At dusk, a light rain suddenly began to fall.
Footsteps hurried along the flagstone street. Schoolkids just let out of class propped their backpacks on their heads, laughing and running in a pack across the stone bridge toward home.
The rain fell in fine threads, a sheet of misty white.
Jian Nian walked aimlessly along the street. People passed by her on all sides, and it seemed like every single one of them had somewhere to be.
“Hey, almost home. Got it, got it, it’s still hot, I’ll stop talking now, hanging up.”
“Try this one, this one’s good too. There’s an ice cream stand up ahead, come on, let’s go.”
“You got into a fight with your classmate and you think you’re in the right? Get home right now, just wait and see what I do to you.”
A mother and son passed by her. The little boy was clearly angry, his cheeks puffed out. The woman carried his backpack in one hand while scolding him, holding his hand tightly with the other.
“Watch where you’re going, don’t bump into anyone.”
The boy’s round, puffed-out face stayed sullen, but he obediently pressed closer to her leg.
“Why did you fight with your classmate?”
“…”
“Talk.”
“…”
The boy kept his lips pressed together, saying nothing.
“If you don’t talk, no story tonight.”
The boy panicked at once, hugging her leg. “No, Mom.”
The woman crouched down to look him in the eye, pinching his cheek. “Out with it.”
The boy spoke, muffled, his voice thick. “…Yang Mingyu laughed at me for not having a dad, and said you’re fierce.”
The air seemed to go quiet all at once.
The woman suddenly burst out laughing, cupping his face and rubbing it. “You idiot, what did I teach you? If you can use your mouth, don’t use your fists. He laughed at you for not having a dad? Why didn’t you curse him back?”
The boy: “How do I curse him back?”
“Like this: ‘Yeah, you’ve got a dad but no manners, you trash that got born but never got raised, my god, were you fished out of a garbage can or something.'”
The boy: “…” · B L A C K L O T U S Reading — Black Lotus
The boy clapped a hand over her mouth, saying seriously, “Mom, let’s not say that, it’s a little too harsh, we have to be civilized.”
“Civilized, and you got into a fistfight?”
The boy: “…” · B L A C K L O T U S Reading — Black Lotus
The rain slowly grew heavier, the mist ahead thickening, like fogged-up glass through which the road ahead couldn’t be seen.
The woman led the sulking, awkward-faced boy away by the hand, disappearing into the curtain of rain.
Jian Nian watched their backs, standing rooted to the spot, a little lost in thought.
Maybe because Ms. Xu had given birth to her prematurely, she’d been sickly as a child, always falling ill and taking medicine, slow in her reactions too — even learning to walk had taken her longer than other kids, needing someone to hold her up before she dared take slow steps.
In a hazy memory, once a neighbor’s kid had kicked a ball into their courtyard, and when he came to fetch it, he saw a servant holding her up as she stumbled along, and he’d laughed at her.
What he’d said, she couldn’t remember anymore.
She only remembered hiding in her room afterward, not coming out for the whole afternoon.
When Ms. Xu came home from teaching and heard about it, she pulled her out from under the table.
She said nothing. She gently brushed the dust off her, then, following the sound of piano music, called over a dozen or so household servants, took her by the hand, and walked into the neighbor’s house.
The kid was practicing piano. Ms. Xu led the group to stand outside his window in a circle. As he played, the circle of people laughed now and then, pointing at him, whispering to each other.
The piano slowly went out of tune, the kid’s face going from pale to purple, until finally he couldn’t take it anymore and fled in humiliated fury.
Ms. Xu crouched down to meet her eyes, pinched her cheek, and said gently, “Baby, every method a bad person uses to bully someone is the very weakness they themselves can’t stand. So however someone bullies you, you fight back the same way. Understand?”
She nodded, dazed.
Ms. Xu took her home, and out in the courtyard, she spent a long, long time helping her practice walking.
Finally she let go of her hand and waited a distance away.
In the hazy, blurred moonlight, she caught her steadily as she wobbled forward.
She held her in her arms, and together they sat on the swing. She patted her back gently and said a great many things.
