The crane yao accepted his new identity with equanimity—after all, he had no right to refuse.
He placed his white outer robe in a corner of the underground palace, making do with it as a bed, and then began to ask the little girl what he needed to do for her.
The little bride turned her gaze to He Qingfu, signaling that she could speak.
He Qingfu crouched down. “It’s up to you. Think carefully.”
After pondering for a full five minutes, the little girl slowly lifted her chin. “What’s his true form?”
Though inexperienced in the ways of the world, she knew that normal people shouldn’t have silver hair or golden eyes. No wonder he was her father consort—they matched well, both being yao.
“A crane,” He Qingfu replied.
The crane yao corrected her gently, “A red-crowned crane.” With that, he crouched down as well, turning his back to the little girl and lifting his silver hair to reveal two streaks of red. “This is the symbol of our kind. Different from a white crane.”
The girl touched the crane yao’s long hair, confirming, “As smooth as egg white.”
Then she made her first request: “Can you change back to your true form?”
“Of course.”
The crane yao had a very good temper, speaking more slowly than most, his voice clear and pleasant. After transforming, he bent down low, inviting the little girl to climb onto his back.
The little bride shot a quick glance at He Qingfu. Seeing no objection, she curled her lips in a slight smile, hurried over, and lay on the crane yao’s back, hugging his neck tightly.
The crane yao flapped his wings and took flight in the underground palace.
The ceiling was four meters high—just enough for him to stretch his wings. Although the little bride could float on her own, this was her first experience of such a ride. She caressed the crane’s feathers with delight, her little feet swinging back and forth.
A few minutes later, she noticed the bloodstains at the edge of the crane’s wing, and her feet stopped swinging.
She frowned, examining the bloodstain closely. “What happened here?”
The crane yao replied, “I tripped on my way here.”
“Oh…”
The little girl didn’t dwell on it and asked, “Do you have a name?”
“Chen Xihe.”
“Did you pick it yourself?” the little girl mused. “Should I be called Jiang Yi, then?”
“Or Jiang Jia?”
Chen Xihe turned to her helplessly. “It was given by my elders. Ask your mother to name you. Those are too casual.”
The little girl pressed her lips together.
She patted Chen Xihe’s feathers. “I’m tired. I want to sleep.”
The crane yao landed. The little girl jumped off his back, ran to the stone bed, and pulled up the covers. “Goodbye.”
A crisp, decisive way of sending people off.
He Qingfu didn’t say much either, nodded to Chen Xihe, and left the underground palace.
A dozen minutes later, she returned with a few books, placing them beside the little bride. “These have some interesting stories. Want me to read one to you?”
The little girl yawned. “If you have to.”
Which meant she wanted to listen.
He Qingfu could now read between the lines. She opened a book and told her a story about an immortal master planting spiritual herbs.
At the end, He Qingfu read in a regretful tone:
“The immortal master spent five hundred years growing spiritual herbs, only to have them stolen by a little rabbit. The rabbit, quite pleased with itself, wiped its mouth and hopped away, leaving the dejected immortal in silence for several nights.”
The little girl listened with an icy expression. “If I were the immortal, I’d eat the rabbit.”
At this, Chen Xihe interjected, “Why eat the rabbit?”
The little girl replied matter-of-factly, “Since it’s a spiritual herb, after the rabbit eats it, its meat probably has the same effect. If you stew and eat the rabbit, it’s like eating the spiritual herb.”
“The herb wasn’t the rabbit’s. It stole it. It’s a bad rabbit.”
Chen Xihe shook his head gently. “There’s karma in all things. If the rabbit could steal the herb, it means the herb was destined for it, that they were connected. You shouldn’t eat the rabbit.”
The little girl: “?”
He Qingfu: “?”
The little girl sat up in disbelief, raised her hand, and smacked Chen Xihe. “I hit you, which means I was destined to hit you. You can’t fight back or get angry.”
Chen Xihe laughed. “Of course I’m not angry.”
The little girl hit him harder. “Really not angry?”
