Chapter 2

“Matron, you have a very good fortune. A noble benefactor above, descendants to care for you below. You’ll enjoy peace and good health before the age of seventy.”

Matron Zhou smiled until her eyes crinkled. “The Taoist has a sharp eye! My little grandson just passed the county school examination.”

“Of course. I could tell from your face. But…”

I changed the subject and lowered my voice. “Matron, there’s a shadowed mark on your face, just to the left of your glabella. It signals an unresolved sorrow.”

Her smile stiffened.

“There’s an old matter you’ve kept in your heart for many years, isn’t there?”

She said nothing.

I didn’t press her.

I took out a talisman and handed it to her. “Put this beneath your pillow to calm your spirit. If you ever want to talk, I’m staying at Bamboo Court.”

She accepted it, her hand trembling slightly.

That small tremor was enough.

There was an old secret in this household.

Matron Zhou knew it.

That night, I slept poorly.

Not because of ghosts. The dry well was right beside Bamboo Court.

The wind picked up, and bamboo leaves brushed against the stone covering the well, making a low, hollow hum.

Wrapped in my quilt, I sat by the window and opened Father’s book of divination for the fourth time.

This time, I found no other hidden compartment.

But I did notice a detail I had overlooked before.

On the inside cover was a tiny line of writing. The ink was very faint, as if someone had written it, rubbed it out, then written it again.

I held it close to the lamplight and read:

“A Ling song floats over fragrant waters.”

This wasn’t a fortune-telling verse.

It was poetry.

And the handwriting wasn’t Father’s.

His writing looked like a chicken had scratched it out, with neither straight lines nor proper strokes.

This line was elegant and neat—the hand of a learned person.

More precisely, it was a woman’s hand.

I stared at it for a long time.

Ling song.

Fragrant waters.

Suddenly, I remembered something.

When Father was drunk, he sometimes hummed a little tune. I could only remember one line of the lyrics:

“Water caltrops, pointed at both ends.”

Whenever he sang it, his expression was different from usual.

No joking. No glib talk about talismans.

He grew strangely quiet, as if he had become someone else.

Back then, I had always thought there was someone in Father’s heart.

Perhaps that person was my mother.

I turned the inside cover toward the lamp and held it closer.

Beneath the line of writing was a mark the size of a seal, as if something had once been stamped there and then carefully scraped away.

The scraping had been so forceful that the paper’s surface was rough.

But when I held it to the light, I could just make out the shape of a character.

Pei.

On the third day, I went to the eastern courtyard.

That was where Pei Huaijin, the Grand Preceptor’s late eldest son, had lived.

Pei Huaijin had died at twenty-four.

The official cause was illness. He had been frail since childhood and bedridden for years; eventually, no treatment could save him.

After his death, he was buried in the Pei family cemetery outside the city. The funeral had been properly arranged, but it was cold and sparsely attended.

He had left neither a wife nor an heir.

The steward told me this in a calm voice, as though reading from a gravestone inscription.

But the eastern courtyard didn’t look like a place where someone who had died over a decade ago had once lived.

The potted plants in the yard were tended. The paper on the study windows had been replaced recently. The ink on the desk had dried, but the inkstone was spotless.

Even the brass studs on the threshold had been polished.

“Is someone still looking after this courtyard?”

“It is the Old Master’s wish,” the steward whispered. “He has it cleaned once a month.”

Once a month, for more than a decade.

Pei Yanchu had never stopped missing his dead son.

I walked around the study.

The shelves were lined with the classics and histories, all arranged in perfect order.

A few volumes had badly worn spines, evidence that their owner had read them many times. I took one down. It was a collection of Yuefu poems.

One page had been folded at the corner.

The poem was called “Song of Gathering Water Lilies.”

It contained a line: “The Ling song goes on without end; I know the singer is here in the pond.”

Ling song.

Ling song again.

I suddenly heard footsteps behind me.

I turned and saw a young man in an ash-gray round-collar robe, a bronze token from the Hanlin Academy hanging at his waist.

Pei Yuanbai.

A distant relative of the Grand Preceptor, an editor at the Hanlin Academy who lived in the western courtyard.

He stood at the study door without stepping inside.

“Daoist Liu?”

“Editor Pei.”

“Few people come to the eastern courtyard.” His tone sounded less like small talk and more like a warning.

“The Grand Preceptor asked me to inspect the feng shui in each courtyard.”

Pei Yuanbai nodded. His gaze passed over the Yuefu collection in my hand.

“Elder Cousin Huaijin liked this book best.”

“He must have been a refined man.”

“Yes.” He paused for a moment. “It’s a pity he died so young.”

Then he turned and walked away.