“…So you see, he just learned it a little earlier than you, that’s nothing to be proud of, right?”
She didn’t fully understand, only felt that her embrace was warm as sunlight, and listening to her voice, she grew drowsy.
“Sleep now, my baby. Good night.”
Slowly, muffled, she hummed her agreement, burying her face into her soft embrace.
Rain slid down her eyelashes, dripping into puddles on the flagstones, spreading small ripples.
“Hey, little Jian, why are you standing here?”
A woman’s voice suddenly called out from the shop beside her. Jian Nian came back to herself and looked over — it was Sister Liu.
Lately she’d been staying at the Yu Family Sugar Paintings shop, and these past few days she’d been drawing portraits for people, all up and down the street. Word got around fast, and the neighbors already knew her.
“No umbrella, huh.”
Sister Liu looked her up and down, clicked her tongue, and grabbed a red umbrella off the shelf. Leaning past a customer who was browsing, she pushed the umbrella into Jian Nian’s hands. “Here.”
Jian Nian blinked, startled. “I—”
Sister Liu pushed her on the back, waving her hands. “No need to thank me, hurry home. Look at you, soaked through.”
With that, she bustled back into the shop to help a customer, her voice turning soft and warm again. “Yes, this sachet sells really well, inside it’s…”
“…”
The shop had many sachets hanging inside, the mingled scent of different dried flowers filling the air — the scent that clung to Yu Qingqing.
Jian Nian opened the red umbrella, and its edge, too, took on a faint trace of that floral scent.
She stood quietly for a moment, then stepped away.
She didn’t know where she was going either. She just walked, aimlessly.
Because of her poor health, Jian Nian had done all her elementary and middle school coursework at home, always staying indoors, never spending time with kids her own age.
In high school, once her health had improved somewhat, she’d finally gone to Huai City First High School.
Many of her classmates had come up together from the same middle school, already knowing each other, and they’d bonded together right from the start of term.
The girls chatted and joked around, sharing where they’d traveled over summer break, showing off newly bought hair ties, making plans to hang out after school — the accessory shop or the movie theater — arm in arm to the bathroom between classes.
Jian Nian found it all very complicated. She thought about it for a long time and still couldn’t understand why A and B could go to the bathroom together, and A and C could go to the bathroom together, but the moment A saw B and C going together, A would get angry and they’d fight.
Jian Nian had waited a long time too, but no one ever asked her to come along. So she went by herself.
At the door, she overheard them talking.
“…So this is the young miss, huh, she even needs a bodyguard to come to class.”
“I’m not saying it to be mean, but last time I handed out the workbooks and said something to her, she just went ‘mm.'” Black Lotus Novel Novel Archive · Black Lotus Novel
“Relax, that’s just how rich people are. Why would they bother with poor people like us.”
Rain slid down the edge of the umbrella, pattering against its surface, the space beneath it thick and stifling.
Jian Nian held the red umbrella and walked on slowly.
Night was falling, the streetlights a dim yellow.
A black car passed along the empty street and stopped at the curb across the way.
Jian Nian glanced over. The car looked somewhat familiar.
She studied its dark, heavy silhouette. Oh — it was the model of car that used to pick her up and drop her off at school.
Jian Nian paid it no more mind and was about to look away when she suddenly sensed something watching her.
She followed the feeling and looked over — in the back seat of that black car sat what looked like a man, his shadow faintly visible through the dim light inside, indistinct, but she could feel that he was staring at her without blinking.
His gaze was dim and murky, sticky.
Crawling over her, inch by inch.
The night wind carried raindrops down her collar, and Jian Nian shivered involuntarily.
She scanned the surroundings quickly — not a soul around.
A warning signal rose in her mind. She looked away, gripped the umbrella handle tight, and quickened her pace.
Just as she reached the bus stop, the black car suddenly sped past from behind, cutting through the curtain of rain, vanishing into the darkness in the distance.
Jian Nian let out a breath.
She looked up and realized the bus stop beneath her feet looked familiar. What a coincidence — it was the very stop where she’d been in the car accident.
