Bi Shenghua

Biodata

Background

Bi Shenghua’s family inherited responsibility for protecting Liuying Lane’s ancient willow. Her great-grandfather served the Hua family and, following Old Master Hua’s instructions, transplanted the willow to the site of an ancient mulberry destroyed in the fire that consumed the family estate. His dying wish was that his descendants protect the place and its tree. As a child, Shenghua helped her grandfather plant willow cuttings beside the river 337 338.

She was born on the night a later fire destroyed the Liu family’s woolen mill. Her grandfather survived because he had gone to the hospital for her birth. According to his stories, he had worked at the mill to tend a mulberry sapling, which the Liu family cut down before the fire. Shenghua associated these events with one another, but the account does not establish that the tree’s destruction caused the disaster—or that she was a reincarnation connected to it 530.

When Qingmu first appeared in Liuying Lane, the neighbors treated him as a beggar. Shenghua alone took him in, and he came to live at Ruhua Bar 310 338.

Appearance

• Androgynous style: Usually wears loose sportswear, hip-hop clothing, tracksuits, or other masculine-cut clothes. An early change to jeans and a purple plaid shirt is noticeably softer than her usual outfits 40 625.
• Distinctive features: Short-cropped hair, sharply defined upward-sweeping eyebrows, a straight, delicate nose, and strong cheek contours give her a spirited, handsome appearance 285 636.
• Later appearance: Develops visible wrinkles and gray strands while waiting for Qingmu. Despite becoming a wealthy business owner, she continues wearing inexpensive clothes and little makeup 581 658 709.
• Bearing: Mei Ziqing recognizes a heroic presence beneath her otherwise ordinary appearance 709.

Personality

Shenghua is outspoken, profane, and quick to confront intimidation. She challenges Jiang Deqian to protect Mo Yu and refuses to yield when officials and developers propose moving the old willow. Her anger is not usually lasting: after scolding Qingmu over the women around him, she quickly returns to joking with him 36 187 501.

Her practical care contrasts with her abrasive speech. She prepares Qingmu’s meals, checks his travel essentials, quietly gives Xiao Qi and Mo Yu vacation money, and comforts Meimei when the child fears her mother has abandoned her. She also sets aside bar shares for the staff 70 84 190 228.

She remains attached to the past without abandoning hope for the future. During Qingmu’s disappearance, she preserves his room and insists that he is alive. Even when the Space Box lets her recreate their former life, she refuses to replace her hopes for the real Qingmu with an imagined future 442 625 636 638.

Abilities & Skills

Business and Project Management

• Handles Ruhua Bar’s expansion, including design, purchasing, renovation, recruitment, and coordination with neighboring businesses 70.
• Negotiates transfer fees, rent, and share allocations, though trusting longtime neighbors without immediately signing contracts leaves the expansion vulnerable 70 187.
• Retains final authority over the Mulberry Garden redevelopment plan after Hu Xing establishes a joint venture 581.
• Hires specialists to reconstruct the garden from Mei Yiqiu’s drawings, preserving most of its original layout 654.

Bartending and Wine Appraisal

• Is explicitly described as an excellent bartender; her unusually trembling hand in the mirror labyrinth contrasts with her normal steadiness 63.
• Recognizes genuine Lafite by tasting it, but cannot distinguish whether the bottle is from 1982 or 1983 207.
• Drinks eight bottles of beer with only a slight flush during her contest with Jiang Deqian. Her tolerance has limits: afterward, she retches and needs Qingmu’s help reaching the restroom 37 39.

Improvised Fighting

• Opens beer bottles with her teeth and uses a broken bottle against Jiang Deqian’s neck to force the fighting to stop 36 39.
• Smashes a mirror with a kick while attempting to escape the labyrinth; the apparent mirror subsequently returns despite the absence of glass 63.
• Becomes locally known for chasing troublemakers into the police station while carrying a knife 413 470.
• Has no documented formal martial rank or confirmed supernatural combat ability 709 711.

Cooking and Caregiving

• Regularly cooks for Qingmu, Boss Coal, and the children who gather at Qingmu’s studio 84 230.
• Makes Boss Coal’s favored braised pork knuckles, which she also uses to reward or discipline him 192 213.
• In the alternate world experienced by Qingmu and Zhao Pengcheng, learns massage techniques from hospital doctors and cares for the comatose Qingmu for almost ten years 284 291.

Calligraphy

• Writes her own Spring Festival couplets using brush and ink after deciding the purchased ones are too trite. Her skill is little known to others 413.

