Chapter 1: A Rainy Day’s Earned Warmth

“They’re not expensive, just two copper coins for a pair!”

Clad in patched cloth, a young girl with a straw rain hat huddled beneath the eaves. When a household servant paused before her makeshift stall, she lifted her head, a warm smile blossoming on her otherwise serene face.

Though the rain was not particularly heavy, the dwindling number of pedestrians had already prompted most nearby shops to shutter their doors.

The once bustling marketplace now comprised only a handful of scattered stalls, their doors left ajar.

As for hawkers like the young girl, carrying a winnowing basket and calling out her wares along the street, she was the sole presence.

“These smell rather fragrant. What kind of flowers are they?” The servant, shielding the steamed buns he’d purchased for his young lady with one hand, leaned down to gently pick up a few blossoms. “I’ll buy some for her.”

“White magnolias, home-grown,” the girl replied, one hand adjusting her straw hat — a gesture that felt more habitual than practical — while the other selected a few blossoms for the customer.

“Take a sniff; if they don’t smell wonderful, they’re free.”

The white magnolias, as expected, exuded a delightful fragrance.

The servant, perhaps swayed by a touch of compassion, wasn’t stingy; he fished four copper coins from his pocket and deposited them into the girl’s winnowing basket.

With the transaction concluded, a sense of ease settled between them. As the girl meticulously selected the flowers, the servant couldn’t resist striking up a conversation.

“Still selling flowers in this dreadful weather?”

“There’s a child waiting for me at home,” the girl replied with a soft smile, gently steering the conversation away. “Here are your flowers; please take good care of them.”

The servant accepted the flowers. Her words had stirred a renewed urge in him to add another copper coin, but the girl quickly interceded.

“It’s a humble business; I couldn’t possibly accept your generosity.”

With a smile, the girl carefully stowed away the coins she had earned, then pulled her straw hat lower and retreated further beneath the eaves.

“You’re certainly a peculiar girl.”

Finding her remark somewhat amusing himself, the servant stowed the flowers, then turned and hastened into the rain, leaving a trail of splashing water in his wake.

***

All in all, today had been quite productive; selling flowers had yielded a decent sum.

The young girl — or rather, Qíngyǔ — tallied the day’s earnings. Sixty copper coins, while certainly no match for the hundred coins a day laborer might earn, would nonetheless suffice to cover their meager household expenses.

One could argue that the original owner of this body had been similarly ill-fated.

Sold into service as a maid to a poor scholar’s family, she had barely settled in before both the master and his wife unexpectedly passed away, leaving behind only their orphaned daughter and her, an “outsider,” for companionship.

Just a few days prior, while hurrying through the mountains, she had succumbed to a severe cold. In a moment of weakness, her body had been claimed by him, a lonely wandering spirit.

‘This humble Daoist has truly fallen on hard times,’ she thought with a sigh.

Muttering to herself, and observing that no one else was likely to approach, she reached out to pack her belongings.

Shouldering her winnowing basket, she donned her straw cloak and hat, then stepped through the falling raindrops and set off for home.

As for this lonely wandering spirit, he hadn’t exactly been a grand master in his previous life.

His greatest achievement had been to reside on a mountain peak after his sect’s split, merely helping his senior and junior disciples guard their ancestral home.

After nearly a century of Daoist cultivation, his intellect remained rather dull.

The arrogance he once held as a modern transmigration had long since been worn away, though a core of pure, untainted spirit still resided within his heart.

‘I wonder how my senior and junior disciples are faring now?’ she mused. ‘And where might my parents from a century ago be?’

Pondering the events of her previous and even earlier lives, the young girl slowly meandered around several bends. The surrounding house walls grew increasingly mottled and weathered with each turn.

Upon reaching a weathered earthen wall, she retrieved a key from her tunic. Inserting it into an iron lock whose lifespan she often questioned, she jiggled it a few times until a series of clicks resounded, then pushed the door open.

In stark contrast to the dilapidated outer wall, the small courtyard within could almost be described as charmingly quaint.

Grapevines climbed a wooden trellis, beneath which thrived the white magnolias planted by the original owner, alongside the stone table where the former master had supposedly spent his days and nights in study.

The house itself comprised only three rooms: a kitchen, a main bedroom, and a study now doubling as a secondary bedroom. Guests were a rarity.

As the broker had deceptively claimed, this arrangement was known as “the noble visage of a humble scholar’s window.”

“Little sister? Are you in the house?”

Qíngyǔ opened the kitchen door and set down both the winnowing basket and her straw cloak and hat.

Most of the family’s meager funds had been expended on the funerals for the two deceased, leaving the home feeling noticeably desolate.

“Little Mama!”

A clear, adorable child’s voice echoed from the main bedroom, swiftly followed by the creak of a door opening and the distinct patter of tiny feet splashing through puddles.

“Hey! It’s raining outside, don’t come out!”

Before Qíngyǔ could finish her sentence, a little girl, like a doll carved from pink jade, burst through the door and instantly threw herself into her embrace.