Jian Nian looked back again, and once she confirmed there was no truck, she crossed at the light.
At this hour, the cemetery was somehow still open.
Except the old gatekeeper was nowhere to be seen; the light was on in the security booth, but it was empty.
Jian Nian walked in, and to her surprise, someone was standing in front of Ms. Xu’s headstone.
It was a woman who looked to be around twenty-four or twenty-five, dressed in an elegant, tailored suit. A bouquet of flowers lay before the headstone, and she stood there quietly paying her respects.
Hearing footsteps, the woman turned, her gaze landing on Jian Nian.
She looked her over, noticed her eyes were on the headstone, and asked warmly, “Are you one of Teacher Xu’s students too?”
Jian Nian shook her head. “I’m her daughter.”
The woman blinked, startled. “So Teacher Xu had a daughter after all. She never mentioned it.”
Jian Nian paused briefly, saying nothing.
The woman studied her a while longer this time, then smiled, her eyes curving. “Now that I look closer, you really do resemble Teacher Xu, especially around the eyes — it’s very… hm, tree-like.”
“…Tree?”
“Oh, it’s just an impression, you know, a feeling.” The woman held her umbrella, looking toward the photo on the headstone, her eyes softening. “Teacher Xu was like a big tree.”
The woman spoke fondly, reminiscing about her time with Ms. Xu.
Her family had been poor, favoring sons over daughters, unable to afford schooling — and unwilling to let her attend even if they could. It was Ms. Xu who had sponsored her, brought her to live with her, and let her study in Huai City.
Ms. Xu had taken her shopping for clothes — the first time in her life she’d worn something soft and clean.
When she’d been bullied at school for being unsophisticated and clumsy, it was Ms. Xu who had helped her, looked after her. Taught her to fight back, to face herself honestly.
The woman’s personality was worlds apart from the reserved, awkward girl she described having once been.
She rambled on about all sorts of little things. “And it wasn’t just me. Once my deskmate came down with a fever, burning up to 39 degrees, completely out of it — Teacher Xu sat by her bed all night, patting her back, telling her it would be alright.” Black Lotus novel Novel Reading | black lotus novel
“Oh, and there was a girl in our class who wanted to study music, but her family was completely against it, even smashed her instrument, made a huge scene — it was Teacher Xu who talked things through with her family. That girl’s amazing now, I even went to see her ensemble perform not long ago.”
“…”
Jian Nian stood in the curtain of rain, only listening quietly, saying nothing.
So it seemed her mother really had stayed the same as always.
Just not toward her.
“Struggling up out of soil full of gravel, putting down roots, sprouting, growing bit by bit into a towering, tranquil tree. Guiding, sheltering all us little saplings.”
“Teacher Xu really was such a good, good person.” The woman’s resolute eyes were tinged with nostalgia. “So good to everyone.”
Jian Nian said quietly, slowly, “Is that so.”
“Oh, it’s so late!” The woman glanced at her watch and gave a small cry of alarm.
“Well then, you probably have a lot you want to say to Teacher Xu too. I won’t bother you any longer.”
The woman turned back to give her a warm smile, smoothed the hem of her suit skirt, and left under her umbrella, leaving the space to her.
The rain pattered on steadily, falling against the umbrella.
Jian Nian stood where she was, her gaze calm and quiet.
A bouquet of lilies lay before Ms. Xu’s headstone, which had been wiped clean, as though someone came often to sweep and pay respects.
It also revealed her name — Xu Qingjia.
Layered lakes and stacked peaks, pure and fine — the name she had taken for herself after leaving Wu City.
Jian Nian stood before the headstone and said nothing. She didn’t know what there was to say.
Ever since her fifth birthday, the one when her father had come home with her little brother, in all the years since, the two of them had rarely spoken.
Whenever she saw her, Xu Qingjia was always silent, quiet. Avoiding her gaze, saying nothing.
In their WeChat messages, Xu Qingjia only ever asked about her studies, and she gave short answers in return.