Equipment & Important Items

• Key to the Dreamscape — Entrusted to her by Mei Yiqiu, who describes its purpose as saving humanity and tells her to press its button at the appropriate time. She eventually activates it after the mulberry trees die 637 735.
• Mulberry Garden drawings — Landscape paintings and plans supplied by Mei Yiqiu. They reveal the old garden’s layout and become the basis for its reconstruction 636 637 654.
• Mei Yiqiu’s will — Names Xia Chujue as his heir and assigns Shenghua responsibility for managing the assets until the girl reaches adulthood 710 711.
• House key beneath a flowerpot — Left outside so Qingmu can enter if he returns during her absence. Mei Ziqing’s handling of this key initially displeases her; it is separate from the Key to the Dreamscape 530 709 711.

Relationships

• Qingmu — Initially her lodger and a frequent target of complaints about unpaid bills and laziness. Their longstanding trust develops into an acknowledged romantic attachment: he promises to be with her after completing his mission, and she waits through his five-year absence 11 188 291 658 659.
• Boss Coal / Crow — A quarrelsome household companion and protector. She threatens his meals and feathers when he teases her, but recognizes that he has saved her and resolves to cook him more treats 192 213.
• Xiao Qi and Mo Yu — Bar staff whom she supports personally as well as professionally. She helps bring them together, reserves shares for them, and later leaves routine bar management largely in their hands 40 70 190 470.
• Xia Chujue / Meimei — Her goddaughter. Shenghua comforts and cares for her, and is later entrusted with managing Mei Yiqiu’s bequest on her behalf 228 230 710.
• Hu Xing — Initially viewed with suspicion because of her interest in Qingmu. Their shared straightforwardness, involvement with the children, and partnership in Mulberry Garden turn them into close friends 531 581 625.
• Yao Jingjing — Initially provokes Shenghua’s jealousy, but later becomes a trusted friend who helps with the children and speaks openly with her about Qingmu and her mother 187 230 471.
• Hou Biao — Initially supports Jiang Deqian, then later becomes Shenghua’s dedicated protector under Qingmu’s orders. When his memory deteriorates, she checks on him and takes him out to eat 37 344 471 625 638.
• Huang Ziqiang — Witnesses Qingmu rescue her and thereafter treats her with considerable deference. He proposes rebuilding Mulberry Garden when she blocks the original redevelopment plan 67 502 503.
• Mei Yiqiu — A trusted adviser who gives her the garden drawings, the Key to the Dreamscape, and responsibility for his estate 636 637 710.
• Mei Ziqing — Visits under the pretext of delivering information about Mei Yiqiu, then covertly searches Shenghua’s memories for the Key to the Dreamscape without discovering it 709 710 711.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Protecting Mo Yu and Confronting Jiang Deqian

Shenghua and Xiao Qi help look after Mo Yu after Qingmu warns that her sleepwalking may involve mind control. When Jiang Deqian later threatens Mo Yu at the bar, Shenghua challenges him to a drinking contest whose conditions would require him to leave Liuying Lane permanently if he loses 18 36.

The contest turns into a brawl. Shenghua holds a broken bottle to Jiang’s neck until the police arrive, then demands compensation for the wrecked bar. Hou Biao agrees to pay 100,000 yuan 38 39.

While investigating Mo Yu’s situation with Xiao Qi, she enters a mirror labyrinth and sees her own aged, dead face in the thirteenth reflection. Jiang’s gang subsequently holds her and Mo Yu captive. Shenghua refuses to submit to his threats, and Qingmu arrives to free them after Jiang fatally electrocutes himself 62 63 64 67.

Expanding Ruhua Bar

Qingmu gives Shenghua a bank card containing three million yuan. She plans to combine the bar with the two neighboring shops, budgeting roughly two million for transfer fees, rent, and renovation, with the remainder as working capital 70.

Old Wang and Auntie Zhang later return the transfer fees, disappear, and demand three million yuan when negotiations resume. Their meeting leads Shenghua into an armed kidnapping. After Qingmu intervenes, she confronts the pair, insists on paying the original rent rather than accepting free use, and revokes their promised shares. She also stabs the man who had abused and shoved her while warning them not to disclose the night’s events 187 202 206.

As Qingmu’s studio becomes a gathering place for Meimei, Xia Tian, and Yu Meiren, Shenghua assumes much of the shopping and cooking alongside her preparations for the bar’s reopening 228 230.

