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Spring really was a season for attracting romance.
Because while Xie Yu was chatting with her junior sister about attracting romance, Yun Zhaozhao and Lin Banxia were also standing in the rear courtyard of Clear Breeze Temple, staring blankly up at a peach tree.
Yun Zhaozhao had only had this peach tree planted over the New Year. It had clearly been doing quite well when it was first planted, but now, perhaps because Lin Banxia had given it too much fertilizer lately, even its leaves seemed to be dying.
Few people at Clear Breeze Temple knew how to grow trees. After spending ages staring helplessly at the peach tree, they finally decided to call in outside help.
-Lin Banxia called her grandfather over directly.
Yun Zhaozhao had met Lin Banxia's grandfather before. Seeing him again, she found the old man as vigorous as ever. In weather this cold, he had actually come wearing a short-sleeved shirt with his arms bare. Although he had a jacket draped over one arm, Yun Zhaozhao felt cold just looking at him. She was still bundled up in a down jacket herself!
The old man circled the ailing peach tree and confirmed Yun Zhaozhao's earlier guess. "It really has been overfertilized. That's dehydrated the fruit tree."
"What should we do, then?" Yun Zhaozhao asked.
"Stop using fertilizer for now and give it more water," the old man said. "But when you water it, make sure you don't soak the roots until they rot. Next, prune these withered branches and leaves. Once new branches and leaves grow in, it'll be fine."
It sounded fairly straightforward, but actually doing it did not seem quite so easy. How were they supposed to know how much water was too much or too little? And how exactly were they supposed to prune it?
After thinking it over, Yun Zhaozhao simply stepped forward herself and persuaded the old man to stay.
The old man had come partly to see his granddaughter and partly to take a look at Clear Breeze Temple. In the past, when she had made him angry enough, he had dumped Lin Banxia at Daoist temples a few times. That was how he had come to know Daoist Qingxin. Back then, though, Lin Banxia had never once obediently stayed at a temple for ten days or a fortnight. This time, when Daoist Qingxin recommended Clear Breeze Temple, the old man had privately braced himself for Lin Banxia to run home within a couple of days. Yet now the New Year was already over, and not only had Lin Banxia never said she wanted to come back, she was growing more enthusiastic about staying.
The old man had also privately asked Lin Banxia how she was getting on at Clear Breeze Temple. Every time, she said it was great, which made him immensely curious about this little temple he had never visited and had barely even heard of.
So when Yun Zhaozhao personally invited him to stay for a couple of days, he accepted with a nod rather than declining.
There were only three rooms in the very back row of Clear Breeze Temple's rear courtyard, and they were all occupied now. Fortunately, there was another row of empty rooms in the courtyard opposite the dining hall. They had probably once been used to accommodate lay devotees or for quiet meditation. In any case, they would be habitable after a little cleaning.
Yun Zhaozhao had Jingxin and Daoist Chang Kong clean out a room over there, then arranged for the old man to stay in it.
With the old man's help, not only was there hope for the fruit trees in Yun Zhaozhao's rear courtyard, but the medicinal herbs Lin Banxia had planted earlier also had someone to tend to them.
Before the old man had spent even two days at Clear Breeze Temple, he understood why his granddaughter was unwilling to leave.
First of all, this temple was different from other temples. It offered a great deal of freedom.
At the other temples where Lin Banxia had stayed, there had been strict schedules for when to sleep, get up, and eat. Here, though, she could sleep in as late as she liked, and nobody bothered her.
Of course, the most important thing was that this temple had an endless variety of delicious food.
The old man considered himself someone who had lived most of his life and tasted practically every delicacy there was. Only after coming to Clear Breeze Temple did he realize how many good things he had yet to try!
That evening, for instance, Daoist Chang Kong made him a dish he had never eaten before, called eggplant xiang. It was said to have originated in
Dream of the Red
Chamber. The eggplant flesh was finely diced and fried in chicken fat, then combined with diced chicken, fragrant mushrooms, diced bamboo shoots, button mushrooms, and other ingredients. Finally, it had to be simmered in chicken broth.
Just listening to Daoist Chang Kong describe the recipe made the old man think it sounded like an unbelievable amount of trouble. Still, he had to admit that it tasted wonderful. Even Lin Banxia, who had never much liked eggplant since childhood, ate nearly half a bowl.
Sipping the wine Daoist Chang Kong had brewed and watching Lin Banxia dig industriously into her eggplant xiang, the old man suddenly said, "Have you put on weight lately?"
"...Aaaah! Grandpa, you're so annoying!" Lin Banxia cried. "Can you not bring up such hurtful topics while we're eating?"
Daoist Chang Kong chuckled. "It's fine. Who doesn't put on weight over the New Year? Even immortals have to fill out a little. Otherwise, how could it count as celebrating the New Year?"
Lin Banxia instantly felt she had found a kindred spirit. "Exactly, exactly! Daoist Chang Kong understands me."
During the day, everyone at Clear Breeze Temple had their own work to do. Generally, though, once evening came, not just Clear Breeze Temple but the whole of Qingfeng Park would fall quiet.
