Theme: Growth
“Bodhi has no roots, nor does the bright mirror have a stand. Since emptiness holds nothing, where can dust settle?”
Whether beside the willows of a resentful imperial palace or beneath a pure Bodhi tree, one is always growing.
Jiang Qianwan was the cherished youngest daughter of her family. They were so wealthy they could have filled two imperial treasuries.
Who could have imagined that the little daughter of a wealthy merchant would be adopted as the emperor’s goddaughter, and cherished even more than a princess? He treated her as if she might break if he held her too tightly, or melt if he kept her in his mouth.
When the imperial treasury ran low, Jiang Qianwan’s father read the situation and secured a crucial role in helping the emperor seize power. No one dared look down on their family.
After they moved to the capital, their next-door neighbors turned out to be the renowned Duke of Chu’s household, a family famous for producing great generals.
She and the fourth young master of the household, Chu Lin, started out fighting and ended up friends. He became her first friend in the capital.
She also befriended Chu Lin’s companions: Princess Shen Jiyao, Zhao Wenlan, the Grand Tutor’s son, and others...
In her second year in the capital, she accompanied her father to a palace banquet. Hoping to find somewhere to walk off her meal, she took a wrong turn and wandered into a deserted palace, where she rescued a cat and a “little wolf cub.” That rescue entangled her with them for a lifetime.
Years later,
she would think that she should never have rescued the cat, and even less so the “little wolf cub,” Shen Ze.
