The dilapidated temple known as Qingliang Temple, patched and mended for a millennium, was ultimately reduced to a heap of rubble after a catastrophic foreign invasion. It was like a drunken, prolonged nightmare—an absurdly convoluted and unspeakable trauma, a garish scar stained with blood, inconspicuous yet etched forever into the memories of every survivor from Nanling and their descendants.
For a thousand years, the ancient temple’s ethereal bells had merely tolled for the deluded dreams of men.
The Republic of China, that humiliating and malformed premature infant, had perished.
With the advent of the New China, a new era brought forth new aspirations. Construction boomed across the nation, and six retired Daoist priests arrived at Qingliang Mountain, declaring their intent to rebuild Qingliang Temple amidst its shattered ruins. Villagers from nearby, whenever they had a moment, would lend a hand. Using the thousand-year-old remnants alongside concrete, they painstakingly reconstructed Qingliang Temple.
Once rebuilt, it retained the name Qingliang Temple, even though Daoists had rebuilt it and it wasn’t renamed a ‘Daoist temple.’
They didn’t even discard the shattered Buddha statues. With a mixture of glutinous rice paste and concrete, they patched and altered them. What was once a Night Bodhisattva was painstakingly reformed into the rather abstract ‘Yue Lao statue’ it is today. Of course, the amateur restorer who fixed the Buddha statue likely never realized their work would become a Matchmaker God.
The rebuilt Qingliang Temple was a chimera, a four-unlikes hybrid, yet it still looked quite grand overall. Unfortunately, the Catalpa tree in the courtyard had withered and died, standing stark and desolate in the courtyard. In the first winter after Qingliang Temple’s reconstruction, a nearby villager retrieved the temple bell they had hidden in a latrine during the war.
By spring, the Catalpa tree, long thought dead, miraculously came back to life. Decades later, it now stood lush and verdant once more.
When Liu Wenjin mentioned seeing the red cloth from the Republic of China era, Qin Zixin knew immediately that the silly fat man had made a mistake.
The Republican era had been a hellish time. This dilapidated temple, though ostensibly a charity hall back then, was in truth a mass grave, a dumping ground for corpses. For the most part, it was nothing more than a wild graveyard of broken tiles and rubble—a fact she only knew because her ancestral home was nearby. If the young people who visited knew what Qingliang Temple was used for during the Republic of China period, they wouldn’t dare come here to pray for silly eternal vows.
This was Qingliang Temple, a true chimera of a place. It was a scar stitched together with broken tiles, its existence as natural as Nanling City being covered in locust blossoms in autumn. It was Qingliang Temple simply because the people of Nanling believed it to be so.
As winter yields to melting ice and spring brings forth new grass, nothing on this ancient land remains static. Everything must change, like the seasons and the cycle of yin and yang, even if the name remains the same.
Approaching the Catalpa tree, Qin Zixin rubbed her foot against the mud she’d stepped in at its base. The lazy attendant, tasked with sweeping, had dumped a large basket of Catalpa leaves into the incense burner. The leaves were damp, and Catalpa leaves contained oil, so when heated, the smoke intensified. Choking on the smoke, Qin Zixin sniffed, then kicked the tree before departing.
Inside the ancestral hall near the courtyard hung a portrait of a great leader. In a corner, hundreds of small pickle jars were stacked, filled with ashes—old stock accumulated for an untold period since the founding of the nation. Fishermen on Anji Lake occasionally dredged up bodies, and if unclaimed for too long, they would be cremated in the stone incense burner in front of this temple. As a child, Qin Zixin would often come to watch the spectacle.
Burning a person was vastly different from roasting a chicken or a lamb.
The body, wrapped in a layer of coarse cloth, was placed at the very bottom, with charcoal piled around it and dry wood on the outside. Doused with kerosene and lit, it sometimes required prodding with iron rods as it burned. Once reduced to ashes, they were stored in a pickle jar, with the time and location of discovery written on the outside. If the body’s gender and approximate age could be determined, that too would be recorded.
But those were old customs. Now, this dilapidated temple was a tourist attraction, and even unidentified bodies had to be sent to the provincial forensic center at Nanling Medical University.
Qin Zixin surveyed the ancestral hall.
The portrait of the great leader was very old; the glass, made with an archaic process, had a faint green tint due to impurities in its manufacture. The background of the painting had faded to a pale white, but it remained remarkably clean, clearly indicating regular upkeep.
The ground before the portrait was adorned with various fruits, biscuits, flowers, and a dozen bottles of *baijiu*. The fruits and flowers were fresh, though some blossoms were a bit wilted. The biscuits were a mix of new and old, and while the liquor bottles were dusty, their dust varied, suggesting different ages; a few bottles looked like they had been sitting there for so long the dust had almost formed a blanket.
No one would ever steal offerings meant for the great leader; indeed, everyone knew that if he were aware in the afterlife, he certainly wouldn’t mind.
Outside, the courtyard was wreathed in smoke; inside, the ancestral hall glowed with a subdued light.
Before Qingliang Temple became a tourist destination, this area was not open to the public. Even during Qingming and Zhongyuan festivals, at most, local helpers would burn some joss paper for these lonely souls. Now, with more tourists, the offerings beneath the great leader’s portrait had significantly increased.
Visitors entered through the courtyard with the crooked Catalpa tree, then followed the corridor along the mountain side into the second courtyard, where the Yue Lao statue was enshrined.
In traditional residences, the first courtyard served as the gatehouse, the second, the largest, was typically the main hall, and the third and fourth courtyards housed private chambers.
