Chapter 29 (1/2)
The entire Qingyuan Temple gave Mu Wan the impression of being clean, solid, plain, and orderly.
Its architecture could not be called delicate. If anything, it was somewhat rough, steeped in age. Yet that very roughness wrapped the whole temple in a cinematic texture.
The slanting sun broke through the thick clouds at the horizon, and several beams of light streamed in. The small room was washed bright, the air faintly scented with sandalwood.
Mu Wan smiled and followed Liu Qianxiu into the side hall.
The room was not large. The furniture and bed were all made of wood, a dark reddish-black timber polished smooth, with no sharp edges, carrying the heavy, settled depth of time.
Inside, there was only one bed, one low table, and two meditation cushions. A desk lamp sat on the low table. The signal on the mountain was bad, but phone calls were fine, and there was electricity.
“You rest first,” Liu Qianxiu said after setting down her suitcase. “I’m going to check on Qingchan.”
Then he turned and left, pulling the side hall door shut behind him.
Qingchan had just come back from calling Master. When he saw Liu Qianxiu, he asked, “Where’s Sister?”
“She’s resting,” Liu Qianxiu replied. Then he said to Qingchan, “Would it be all right if I shared your room for the next few days?”
“Of course.” Qingchan nodded readily. “I usually sleep with Master anyway. I don’t dare sleep alone.”
Master Xuan Qingzi normally slept in the main hall. The two rooms on either side of the side hall had been prepared for Liu Qianxiu and Qingchan. Since Liu Qianxiu was usually away, Qingchan never dared sleep in the side hall by himself and generally went to sleep with Master instead.
“Let’s go.” Liu Qianxiu took Qingchan with him to the room on the right side of the main hall.
Mu Wan had not actually done much that day besides climbing the mountain for an hour, which was not especially exhausting. Yet once she lay down on the bed and read for a while, her eyelids grew heavy, and she fell asleep.
As her consciousness blurred, she seemed to hear someone speaking again. The words felt wrapped in a layer of mist, too indistinct to make out. But the voice was low, familiar, and pleasant. Mu Wan quickly recognized it as Liu Qianxiu’s voice.
What exactly had he said to her last night?
That question was still on her mind when she woke up.
After thinking about it for a long time to no avail, she got up and stepped outside. She had not slept very long. It was not fully dark yet. Looking up, she could still catch sight of the crimson sun sinking beyond the corner of the temple’s main hall wall.
The moss on the ground was damp. Mu Wan walked to the incense burner in the center of the courtyard and looked toward the main hall. Inside, the man in a light teal Taoist robe sat with his head lowered, reading.
Sunlight poured in, casting a reddish-gold glow across his cold white skin. Seated before the low table, he seemed distant and solitary, black brows, black hair, clean-cut features—like an immortal from the heavens.
As if sensing her arrival, he lifted his eyes. His expression was light and clear, his voice like spring water.
“Hungry?”
Pulled back from her wandering thoughts, Mu Wan smiled, walked over, nodded, and said, “I’m hungry.”
The rear courtyard of the temple was smaller than the front. There were two rooms at the back, as old as the temple itself, built of rough blue brick still damp from the weather. One was the kitchen. The other was probably the washroom. In front of them stood an old well and a small vegetable patch.
The garden was not large, but it held quite a variety of vegetables. There was even a trellis supporting tender green cucumbers and long beans. A temple was, after all, a place of retreat and self-cultivation. Conditions were naturally simple. Being so removed from the secular world, it had to be self-sufficient.
Earlier, while Mu Wan rested, Qingchan had slept as well. By the time Liu Qianxiu finished making dinner, Qingchan had only just woken, rubbing his eyes as he ran over to find his junior brother. The moment he saw Liu Qianxiu, he wrapped himself around his leg and clung there.
A child was still a child. With his little topknot and his chubby face, hanging onto Liu Qianxiu’s leg like that, he looked indescribably adorable.
As she set the table, Mu Wan laughed and asked, “When your junior brother isn’t here, do you cling to your master like this too?”
Qingchan blinked open his sleepy tea-colored eyes—beautiful little eyes—and shook his head, saying softly, “No. Master’s legs are too short. Now that I’m bigger, I can’t hang on.”
Mu Wan glanced at Liu Qianxiu. At nearly six-foot-three, his legs were undeniably long enough for Qingchan to cling to for at least another couple of years.
Even in front of a child, Liu Qianxiu’s expression did not change much. After sitting down, he simply reminded Qingchan to eat on his own. The little boy listened obediently, holding his bowl and chopsticks and eating earnestly.
Under the soft light, one tall, one small, the pair somehow radiated a quiet warmth that was hard to put into words.
After dinner, Mu Wan received a call from Li Nan. The signal inside the temple was poor, so she stepped outside and sat on the stone bench beneath the pine tree. Li Nan sounded far less calm than he had in the past few days. There was even a trace of urgency in his voice.
“Have you gotten on someone’s bad side?” he asked. “The jobs we’d already settled last week all called me over the last two days to say your scenes had been cut. They paid the penalties, but your work was only booked through next week, and now none of the productions that are about to start will sign you. You’ve got no acting work lined up at all after this.”
What did that mean?