The last message she’d sent her before she died was:
【No need to come see me. Go to your class, study hard.】
And she had replied with just: 【Okay.】
Jian Nian didn’t know why she’d ended up walking to the cemetery either. She truly couldn’t think of anything to say to her. She couldn’t study finance now, couldn’t inherit her father’s company either.
She had already died once. She could never again become the person her mother had wanted her to be.
She thought carefully for a moment, and what came to mind was that night, the swing slowly rocking, the courtyard full of moonlight.
Jian Nian raised her calm eyes and said softly.
“Mom. Good night.”
…
Jian Nian tilted her umbrella and turned to leave.
She’d only gone a few steps when she suddenly went still, stopping in her tracks.
She turned back slowly, her gaze landing on the headstone beside Xu Qingjia’s.
Her eyes fixed there. Through the curtain of rain, she saw her own photograph.
Jian Nian: “…”
Jian Nian fell deep into thought.
She stared at the name on the headstone for a good while before confirming it was indeed her own grave. She rarely got photographed, but this photo looked familiar — it was from her high school student ID.
She stepped closer, crouched down halfway, and tapped the headstone with a finger, feeling a strange sort of novelty.
Who could have set up a grave for her?
The one who’d fled abroad couldn’t possibly have come back — must have been a relative, then… Jian Nian lowered her eyes, and for some reason, she suddenly thought of Lu Zhun.
In her senior year of high school, her test scores had failed to meet the standard several times, and Xu Qingjia had been furious, locking her at home over winter break and hiring her a string of tutors.
One of them had been a little different — not some medal-laden top tutor, but a student from a poor family the household had previously sponsored.
According to Xu Qingjia, he’d placed first in the science track the year before, a boy one year older than her.
Xu Qingjia thought that maybe the difficulty in teaching her came from older tutors not communicating well with her, so she’d tried finding someone closer to her own age.
The first time the boy came, she had just seen off the previous tutor and was sitting at her desk, piled high with workbooks, staring blankly out the floor-to-ceiling window at the softly falling snow.
Snow fell beyond the courtyard wall; from the window, she couldn’t see past the wall’s edge, couldn’t see beyond it. All she could see were the few white plum trees within the wall.
The boy’s reflection appeared in the glass of the window. She turned around, said nothing, and settled familiarly into her seat at the desk, flipping open the workbook to the problems she couldn’t solve. Black Lotus novel Novel Chapters
But a fingertip pressed lightly down on the edge of the page.
The fireplace logs burned, firelight crackling and leaping. She looked up, puzzled, and met a pair of dark, ink-black eyes.
He said, “Want to see the snow?”
…
“Why’s there still someone in here, how did you sneak in?” A middle-aged man’s voice suddenly rang out, cutting through her thoughts.
The man held an umbrella, swinging a flashlight beam toward her, his tone fierce. “Who let you in here? A kid like you, get out already, we’re closing.”
Jian Nian, holding her red umbrella, was just about to stand up when the flashlight beam swept across the headstone beside her.
The man’s gaze landed on the photo, then on her face, and in an instant turned to horror, his pupils blown wide.
Two seconds later, the man let out a terrified scream, stumbled back two steps nearly falling over, and fled in a blind panic, dropping the umbrella from his hand onto the ground.
Jian Nian: “…”
She reflected on this seriously for a moment.
…Guess that was a little scary.
Jian Nian picked up the umbrella and walked out of the cemetery. Passing the empty security booth, she set the umbrella down on the little windowsill.
Walking slowly down the road, Jian Nian felt tired too. She’d gone hiking and painting today, and then walked all this way besides.
The rain grew heavier, blowing in sideways past the edge of her umbrella. She happened to pass an old-fashioned phone booth, and closed her umbrella to duck inside, taking shelter for a while.
The moment she sat down, her stomach gave a growl.
…So hungry.
Jian Nian patted herself down. She’d only brought her drawing board and pencils when she left, no money.
She deflated a little, curling in on herself.
This kind of phone booth was meant for the elderly folks in town — many old people back then didn’t have cell phones, and if they wanted to call their kids, they just needed to drop in a coin to use it.