The Alternate Ten-Year Life

Qingmu and Zhao Pengcheng experience a world in which Qingmu has remained comatose for almost ten years. There, Shenghua closes the bar not long after his coma begins and cares for him mostly alone. The work leaves her exhausted, prematurely aged, and physically worn, but she remains meticulous and patient 283 284 285.

This is not established as ten years that passed in Shenghua’s ordinary life. Afterward, Qingmu explicitly wonders whether the woman who aged in that inaccessible world was the same Shenghua standing before him. Moved by what he witnessed, he thanks her for never abandoning him and promises that they will live together on an island after he fulfills his mission 291.

Waiting for Qingmu

Before leaving Liuying Lane, Qingmu tries to speak seriously to Shenghua beside the old willow. She tells him to wait until he returns, and he agrees 344.

His expected brief journey becomes a prolonged disappearance. Shenghua keeps his room spotless, hosts the children during the Lantern Festival, and continues leaving a key beneath a flowerpot in case he comes home. After nearly a year without news, she visits temples seeking comfort, though she finds little reverence for their statues 442 469 530.

Saving the Willow and Rebuilding Mulberry Garden

While researching Mulberry Garden in local gazetteers, Shenghua learns that Liuying Lane’s redevelopment requires moving the protected willow. She refuses and confronts developer Huang Ziqiang. When survey readings reveal roots extending beneath the street and beyond the equipment’s detection range, Huang proposes replacing the development with a classical garden. Shenghua names it Mulberry Garden 501 503.

She approaches Hu Xing for investment assistance. Hu Xing brings in Xia family companies and gives Shenghua a stake and decision-making authority in the new joint venture. Xia Xiaoxiao also entrusts her with assets associated with Situ and Meimei, helping transform her from a bar owner into the behind-the-scenes head of an investment company 531 581.

Shenghua remains in the original bar building after the surrounding lane is demolished. It serves as the construction command center by day and her home at night. She refuses Hu Xing’s invitation to leave even as a cyclone approaches 625.

Mei Yiqiu’s Entrustment

During the storm period, Mei Yiqiu visits and gives Shenghua paintings showing Mulberry Garden before its destruction. The images confirm that the old mulberry stood where the willow now grows, while the willow originally stood beside the rear garden’s lake 636 637.

He also entrusts her with the Key to the Dreamscape. She accepts because she trusts him, despite not fully understanding its purpose. In the Space Box, she recreates the old Liuying Lane and its inhabitants but does not lose herself in that reconstruction or create a substitute future there 637 638.

The Garden’s Transformation and Qingmu’s Return

After more than two years of work, the reconstructed garden begins to take shape. A willow sapling appears beside the lake, followed by a grove of ancient-variety mulberries whose underground roots are all connected 654 655 658.

The old willow deteriorates despite Shenghua’s attempts at watering, fertilizing, and pest control. It then sheds its bark and begins growing anew as a mulberry. While she wraps its vulnerable new bark in straw mats during heavy snow, Qingmu returns with Crow and holds an umbrella over her 658.

They share Lunar New Year’s Eve dinner after his five years away. Rather than immediately announce his return to their friends, Qingmu chooses to spend the next few days with Shenghua 659.

The Memory Search and Activation of the Key

Mei Ziqing later visits Mulberry Garden seeking the Key to the Dreamscape. Shenghua discovers Mei Yiqiu’s will among the garden plans, although she is certain it was not there during her earlier examinations. Its appearance disrupts her recollection of the Key 709 710.

Mei Ziqing covertly controls Shenghua’s dream and watches a replay of Mei Yiqiu’s visit. She sees his entrustment of the will but fails to uncover the Key, concluding incorrectly that Shenghua does not possess it. After awakening, Shenghua remembers the Key again 711.

During the catastrophe marked by the apparent multiple suns, Mulberry Garden’s mulberries begin withering. Within two days, every mulberry is dead, leaving only the willow beside the lake. Shenghua retrieves Mei Yiqiu’s Key and presses its button without hesitation 735.

Notable Quotes

“He's alive. He won't die!” 625

“No one is touching this tree unless I die.” — Internal vow 531

“You're back?” — To Qingmu upon his return 658

Trivia

• Her nickname Ruhua comes from the bar, rather than being her personal name 285.
• She develops a fondness for Orion and studies astronomical material about it, amusing herself by imagining a celestial bird taking centuries to reach Qingmu’s head 469.
• Yao Jingjing notices a resemblance between Shenghua’s eyes and brows and those of her great-grandmother, Old Madam Cuan. Mei Yiqiu separately says Shenghua resembles an old friend; neither observation establishes an identity or family connection 626 636.