Chen Xihe shook his head. “Nothing to be angry about. It’s late—you should sleep.”
He Qingfu observed Chen Xihe carefully and found his words and actions genuinely heartfelt. She recalled seeing him earlier, secretly following as mischievous children pelted him with stones. At the time, there was no resentment in the crane yao’s eyes, only sadness.
He Qingfu had thought that sadness was directed at himself, for his own fate. But now it seemed otherwise.
Thinking of this, she asked, “Earlier, when those children threw stones at you… how did you feel?”
Chen Xihe sighed. “I felt sorry for them.”
“They’re still young. I was already dying. If their stones had killed me faster, I wouldn’t have blamed them, but they’d have to bear the karma of killing, and that would make life harder for them.”
He Qingfu: “……”
She turned to the little girl. “And you? If you were badly hurt and children hit you, what would you do?”
The little girl’s face tensed. She snorted coldly. “Of course I’d hit back.”
“If I’m already miserable and they still hit me, they’re bad. I’d beat them to death.”
He Qingfu nodded. “That’s good.”
“You’re the strange one,” she said to Chen Xihe.
Chen Xihe frowned slightly. “Why are you scolding me?”
He Qingfu didn’t want to say more. She tucked the little girl in, wished her goodnight, and left the underground palace.
Back in her bedchamber, she took out her notebook and wrote earnestly:
Chen Xihe, crane yao.
Little bride, little friend.
Chen Xihe, holy father and great bodhisattva.
Little bride, obedient little friend.
*
Late at night, He Qingfu returned control of the body to Jiang Chixi, but her consciousness remained active.
She carefully recalled the conversations in the underground palace, feeling more and more that something was off. After several minutes of thought, she suddenly realized the problem.
Chen Xihe’s views actually fit his identity.
After cranes become yao through cultivation, they need only drink mountain spring water to survive. They can eat food, but prefer pure things. For them, spring water is as good as a meal. Because of this, many crane yao live apart from humans for long periods, some never encountering humans at all. The mountains, rivers, and lakes cleanse their souls, making them kind and divine.
For them, hurting others is harder to accept than dying themselves.
That was the nature of crane yao.
And the little bride yao?
He Qingfu thought carefully about her interactions with the little bride and realized she, too, had the nature of a yao—for example, her indifference to human life. He Qingfu had once told her a story about a bandit slaughtering an entire village. The little girl’s expression was flat, yawning the whole time, nearly falling asleep.
But she also had normal emotions.
For instance, when bullied, she would immediately retaliate, pretend not to understand, sulk, and speak in a way that first suppressed and then raised her own interests—very adept at fighting for herself.
These emotions were almost entirely human.
All things considered, He Qingfu summed up the little bride yao’s situation:
She was a yao with normal emotions.
She found it hard to empathize with humans, unable to understand certain human behaviors, but once humans understood her mindset, they could in turn understand her actions.
Like now, He Qingfu could easily understand the little bride, could grasp her sulking, could even guess what she was thinking each time her face turned cold—
In the morning, a cold face meant a bad dream and a hard bed. At noon, it was the strong taste of cilantro in her food. At night, it was because He Qingfu had come late and brought neither new furniture nor roasted corn.
And tonight, for example, the little bride had wanted to name herself, but when she heard Chen Xihe say names should be given by mothers, she suddenly wanted to sleep.
He Qingfu knew what she was thinking.
But naming a child was too great a responsibility. Just thinking of the dilemmas ahead, He Qingfu didn’t know how to maintain this relationship. She was stuck at a crossroads, able only to take things one day at a time.
Thinking of this, He Qingfu sighed deeply.
She got up, walked to the desk, took out her diary, and analyzed her thoughts.
I’m not planning to tell the little bride everything. Since she doesn’t ask, I won’t explain why she can only stay in the underground palace.
She’s both obedient and disobedient. Forcing her not to do something would backfire. And what could I say? That I could make her stronger, ask if she’d go with the crane yao to some remote mountain to hide for a thousand years, living on wild fruit and river water, and later help humans?