“These clothes won’t dry quickly now…” Qíngyǔ murmured, shaking her head as she gently wiped away the beads of water from the girl’s forehead.

“Heh heh…”

“Be good, now, go sit over there. I’ll make you some food.”

At first, of course, it had been entirely unacceptable. He had lived two lives as a man; how could he, unmarried and unbetrothed, suddenly find himself a mother to a half-grown child?

He had initially thought that if not ‘Big Brother,’ then at least ‘Big Sister’ would be a barely tolerable compromise.

Yet the child persistently called him ‘Little Mama,’ often uttering heartbreaking pleas like, ‘Does Little Mama not want me anymore?

Unwilling to witness her dissolve into a miserable, tearful mess, he had simply let her have her way.

“Little Mama—I still want to hear that story about Son Wumong from last night!”

“It’s Son Wukong,” Qíngyǔ corrected gently, as she opened the rice jar, which still contained a modest amount of grain. She then scooped a ladle of water and added firewood beneath the stove.

His cooking skills, too, had been honed in his previous life. His master and senior brothers had all belonged to the ‘make do’ school of thought when it came to food.

The only senior sister who possessed any culinary talent had tragically lost her life descending the mountain to subdue demons.

Ultimately, he, the junior disciple with no particular innate talent, had been forced to take charge of the Daoist temple’s meals if he wished to eat anything remotely palatable each day.

The girl, for her part, remained remarkably well-behaved. With wide, blinking eyes, she watched her Little Mama squat down to coax the sparks into flame, then meticulously arrange the steamer and other cooking implements.

For some inexplicable reason, she found herself captivated by the scene. In Little Mama’s every movement, something seemed to flutter and dance, each action flowing seamlessly into the next, imbued with a unique Daoist essence.

It was merely cooking, yet it was remarkably graceful to behold.

“You must be utterly famished, aren’t you?”

Noticing the little girl behind her staring with unwavering attention, Qíngyǔ wiped the pot soot from her right hand onto her clothes, then tenderly ruffled the girl’s hair.

“Pfft!”

“What’s the matter?”

“Little Mama! Your face is completely covered!”

“What, are you disgusted with me?” Qíngyǔ chuckled, then extended her unwiped hand and playfully smeared a streak of soot across the girl’s face as well.

“Ptooey, ptooey, ptooey! Little Mama is naughty!”

After a few playful exchanges, the simple meal was brought to the table. It was far from any delicacy: two bowls of plain white rice, a single bowl of hot green vegetable soup, and even salt was scarce.

“Do you want me to feed you?” Qíngyǔ asked, pulling up a chair and sitting down, observing the girl eagerly lift her rice bowl.

“No… no need!”

The girl ate her rice in large, eager mouthfuls. Qíngyǔ watched from across the table, occasionally placing a few vegetable leaves into her bowl.

Most of the bowl of vegetable soup disappeared into the girl’s stomach, while Qíngyǔ herself merely ate a portion of her white rice.

There hadn’t even been white rice to begin with, but seeing how truly pitiful the girl was, she had reluctantly purchased some.

“Are you full?”

“I’m full!”

Outside, the rain continued its ceaseless rustle, pattering rhythmically against the roof tiles. Inside, however, their clothes had largely dried by the comforting warmth of the stove.

Seeing no signs of the rain abating, Qíngyǔ drew the girl closer, settling her beside her. Under the girl’s intensely expectant gaze, she once again began to narrate the tale of Journey to the West.

“Yesterday, we left off with Son Wukong bowing to the Bodhi Patriarch and diligently cultivating the Dao within the Cave of the Slanting Moon and Three Stars…”

The young girl’s clear, serene voice, interwoven with the steady patter of the rain, gradually seeped into the little girl’s heart.

The child herself had no proper name. Her biological parents, disdainful of her being a girl, had simply called her ‘Little Sister,’ never bothering to bestow upon her a grander designation.

Little Mama had initially only “done her duty” by incidentally caring for her. Yet, these past few days, whenever she had a moment, she would inquire about her well-being, offer comfort, and even tell her stories.

[What do these mortals truly understand? You believe her just because she says so?]

[Are you saying my previous life was that of a true immortal, and you were that immortal’s sword?]

[Naturally, that is precisely what I am saying.]

[How did my previous life compare to this Bodhi Patriarch?]

[Bodhi Patriarch? It’s all nonsense.]

[But what if such a person truly existed?]

[What ‘venerable body coeval with Heaven, a great master who enlightened his heart through countless tribulations’? Immortals in this world are not so carefree.]

The girl blinked her eyes, ignoring the sour voice in her sea of consciousness, and looked at her Little Mama, who was telling the story as if giving a sermon.

“What’s the matter? Is there something on my face?”

Qíngyǔ scratched her head, bewildered, then reached out and playfully flicked the girl’s face.

“Tell it! Tell it quickly!”

“Hmm…”

The clear, serene voice continued. The girl leaned in closer; Little Mama’s white magnolia scent was unusually fragrant, and she loved it.