Marriage of the Di Daughter Chapter 7.1: Flower Demon
In the following days, Tong’er went up the mountain every day.
When the Buddhist nuns in the nunnery noticed that Tong’er had gone out more often than before, they secretly followed her but could not find anything abnormal. Tong’er had really put a lot of effort into giving the image of her going to chop wood.
The Buddhist nuns were aware that Jiang Li had used 40 strings of copper coins to buy a basket full of cakes. As long as Jiang Li left her room, she could hear the ridicule from the Buddhist nuns. Whenever she heard them ridiculing her, instead of getting mad, she looked at them and smiled. After several times, the Buddhist nuns felt bored and no longer said anything.
Every night, Tong’er would go out at the hour of the pig and stealthily come back at the hour of the rat1. She managed to avoid the Buddhist nuns without a hitch due to her cleverness and quick wit. Whenever she went out, Jiang Li would wait for her to come back in the shabby room. Doing nothing but wait for an extended period would have been very boring. Moreover, in this nunnery, there weren’t any books and Jiang Li had no pen or paper. However, after she had awoken, she no longer sewed shoe soles day and night. Simply sitting calmly, one did not know what she was thinking about.
But how long could such quiet days last? Perhaps one couldn’t bear to see the master and servant passing the days peacefully, so Head Nun Jing An started to deliberately make things difficult for them. For instance, the daily servings of porridge, not only were they watery, but it also looked as if someone had already eaten from them before; leaving them with the leftovers.
“Young miss, nowadays they are getting more and more excessive.” Tong’er hatefully said: “Behind this, it must be the work of the one surnamed Ji!”
Currently, Tong’er called the Chief Assistant’s first wife as ‘the one surnamed Ji’. It could be assumed that Jiang second young miss must have tacitly approved of the nickname. Jiang Li didn’t feel that there was anything wrong. In the beginning, everyone thought that she was going to die. In any case, Ji Shuran’s heart must have been at ease. Who would have imagined that she would manage to stay alive? Her temper had also become better. Seeing her live happily like this, Ji Shuran must have felt uneasy. Of course she would demand Head Nun Jing An to make Jiang Li live uncomfortably.
It was not possible for Head Nun Jing An to beat and scold Jiang Li. However, in regards to dealing with a little lady who barely reached the marriageable age, to let her not eat until full and not dress warm enough, to make her feel that she had fallen from heaven to earth and to shame her, that would be enough to make her suffer. What a pity that she was not the real Jiang second young miss. Not mentioning eating bitter suffering, her life had already reached the lowest point. Compared to the original Jiang second young miss, these days ought to be much better.
To have undergone that kind of situation, and now arriving at her current experience, she also didn’t feel that life was difficult.
The days passed, and it was already the 15th day of the fifth month and the basket of cakes was already empty. Tong’er swiped the sides of the basket with a wooden spoon carefully; scooping the crumbs of the pastries into a small dish. She told Jiang Li: “Young miss, first eat this to fill your stomach.”
It had been a day and a night without having eaten anything. Yesterday, the nunnery’s Buddhist nun deliberately shattered the plate with thin congee that she was delivering, and the kitchen had no other leftover food. The remaining pastries had all been used to feed the monkeys at the woods behind He Lin Temple. At the moment, both the two people’s stomachs were rumbling with hunger.
Jiang Li lifted her head and turned her sight towards the opened window. Although the top of the mountain was much colder than the foot of the mountain, but summer was already near. The daytime had clearly stretched longer. At this moment, the sun had almost set. No matter how long it took, in the end, night would always arrive. She said: “I’m not eating, why don’t you eat it.”
Tong’er stared at the pastry crumbs and swallowed her saliva. While shaking her head she said: “If young miss doesn’t eat, Tong’er won’t eat either.”
“It doesn’t really matter, we will be able to order good food later.” Jiang Li smiled.
Tong’er was even more unconvinced.
Jiang Li got up and walked to the corner of the room, where a large wooden trunk was placed, and opened it. Such a huge trunk, but the contents inside were pathetic. There were only a few pieces of yellowed clothes, not even filling half of the trunk. This was precisely what Jiang Li had brought from Yanjing when she arrived at the nunnery six years ago, her entire belongings. Perhaps the content inside the trunk was also somewhat valuable before. However, six years had passed, being kept for that amount of time would inevitably cause some yellowing on the clothes.
Tong’er also walked towards her. Jiang Li shifted through the clothes with both hands. From inside, a Buddhist garment was revealed.
Clearly, the clothes made of good materials inside the wooden trunk were no longer there. Only these clothes made of not-so-good materials were left. And now, six years later, Jiang second miss had grown taller and these clothes were no longer suitable for her to wear. The people in the nunnery naturally wouldn’t allow Jiang Li to make new clothes. Every day, Jiang Li would wear clothes that were already too short for her. This single Buddhist cloth was given to Jiang Li this year around Chinese New Year when a young Buddhist nun was leaving the nunnery to return to normal life. As it turned out, the height of the young nun wasn’t much different from her.
Normally, Jiang second miss would never wear this Buddhist cloth. Seemingly, in order to convince herself in this way that although she was here, she was different from the Buddhist nuns. There would be a day when she would return to Yanjing to be the young miss of the Jiang family. But this time, Jiang Li had no other choice but to put on this Buddhist cloth to wear as she was going to meet some people tonight. Wearing clothes that were too short and appearing in front of people would be inappropriate and showed that she lacked manners.
I hope you enjoyed the fake chapter lol It was a rather funny thing to do so I might repeat it again in the future la~ I hope you don’t hate me too much now, remember that I was so kind and graceful of giving you an extra chapter!! Am I not cute? Am I not lovely? There, there, there you have the answer la~ (Edit: removed password protection since aggregators got our chapter either way QAQ)
(Btw just reminding you that the one who always annoys you after the chapter is the editor, Nigaria, if some day for whatever reason you have the sudden urge to hate and throw stones at someone just don’t mistakingly hate our lovely translator Lime, she is innocent!)
Footnotes:
1: An ancient Chinese time system divides each 24-hour day into 12 2-hour periods (called shichens 时辰). Each period is represented by a specific animal sign in the Chinese zodiac. In this case, the hour of the pig is the period of 9pm-11pm and the hour of the rat is the period of 11pm-1am…