It used to be one cent, then slowly became fifty cents, and now it was a full yuan for three minutes of talk time.
Jian Nian looked toward the phone and spotted a single coin in the little heart-shaped box beside it — probably there for emergencies, for people who’d come without money.
…Should she call someone for help?
She only remembered one number.
Jian Nian pressed her lips together, not really wanting to call him.
She could feel that she was angry at him. But why she was angry, she didn’t know either.
He hadn’t really done anything wrong — he’d kindly taken her in when she’d had nowhere else to go, sponsored her out of the goodness of his heart, taken care of her the whole time.
He was already an ex-boyfriend now. It didn’t matter anymore.
Jian Nian leaned into the corner, closed her eyes, and refused to look.
Ten minutes passed.
“…Growl.”
Jian Nian opened her eyes, glanced at the phone, then immediately looked away, turning to face the wall, slowly picking at the old newspaper clippings and flyers plastered on the glass.
Another ten minutes passed. The flyer offering big money for a surrogate son gained an extra hole picked into it.
“…Groowwl.”
“…”
Jian Nian bowed her head to the cruelty of life.
She pinched the coin, dropped it in, and, swallowing her humiliation, dialed her ex-boyfriend’s number.
The call went through, and only then did it occur to Jian Nian — it had been seven years already, hadn’t he probably changed his number long ago?
Just as she was starting to hesitate, the call connected.
Her mind suddenly went blank. For a moment she didn’t know what to say, and so she stayed quiet.
She’d never called him before.
Seven years had passed; she had no idea what he looked like now, or what he was doing.
After a dozen or so seconds, she finally spoke, slowly.
“Hey, Lu Zhun.”
“This is…”
Jian Nian was about to say who she was, but she suddenly remembered the way that man at the cemetery had fled from her in terror.
…If she gave her real name, would he just hang up on her in shock?
Her gaze fell on the newspaper article, and inspiration struck. Pinching her nose, she made her voice drop, low and dull. “…Your high school classmate.”
Thanks to Yu Qingqing’s artistic influence, Jian Nian now understood a little something about the art of language. · Black Lotus novel Translations | BLACK LOTUS NOVEL
For instance: if you want to borrow money, you should play the pity card first.
Jian Nian, glancing at the newspaper for reference, slowly invented herself a tragic backstory — a father who’d gambled away the family fortune, a mother bedridden with stomach cancer.
Worried it wasn’t pitiful enough, she considered what age his classmate would be by now and added two more details — a husband who mistreated her, always beating her, and a baby crying day and night in its cradle.
Jian Nian figured that should about cover it. She took a deep breath and slowly got to the point. “…So, could you lend me a little money?”
There was no response on the other end of the line.
Jian Nian found this odd. Had the call not gone through? She checked the screen — it showed the call was connected.
…It couldn’t be that he’d seen through her, could it?
Seemed she hadn’t quite grasped the essence of borrowing money.
Most of the three minutes had already ticked by. No other choice now. Jian Nian picked anxiously at her fingers, took a deep breath, and, steeling herself, said the line Yu Qingqing had taught her:
“Hey, this is Qin Shi Huang. Lend me five hundred kuai, and once I restore the Great Qin, I’ll make you a general.”
The moment she finished speaking, Jian Nian wanted to find a crack in the ground to crawl into.
She let her head fall limply against the glass.
Whether or not she got the money anymore seemed to matter a lot less at this point.
But even so, the other end of the line remained silent — not a single sound.
Jian Nian blinked. It was quite late now — could it be that the call had accidentally connected to someone?
She tapped a finger against the glass, asking tentatively, in a small voice: “Hey, are you listening?”
The receiver stayed quiet.
Well, at least he hadn’t heard her embarrassing little speech.
Jian Nian let out a breath and was about to hang up when a low voice suddenly sounded by her ear.
“Mm.”
The night’s rain curtain hung heavy, the sound of rain pattering steadily outside the phone booth.
A young man’s voice, familiar and yet unfamiliar, drifted through the old, muffled receiver, hoarse, settling slowly by her ear.
He said, “Jian Nian. I’m listening.”
