led him to choose to turn a blind eye, on what grounds did Song You have any reason to banish her?
Tang Zhong was instantly filled with extreme disappointment, yet still unwilling to give up.
"Do you have a method to banish her, sir?"
Song You did not answer, merely looking at him and shaking his head.
"Sigh..."
Tang Zhong let out a long sigh and repeatedly waved his hand. "Forget it, forget it. Having tried every possible method these past few years, I accept my fate. Let her stay here. Sir, I take my leave."
"Wishing you a happy new year in advance."
"Wishing you a propitious new year as well, sir."
The wooden door creaked open, then creaked shut.
Song You sat in the courtyard a while longer. As the sky grew late and it was time to start cooking, he finally returned indoors.
Stepping onto a stool, he unhooked a strip of cured pork and a link of Chinese sausage from the roof beam, then took a piece of air-dried fish, heated water, and washed them carefully. This cured pork had been smoked and required a knife to scrape away the black ash on the surface. Once that scritch-scritch-scritch sound rang out, it felt just like the arrival of the new year.
"Daoist, why aren't we eating grass today?"
"It's the new year."
"Oh."
Three Flower Lady had turned back into a cat at some unknown point. As Song You washed vegetables and drew water, she trotted back and forth behind him, running around for reasons unknown. When Song You lit the oil lamp and his shadow flickered amidst his busy movements, she chased his shadow across the floor, lunging back and forth and playing with utter devotion.
"Three Flower Lady, help me tend the fire."
"Mm?"
"Go find your clothes, transform into human form, and help me tend the fire."
"Why?"
"We should make New Year's Eve dinner together."
"Oh."
The little cat immediately scampered out.
wisps of cooking smoke curled upward, and ten thousand households lit lanterns. Outside, the sounds of beating gongs and blowing flutes drifted over once more.
Fragrance gradually drifted out from the courtyard as well.
After boiling the sausage, Song You patiently sliced it into thin rounds. Catching from the corner of his eye the young girl tending the fire before the stove stretching her neck and staring eagerly, his hand paused in its motion, and his heart was likewise stirred. A smile appeared on his face, and when he sliced the sausage down to just a small stub at the end, he stopped cutting, pinched it up, and handed it to her.
Three Flower Lady leaned in to sniff it, then looked up and stared at him.
"Is this for me?"
"Yes."
"We haven't started eating yet."
"Children can eat first."
"Oh."
Song You could not help revealing a reminiscent expression.
"Did you know, Three Flower Lady? Back when I was little, whenever the new year arrived and the adults were busy chopping vegetables, I always loved to hover nearby. As the adults chopped away, they would always leave a piece behind and hand it to us. I always felt that taste was even more delicious than what was on the table the next day at noon."
"Mm-mm..."
Song You did not seem to expect an answer from her, merely sinking into his recollections. Thinking back on it now, that period of time was truly happy and blissful beyond measure.
Today, he passed that tradition on to Three Flower Lady.
Before long—
On the table sat a bowl of Chinese sausage, a bowl of cured pork stir-fried with garlic sprouts, a bowl of cured fish, and half a pot of soup stewed from the pig's trotters bought this morning. It could not be called lavish, but in truth there was already more than they could finish. The large and the small figure sat facing each other across the lamplight, the fire of the oil lamp illuminating only a very narrow patch, casting a series of concentric rings upon the crude pottery bowl.
No one spoke, and they simply ate in silence.
Song You did not feel lonely. Having spent all these years in the Daoist temple with only himself, his master, and that old myna, he had long since grown accustomed to it.
Before long, fireworks began to bloom outside.
Unawares, yet another year was added to this world.
Thanks to the Guild Leader "Xu Qiu'an", the abdominal muscle girl is eternal, bowing and exposing breasts!
Before you continue