That would be like taking advantage of her youth, asking for gratitude before she’s mature enough to judge, and what kindness have I shown her? None.
I haven’t figured out what to do yet. I just haven’t.
After writing this, He Qingfu suddenly felt restless. She lay in bed for a while, then got up and returned to the underground palace.
Inside the doors, Chen Xihe was chatting with the little girl.
Their voices were soft.
“Have you been to many places before?” That was Chen Xihe’s voice.
“More or less,” the little girl replied lazily. “I’ve been dreaming a lot lately, remembering a bit.”
“A thousand years ago, the eldest daughter of a family was to marry a minor king. Her family gathered many materials and made me.”
“I remember the patterns on my body were embroidered by that eldest daughter. But after she finished, she kept crying and stabbed my lining with scissors.”
“Later, during the war, I passed through many hands. Some places had strange customs, thinking the older the wedding dress, the better, so they’d snatch me, patch me up, and use me again.”
“But everyone who wore me was unhappy,” the little girl mused. “They must have been, since they always cried.”
“Some even wore me to secretly meet others—not the ones they were meant to marry.”
The little girl said, “I was passed around like that. During wars between kingdoms, I was stored in a cave, soaked by rain until I was fed up. But there was a little flower in that cave that bloomed beautifully.”
“Beautiful little flower?” Chen Xihe asked.
The girl nodded. “Mm, pink. It was almost broken by the rain, crying and whimpering, but that day we greeted each other.”
Chen Xihe asked softly, “What did you talk about?”
The little girl propped her chin, earnestly recalling.
After a moment, she said slowly, “It said it was planted here by a refugee, and somehow gained a spirit. As for how, it couldn’t say. All it wanted was to find that human and repay the kindness of being given life. But it was so weak, about to be killed by the rain.”
“It must have felt helpless then,” Chen Xihe said sadly.
But the little girl disagreed.
“That’s not what it said.”
“I wove an umbrella for it out of red string and held it over its head. It was so happy, it kept singing.”
“But the rain was too heavy. My umbrella broke, and the little wildflower died.”
Chen Xihe was surprised. “You could use your yao power even then?”
The little girl nodded. “For a while, only a little. But soon my body was ruined again. It’s always getting ruined, rarely in good shape. My spirit comes and goes.”
“There’s a blank period of several hundred years. My consciousness only returned two years ago.”
Chen Xihe asked, “Why did you hold an umbrella for the little flower?”
The little girl didn’t want to talk anymore.
She pulled up her covers and started pushing Chen Xihe away. “You’re so annoying. I thought a father consort was supposed to be a human who could cook soup without cilantro.”
Chen Xihe laughed. “I can learn. No-cilantro soup—I’ll learn to make it.”
The little girl was very satisfied with this.
She said generously, “In that case, I’ll tell you.”
“It was crying so much it gave me a headache, so I had to hold an umbrella for it.”
Chen Xihe’s smile was gentle and beautiful. He nodded and smoothed the edge of the girl’s blanket.
When He Qingfu entered, this was the warm scene she saw.
Chen Xihe’s face seemed to glow with holy light. He looked only in his early twenties, but there was an unmistakable kindness about him.
He Qingfu sighed softly.
She walked to the girl’s side, bent down, and whispered in her ear.
“How about calling you Jiang Yan from now on?”
“Yan as in satiated, content, blessed—everything is good, everything is possible.”
The little girl’s eyes flew open.
She began to bargain. “No, it’s too hard to write.”
“At most,” she gestured, “I’ll write half.”
He Qingfu couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s fine.”
She pinched little Jiang Yan’s cheek and continued, “That little flower has been reincarnated.”
“It’s now the guardian peach tree of Jiang. It’s got a noisy personality. Do you still want to play with it?”
Little Jiang Yan thought for a moment, then nodded seriously.
“I suppose I can.”
“Bring it here first. If it’s too noisy, I’ll beat it up.”