Normally, when there was nothing to do, everyone would turn in early. That day, however, nobody hurried off to bed after dinner. Yun Zhaozhao, in particular, began busily packing up the "Peach Blossom Faces" Daoist Chang Kong had recently finished making as soon as she put down her bowl.
Selling these pastries was much easier now than it had been when Clear Breeze Temple was just getting started. At the very least, they no longer needed to find people everywhere to hand out flyers or set up a stall outside the temple entrance. Still, since this was a new product launch, they had to think up a slogan or something.
Busy with the packaging, Yun Zhaozhao left the job of coming up with a slogan to the others.
"My writing skills are limited," Daoist Chang Kong said. "You come up with something, and I'll write it out once you've decided."
Lin Banxia said, "The spring breeze once beheld your peach-blossom face; I, too, long to see your face."
Before Daoist Chang Kong could speak, Jingting, who was beside them, spoke up first. "No, no. That's a little too refined."
"That counts as refined?" Lin Banxia asked. "Then you come up with one."
Jingting thought for a moment, then suddenly slapped his thigh. "I've got it! Write this: Eat the tastiest peach blossom cakes, attract the wildest romance."
Everyone: "..."
Old Master Lin, standing nearby: "..." I don't know about wild romance, but this Daoist certainly is wild!
Chapter 24
Clear Breeze Temple really had chosen the perfect moment to launch its Peach Blossom Faces, because Valentine's Day fell shortly after the Spring Festival.
Previously, most visitors to Clear Breeze Temple had been families with children. Lately, perhaps because of Valentine's Day, considerably more young people had been coming than before.
With more young people visiting, sales of Peach Blossom Faces naturally rose.
In the end, they settled on the line of poetry Daoist Chang Kong had originally written for the Peach Blossom Faces packaging. However, Yun Zhaozhao also had him write Jingting's suggestion on a little blackboard beside the stall.
When people passed the Peach Blossom Faces stall and saw such a wild slogan, especially in a place as obviously devoted to quiet restraint as a Daoist temple, they could not help smiling knowingly. Then they would take out their phones to snap all sorts of check-in photos and post them to their Moments feeds, inadvertently giving Clear Breeze Temple some publicity.
Speaking of which, Clear Breeze Temple really was better suited for photo check-ins now than it had been before.
Even setting aside the ginkgo trees and bamboo in the courtyard, which were already excellent backdrops, the temple's courtyard walls had been made much prettier than before.
Previously, the walls surrounding Clear Breeze Temple's courtyard had been completely bare, with nothing on them. Yun Zhaozhao had found them too plain, so lately she had specifically hired someone to plant a ring of climbing roses around the courtyard. Although the roses were not yet in season, they still looked lovely against the white walls. On top of that, the nearby stray cats had lately been spending their time playing on the temple walls, sometimes lingering beside the rose trellises as well. Many young people were therefore playing with the cats and taking photos nearby, to the point that the rose trellises and stray cats had become new check-in attractions at Clear Breeze Temple.
Given Yun Zhaozhao's personality, she had not actually considered planting flowers at first. She would rather have planted edible vegetables. But Daoist Chang Kong told her that flowers were not only pretty to look at but edible too, so Yun Zhaozhao immediately gave in. If they were edible, then of course they should plant flowers. After all, flowers were still prettier than vegetables.
She had to admit that in some ways, Daoist Chang Kong had more of a maiden's heart than she did.
Lately, the peach blossoms on Clear Breeze Mountain and in Qingfeng Park had been in full bloom. Daoist Chang Kong thought it was a terrible waste to let the petals simply fall unused, so he went up the mountain early every morning to collect petals and morning dew. Besides using the petals and dew to make Peach Blossom Faces, he also made peach blossom honey and peach blossom drinks with them.
To make peach blossom honey, he simmered fresh peach blossoms with honey and maltose until thick, then sealed it for storage. When it was time to have some, dried peach blossom petals could be added and the mixture brewed with water. The peach blossom drinks combined peach blossoms with some fresh peach juice... In any case, they were all sweet treats that looked delicately pink and put people in a good mood when they had them.
Enjoyed together with Clear Breeze Temple's Peach Blossom Faces, they were even better.
Nowadays, more than half of Clear Breeze Temple's sales came from Daoist Chang Kong's food, while another more-than-half came from the temple merchandise he made. This made Daoist Chang Kong's position every bit as weighty... and important as his body, and left him very, very tired every day.
Although Daoist Chang Kong's weight remained very □□ despite all this exhaustion, Yun Zhaozhao thought it over and decided they could not keep shearing wool from him alone. If they sheared him bald, the whole of Clear Breeze Temple would be in serious trouble.
So she asked Daoist Chang Kong, "Daoist, do you think we should recruit a couple of young apprentices to give you a hand?"
Daoist Chang Kong shook his head. "This isn't something recruiting apprentices can solve. Even if we recruit them, we might not be able to train them successfully, and even if we can, it'll take a long time. Most importantly, while I'm training apprentices, I'll not only have to keep Clear Breeze Temple running as usual but also spend time and energy teaching them... I might die of exhaustion before they even finish their training."