They usually formed a *siheyuan*, or quadrangle, a series of courtyards connected like building blocks. However, Qingliang Temple wasn’t so particular. The first and second courtyards comprised only a single building within their respective walls. The third courtyard had two buildings, but due to its topography, the courtyard suffered from poor lighting; even in summer, it only received a few hours of afternoon sun. Initially, this third courtyard was used to air-dry firewood, and its two rooms naturally became storage sheds.
Now, with the increase in tourists, the third courtyard had been converted into a small shop. Besides bottled beverages, it sold miscellaneous small fish, shrimp, and lotus pods caught from Huanghu Lake and the surrounding waterways.
Wheat ears, minnows, and bitterlings were all available, the largest barely palm-sized. Sourced from fishermen, they were almost given away for free. After carefully removing the entrails and scales, a dash of high-proof sweet potato liquor and ginger-scallion juice was added to remove any fishy odor. Then, they were deep-fried in abundant oil for three minutes, sprinkled with spices, and ready to serve. A large bag cost only five yuan, and even the fish bones were crispy. To facilitate tourist access, staff had even opened a side gate in the wall, leading directly to the second courtyard’s Yue Lao shrine. This side gate was even larger than the main entrance; the main gate was narrow, only allowing people through, while the side gate could accommodate delivery trucks. But aside from petty bourgeois types who had eaten too much, no one would accuse this of being an act of cultural vandalism.
Upon entering, Qin Zixin spotted a familiar face: Li Jingxin, the young man from Lijiatun, the neighboring village.
Lijiatun lay just below her ancestral home, Huanzigang. The village was on flat ground, the hill on the mountain. Lijiatun grew melons and vegetables, while Huanzigang cultivated fruit trees. The men from both villages often teamed up to hunt wild boars in the mountains, which was why Qin Zixin recognized him.
Qin Zixin stepped forward, fumbling through a hidden pocket in her backpack for a moment before pulling out a twenty-yuan bill and two coins. She slapped the money onto the glass counter.
“Four bags of fried fish, with extra minnows! Add salt and pepper to all, make two bags spicy, and four bottles of Binglu.”
Li Jingxin looked up, his face flushing instantly upon seeing the famous pretty girl from the neighboring village.
“I’ll give you a lot extra. Are you on holiday?”
“You bet! It’s been long overdue.”
Qin Zixin sniffed, her adorable, guileless expression utterly captivating. Enhanced by her earlier lively demeanor, she was a picture of charming mischief.
Li Jingxin’s eyes widened. After a moment of stunned silence, he scooped out some pre-fried small fish from a stainless steel basin and placed them on the electronic scale, deliberately adding a generous amount.
“Wasn’t this your job before? Did your family contract this out?”
“How could they? Three families contracted it, and the profits are split evenly. There are a lot of people now; after we tidy up the front courtyard in a while, we can raise the prices too.”
“Four yuan for miscellaneous fish and you’re still raising the price?”
“You bet, it’s been long overdue.”
Li Jingxin echoed Qin Zixin’s words in the exact same tone. Qin Zixin rolled her eyes. The miscellaneous fish cooked quickly; a quick shallow fry was all it took before they were dusted with powder and stuffed into large paper bags labeled ‘XX Chicken Cutlet.’ He took out four bottles of Binglu from the freezer, then added four bottles of cola.
“Here’s some free cold soda, consider it my treat. Next month for National Day, we’re going wild boar hunting; I’ll come to your village then.”
“Alright, alright! I want to go too.”
“When have you ever *not* gone?”
Li Jingxin packed the fried fish and drinks. Qin Zixin dropped the money and scurried away.
Leaving the dilapidated temple, Qin Zixin saw her cousin, Qin Zhifeng, had also arrived. From a distance, she noticed he was also wearing a plaid shirt. Qin Zixin, who had been grinning foolishly after buying the fried fish, couldn’t maintain her expression.
“Cousin, why are you wearing these old clothes to go out and have fun?”
Qin Zhifeng turned around, seeing Qin Zixin in a shirt that looked quite familiar to him, and chuckled.
“Oh, isn’t that my middle school shirt?”
The plaid shirts worn by Qin Zhifeng and Qin Zixin only differed slightly in newness and size; everything else, even the color, was identical. Qin Zixin’s plaid shirt was wrinkled and somewhat fuzzy in places. Qin Zhifeng’s shirt was also wrinkled.
“Why? You gave it to me!”
“I’m not going to snatch it back from you, you silly goose. Do you think I can still fit into smaller clothes at my current height and weight?”
“No, but why are *you* also wearing a plaid shirt? Three out of four of us are wearing them. It’s so ugly.”
Qin Zhifeng chuckled, taking the bag from Qin Zixin’s hand and distributing the four bags of fried fish.
The Qin family was different from the Tang family. The Tang family, comprising Tang Yuyu, Tang Longlong, Qin Zixin’s maternal grandfather, plus Qin Zixin and her maternal aunt, totaled only six people. The Qin family, however, was a sprawling lineage; the patriarch was still alive, and with four generations living under one roof, they numbered over twenty people. The Qin family’s ancestral home was in Huanzigang.
Qin Zhifeng was seven years older than Qin Zixin. As a child, Qin Zixin was like a shadow, trailing behind Qin Zhifeng whenever she returned to her ancestral home. After The System infused Qin Zixin with some of its own memories, she and Qin Zhifeng began conspiring together, Qin Zixin coming up with ideas, and both of them executing them, truly a nuisance to everyone.
Three years prior, Qin Zhifeng had been admitted to the Public Health program at Gusu University Medical School in neighboring Gusu.
Unlike clinical medicine, public health was a four-year undergraduate program. By the third year, all major courses were completed, leaving the fourth year surprisingly free. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have had the time to fool around with a few kids.