Chapter 2

3

Shen Yan brought me home.

The moment we stepped inside, he wrapped his arms around me in the entryway.

His hand, the one wearing the Buddhist beads, rested against my chest.

I tensed a little.

I thought he was going to take my clothes off.

But I realized he was only resting his hand there.

Then he stopped moving.

My heartbeat had yet to settle. It raced, thudding against his palm.

In the darkness, a long while passed before he spoke.

“Have you figured out the answer to my question?”

I thought for a moment.

I reached up and took hold of the wrist he had placed against my chest, using it to lift myself onto my toes.

Then I lightly brushed my lips against his.

“Like this?” I asked.

It was only a brief touch.

I didn’t deepen the kiss at all.

But Shen Yan’s breathing immediately grew uneven.

He lifted me into his arms, lowered his head slightly, and spoke with a tremor in his voice.

“It’s still not enough…”

The living room was dark, the moonlight slanting across it.

I don’t know how much time passed.

The cold Buddhist beads on his wrist touched my skin directly, without a layer of clothing between them, making me shiver.

It took me a long while to come back to myself.

I asked him, “People say you believe in Buddha and have pure desires…”

“Mm,” he replied perfunctorily. “That’s because you weren’t here.”

“Xi Xi, you’re back.”

He called me by my former name again.

Instinctively, I pushed him away.

He gave a quiet laugh.

Then he straightened and took the strand of beads from his wrist, placing it on the wrist I had used to push him.

“…”

At last, I heard him say, “Our Xi Xi has to live to be a hundred this time.”

4

I dreamed a very long dream.

In it, I was still in the desolate wasteland.

I sat by the stove, making soup for Granny Meng.

It was my first year there. Whenever Black and White Impermanence passed by with the souls they were escorting, I would pull them aside and talk for a long time.

I asked them, “What season is it in the human world now?”

“Winter,” Black Impermanence answered.

“Then have you seen Shen Yan?”

They exchanged a glance.

Then they nodded.

I panicked. “Did something happen to him?”

White Impermanence scratched his head.

“Not exactly.”

“Then what is it?”

They hesitated.

Only after a long time did they explain.

That was when I learned that, after I died, Shen Yan had never been able to accept it.

First, in late autumn, he sat at my grave for three days without eating or drinking, keeping me company.

Then his family found him.

They forced him to return and give him an IV.

Later, he fell seriously ill. When he woke up, it was as if he had become another person—steady and composed.

He no longer wanted to die every day.

He began taking over the family business.

Before the handover, without telling anyone, he went alone to Mount Tai.

In the bitter cold of winter.

He bowed with every step.

Climbed all the way to the summit.

Entered a temple.

All just to pray for a strand of Buddhist beads.

I frowned as I listened.

“All that, just for a strand of beads?”

They nodded.

After hesitating, one of them added, “He really did nearly die. We even heard the summons. Luckily, the old monk at the temple had such profound cultivation that he managed to save Shen Yan’s life.”

I nodded, relieved.

White Impermanence couldn’t help sighing. “He really loves you.”

My nose stung, and tears fell straight into the pot in front of me.

The soup grew richer and sweeter.

Black Impermanence saw what had happened and rapped White Impermanence on the head.

“Don’t say the obvious! Do you think our Yan Xi doesn’t love him? If she didn’t, who would give up a perfectly good chance to reincarnate, and willingly stay here in the wasteland making soup?”

White Impermanence realized he had misspoken.

From then on, every time they went to the human world on a mission, they brought me plenty of news about Shen Yan.

They told me that Shen Yan had expanded the company.

That he had never taken off those beads.

That he had become famous.

The media had photographed him.

He had become “the tycoon world’s Buddhist devotee” in the public’s eyes.

I listened. When the soup was nearly ready, I suddenly asked, “Does he have a girlfriend now?”

White Impermanence’s expression changed.

He fell silent at once.

The air went still.

I understood. Lowering my eyes, I stirred the soup in my hands.

Black Impermanence glared at White Impermanence and rapped him on the head.

“You’re useless!”

White Impermanence looked up at him, aggrieved.

He didn’t dare utter a word.

I found it amusing.

“Stop hitting him. It’s not his fault.”

“It’s just for show!” White Impermanence finally came up with an idiom. “Aren’t rich people in the human world always forced into arranged marriages? Shen Yan just casually found a woman to keep by his side.”

“He doesn’t really like her.”

“…”

That day, White Impermanence was afraid I’d be sad.

He racked his brains to think of all sorts of things to comfort me.

I smiled at him.

Then gestured to Black Impermanence to take him away.

5

Shen Yan couldn’t possibly have an arranged marriage.

Under his management, the Shen family company kept growing.

He didn’t need marriage to maintain any business interests.

So if a new woman had really appeared by Shen Yan’s side, it meant he truly liked her.

My mood sank further and further.

For several days in a row, the soup I made turned out especially delicious.

The passing souls couldn’t stop praising it.

Even Granny Meng, who was always lazy, noticed something was wrong with me.

After hearing what had happened, she said, “If you can’t accept it, you can drink the soup and go be reborn.”