Chapter 10: Life is Fleeting

The outskirts of Qingwei Pond are surrounded by a ring of lush reeds, but the land inside is barren, covered in soil and gravel, with only a few sparse shrubs and scattered patches of grass growing here and there.

To my surprise, a plum tree actually grows beside a pile of gravel on the east side. Its green leaves are thick and lush, and its branches are sturdy and vigorous. After the first lunar month, the small red flowers that bloom are bright and eye-catching, lasting for a full two months.

How incredibly strong the vitality of this flower must be.

From now on, all the stillborn children I receive will be buried in Qingwei Pond.

I hope these poor children will see the light of day in their next lives, and like this plum tree, be able to withstand the wind and rain—small, yet proud and dazzling. Even if they grow in the most barren of places, they can still thrive.

The feng shui of Qingwei Pond is also very good; it snuggles against Miaoqing Mountain, just like a child nestled in a mother’s arms. A small stream runs through it, as if feeding them with milk...

Feng Chuchen felt both heartbroken and moved. A person like Great Aunt is the most admirable, no matter what era they live in.

There were so many diaries. Although Feng Chuchen had only read a few, she could tell how precious this collection of notes was.

True masters are found among the common people. Setting aside the Shangyin Divine Needles and the "Life Fragrance," Great Aunt was absolutely a top-tier expert in pediatrics, and quite skilled in gynecology as well.

She would study them slowly in the future, combine them with the experience from her past life, and, like Great Aunt, bring benefit to the people.

Feng Chuchen flipped through the books quickly, one by one, until she stopped at a page in the middle that contained only two lines of text.

*The seventh day of the sixth month, the first year of Jianzhang. A drizzling rain falls, and the flowers bloom on the other shore.*

*We share the same heaven and earth in sleep, yet our silk quilts remain cold in solitude.*

This poem, lacking a beginning or an end, left Feng Chuchen feeling bewildered. She had no idea who Great Aunt had written it for.

Feng Chuchen searched through her memories. Aside from her sickly husband, Great Aunt had no lovers; she didn't even have any male friends.

Carrying this question, Feng Chuchen continued to flip through the pages.

*The third day of the eighth month, the first year of Jianzhang. The clouds retreat from the summer colors, and the crape myrtle begins to bloom.*

*My name has been recorded in the Imperial Hospital; from now on, I am a midwife recognized by the imperial court. Qiu'en and his wife and I went to the Quanyixiang Restaurant in the capital to eat roast duck. This was our first time eating at a restaurant...*

Seeing this, Feng Chuchen felt happy for the two siblings.

She paid special attention to the diary from the fifth year of Jianzhang, wanting to see the record of when she was found. But there wasn't a single word about it. There were only eight entries for that year, all of which were about midwifery and medical techniques.

She continued to flip through.

*The ninth day of the twelfth month, the tenth year of Jianzhang. Wind and snow swirl, and the winter plum blossoms brilliantly.*

*I dreamed of Grandfather last night. He sat under the eaves, watching me and smiling. When I woke up, my pillow was soaked with tears.*

*Life and death are vast and distant; in the blink of an eye, the old man has been gone for over twenty years.*

*His gentle voice still rings in my ears: "Life may be as humble as an ant, but one must have the ambitions of a swan. Life may be as thin as paper, but one must have an unyielding heart."*

*I miss him.*

Feng Chuchen put down the notes. In the dim light, she seemed to see a thin, scholarly old man teaching a little girl how to write, hand in hand.

Great Aunt had her moments of fragility, too.

Such a refined and elegant man—how did he end up with a woman like the Fan woman?

No matter how refined and elegant one is, one still has to eat and support a family.

His elders had arranged for him to marry the capable Fan woman.

The Fan woman did support the family, but she did so using those methods, eventually dragging the entire family and their descendants down with her...

Feng Chuchen was lost in thought for a while, then flipped through the pages aimlessly until she reached the final entry.