It meant her road ahead had been completely blocked.
Her pay rate was neither high nor low. Double penalty fees for a few projects were hardly a small amount. But for Mu Qing, it was next to nothing.
The point of all this was obvious: to force Mu Wan to go beg her. Mu Qing had straightened her spine by her own efforts. Mu Qing was determined to break it.
Shadows pooled around her, and Mu Wan felt her mood sour.
This was a private grudge. There was nothing Mu Wan could really say to Li Nan. And even if she did, it would not help. If the company realized she had run into someone this troublesome, it was entirely possible they would give up on her instead.
Next week is her mother’s death anniversary.
At that thought, Mu Wan lifted her eyes toward the window.
It was six in the evening. The summer sun still hung high, though no longer with the harsh blaze of noon. Looking at that gentler light, Mu Wan pressed her lips together.
The tenth anniversary of her mother’s death.
Also, the tenth year since she had become truly fatherless and motherless.
Liu Qianxiu stood in the doorway watching her, his gaze lowered.
Only after she had smoothed the gloom out of her expression and lowered her head again to play her game did he push the door open and walk inside.
Mu Wan turned at the sound. Something in her eyes jumped. She set down her phone and looked at him.
“You’re done?”
“Mm.”
Liu Qianxiu came in, set down the papers in his hand, and shrugged off his white coat. Without it, the fitted clothes underneath made him look even more striking than the sunset outside—lean, cool, and painfully bright.
Mu Wan stared without meaning to. By the time Liu Qianxiu came to stand in front of her, she had only just pulled herself back together.
She rose from her chair.
“We need to take the cats to my friend’s place first,” Liu Qianxiu said. “I have surgery tomorrow, so I won’t have time to go then.”
“The same friend as last time?” Mu Wan thought of Xu Xingkong—that gentle woman who felt like lavender and soft wind.
“Mm.”
“Do you have another strawberry milk?”
Mu Wan asked.
Liu Qianxiu did not answer.
He simply went to the office drawer, took out another carton, and handed it to her.
“Don’t drink too much on an empty stomach.”
She shook the pink carton lightly. The sweet milky liquid bumped softly against the sides, and Mu Wan smiled.
“It’s not for me.”
She wanted to give it to Xu Xingkong.
Last time, Xu Xingkong had given her a plum—sweet enough to leave a memory.
They went home first to collect the cats.
Used to the car by now, the three little ones and Zhouyi were all quite calm inside the carriers. Only Dàtóu, the chatterbox, kept meowing the whole way.
By the time they reached the South District, the roads had opened up, and the car quickly sped onto the coastal highway.
The line of the sea had been painted gold by the setting sun. The car window was cracked open just a little, and a gust of sea wind rushed in—salty, damp, and cool, driving away the summer heat.
No wonder everyone bought homes by the sea. The air was fresh, yes, but the evening view alone was worth it. The horizon swallowed half the sun, the rippling sea curled with golden light, and wave after wave folded over one another like night-blooming flowers opening all at once.
Mu Wan sat in the passenger seat, looking past Liu Qianxiu toward the sea.
The sunset was gold.
The side of his face was gold, too.
His smooth forehead, high brow bone, elegant nose bridge, straight nose, and the faint line of his lips.
From her angle, the outline of his profile looked like a beautiful paper-cut pasted onto a sky drenched in evening glow, almost holy in its unreachability.
“Do you want to stop and look?”
The sunset was particularly beautiful tonight. Liu Qianxiu had clearly noticed her gaze fixed on the window and asked lightly.
The moment he said it, Mu Wan was tempted.
Even if they stopped now, they would only catch the very last of the sun disappearing. If they dropped the cats off first and came back later, the sun would be long gone.
“Okay.” Mu Wan agreed with a smile.
Liu Qianxiu pulled the car into an open lot by the shoreline.
He was obviously not unfamiliar with the place. After parking, the two of them got out and walked toward the water.
Mu Wan was not exactly someone who adored the sea.
She had grown up in Xiacheng. Her mother had brought her to the coast when she was little, and school excursions had brought her here plenty of times, too.
But she had never seen the sea like this.
The slanting sun sank into the water. Waves rolled one after another, all burnished in red-gold light. The wind lifted the hem of her skirt. Barefoot on the beach, she let the tide rush up around her ankles—cool and gentle—and the sand slipped away between her toes.
Her mood that morning had not been good.
But after seeing Liu Qianxiu in the afternoon, it had only grown brighter and brighter.
He said she could go to Qingyuan Temple.
He handed her strawberry milk.
He had brought her here now to watch the sunset.
Anything he did for her could make flowers bloom in her heart.
He was the source of all her happiness.
The man walked ahead of her, tall and slender. The last light of sunset stretched out his shadow until it fell over her body.
Mu Wan looked at him like she was looking at a god she could long for but never truly reach.
They watched the horizon in silence. Neither of them had spoken since getting out of the car.
Only once the sun had disappeared completely and the air had turned cool did Liu Qianxiu stop, turn to her, and say, “Let’s go.”
The mountain air was cool at night, but Li Nan’s phone call had left a restless heat inside her that she could not quite dispel. A little wine and then some sleep, and perhaps she would feel better.
