I grew up at a Taoist temple on Mount Qingcheng and was not brought back to the Xie residence in Jinling until I was sixteen.
My mother thought my manners were too rough, so every day she had the matrons teach me to walk without swaying my skirts and to smile without showing my teeth.
But when torrential rain burst the riverbanks, I instinctively sprang from the tiled eaves to save people. The common folk fell to their knees and cried, “Immortal Maiden!”
The night I returned home, my mother wept as she cut my Taoist robe to shreds. “The Xie family needs a refined young lady, not a Taoist nun!”
In the bronze mirror, I touched the bun of hair that my jeweled hairpin had pulled painfully tight.
This brocade dress was far heavier than my Taoist robe.
The moment thunder roared outside the window
I suddenly remembered my master’s words as I left the mountain: “A calamity is written into your fate. There is no escaping it.”
