The Butterfly Cottage

Is there anything in your life you regret? For seven coins, you can return to the past in my shop and get another chance to make amends for your lifelong regrets. The first story, “The Mugwort”: Little Jian Yan regrets never bringing her dying grandfather a cup of the soy milk he loved. In the end, she believes her birth brought him misfortune, and chooses to return to the past and die in her mother’s womb, still attached by her umbilical cord. The second story, “Dew That Never Dries”: Meng Zhang, a powerful and influential prefect, regrets not eloping with the Miao girl he loved after pacifying the Miao frontier. When he gets the chance to start over, the Miao girl has become an ordinary woman, and they are both destitute. Meng Zhang then longs to become the powerful and prosperous Lord Meng once more. After returning to the past countless times, he becomes trapped in an endless cycle of cause and effect, one that ends only in death. The third story, “Peaches in the Garden”: Xie Qinxin, a scholar who failed the provincial examination, has spent his life studying to meet his family’s expectations. He feels unfulfilled and longs to roam the world as a swordsman. Becoming a swordsman nearly costs him his life. He regrets not going into business, but fails at that too. On a whim, he decides to become a musician, but no one appreciates his music, so he takes up painting... In the end, he still wants to become a scholar, and his story ends unresolved. The fourth story, “The Prolific Grasshopper”: To outsiders, Tao, a wealthy landowner blessed with a house full of children and grandchildren, long life, and good fortune, has not a single regret and has enjoyed a carefree life. But in his heart, he too harbors an unspoken regret. As a young man, Tao fell in love with Die’er at first sight...