*The fourteenth day of the sixth month, the nineteenth year of Jianzhang. The sun is scorching, and the lotus flowers are in full bloom.*

*I have used the Shangyin Divine Needles on two infants within four days. I can clearly feel my body failing, as if my spirit and energy have been drained away. I am not afraid of death, but I am worried about Bujie and Chuchen.*

*Chuchen is not yet betrothed, and Bujie is only six years old.*

*I dreamed of Grandmother last night. Her hair was disheveled, and she was covered in wounds.*

*She cried and told me, "Thank you, granddaughter. You have helped Grandmother pay off her karmic debts. Grandmother can finally leave the eighteenth level of hell to be reincarnated. You no longer have to suffer, and Bujie will be able to survive..."*

*After waking up, I knew my time had come.*

*Having lived in this world for forty-three years, I came here to suffer and pay off debts.*

*They are paid off now; it is time to go.*

*Chuchen already knows how to use the Shangyin Divine Needles and can support herself. I must warn her: a man's character is more important than wealth; relying on others is not as good as relying on oneself.*

*She must also go to Qingwei Pond regularly to recite the Rebirth Sutra and pray for the children buried there.*

*As my successor, this is her duty...*

*There is some property in the family, and with Chuchen's help and Aunt Wang's midwifery, they can raise Bujie to adulthood. Once his health improves, he can follow his sister to learn medicine. He has no fate with the Shangyin Divine Needles, but he can learn other things. He must live a clean and upright life...*

*I must also instruct them: after I die, bury me at Jiupo Ridge behind Qingwei Pond. From there, I can continue to watch over those infants.*

*Over these many years, I have personally buried eighteen infants in Qingwei Pond. Thirteen of them died from umbilical cord strangulation, and the cause of death for five is unknown.*

*Regardless of the reason, it is because my medical skills were not refined enough. I have failed them.*

*There are three hundred and fifty-six other stillborn children and twenty-five adults buried in Qingwei Pond.*

*Although I do not know them, I have still added soil to their graves and recited sutras for them. This, too, is a form of fate.*

*Life is fleeting, nothing more than this.*

*If there is reincarnation, I would still like to be a human in my next life, to refine my medical skills and save the mothers and infants I could not save in this life. If there is a life after that, I will be a bird, flying freely in the sky...*

Feng Chuchen’s heart felt painfully constricted, and tears streamed down her face uncontrollably.

The notes were trivial, yet they pieced together the life of her Great Aunt. There was the helplessness and bitterness of being coerced, her own persistence, and perhaps secrets she never wanted anyone to know.

She began with midwifery, and because of midwifery, she burned out her life.

Great Aunt Feng’s life was too tragic.

Such a good person—how could she just die like this...

Feng Chuchen selfishly thought that she had lived two lives; if her previous life had been as bitter as Great Aunt's, she would have wanted to turn into a bird in her second life—why wait until the third?

Feng Chuchen made a few more discoveries.

One was that, except for that final set of clothes and the pouch, Great Aunt never kept flowers and never did embroidery.

But in every single entry of her diary, she wrote about flowers, and her maiden name was also a flower.

Looking at it this way, she loved flowers very, very much, and she loved beauty very, very much. But real life forced her to reject all things beautiful.

She forced herself with near-cruelty to only think about midwifery, saving lives, and paying off debts. Rejecting flowers was also rejecting all temptations...

The second was that, aside from her sickly husband, she never mentioned the four years she was not in Baima Village. She didn't know who she had learned her skills from.

Other than her, she had never heard of anyone else in the Great Yan Dynasty who could use the Shangyin Divine Needles.

Her master must have known how. She wondered why her master had never used them. Such miraculous needles—if they had been used, they surely would have been passed down...

The third was who those two lines of poetry were written for.

They certainly weren't written for her sickly husband.

"Sharing the same heaven and earth in sleep" meant that both people were alive in the same world, not separated by life and death.

Her sickly husband had died long ago.

The words "sleep" and "silk quilt" were quite ambiguous.

Perhaps there was another man who had stirred Great Aunt's heart, and the "blessing" marriage was just an excuse?

If that were the case, Great Aunt should have hoped to spend her second or third life with the man who had stirred her heart.

She didn't marry him in this life, and she had no expectations for the next...

Then there was only one possibility: this man had failed her...

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(End of chapter)