The secret of the flying woman or the Confession of Tea Elder. Анна Валерьяновна Аверьянова

refined tea emanations were transforming each other. The tea did not hurry to give up its secrets, and the guests had time to enjoy every nuance of the procedure. And only the special status of warriors did not allow the men to express their exhilaration.

      Well, the Tea Ceremony merits hours and hours of descriptions and scientific Taoism treatises and poems, and still its heavenly nature will remain untold, because there are no words that could describe your feelings at those moments, and the revelations you receive under the impact of the finest fields that emerge in the process of communication with a Kun-Fu-Chia Master. The fields are so fine, that they transfer over long distances and you would be able to influence events that are taking place a long way from you, if they are important to you at the moment.

      This is why, in order to improve the interaction and the mutual understanding among the heads of the clans, who had armies of their own and were influential enough to unite people in a joint effort to repel the Jurchens, the Tea Ceremony was held. Besides, it was intended to reduce the possible disappointment of those whose daughters would not be chosen at all, or would be selected as second or third wives.

      The music stopped. The tea-ware was taken away. The astrologists entered the hall. They were seven. Six of them seated themselves on silk cushions in pairs facing one another. The Elder remained standing and addressed the Lord and the guests.

      “Illustrious Lord, the Book of Destinies reads that the deeds of your son will be sacred and multiyear, and his son, likewise, will be a happy and remarkable ruler, and he will be borne by the first wife. Her name is Bao and she is from the Li Hong family.”

      Hearing this, Chen Li Hong, Bao’s father, turned pale.

      The astrologist went on, “The second wife will be Chou from the Hi Lin family, and the third wife will be Ho from the Shao-Zun. The wedding ceremony for Shi and Bao will be held under the Chen (Chen, the Cart, is the last of the 28 Chinese Zodiac constellations, the last of the seven constellations of the Red Bird of the southern celestial sector), that is, in fifteen days.”

      The astrologist bowed and retreated, followed by the other astrologists. Men started rising one after another; in silence they gave their ceremonial farewell honours to their Illustrious Lord, and left the hall. Thus the destiny was calculated. But they were astrologists, neither future-tellers nor Taoists. And that rescued Chen Li Hong. Still pale, he was the last to rise from his seat.

      “Why? Aren’t you happy? Is my son not a worthy mate for your daughter?” asked the Illustrious Lord with a smile.

      “My Lord, it’s the greatest honour for me. But she is my favourite daughter, and she is still so attached to her mother.”

      “So, what? Daughters are nothing but flowers in the garden: the flowers are doomed to wither – what can you do about it? Go, hurry to inform her of the great honour and her upcoming happiness.”

      Chen Li Hong stood up, offered the due ceremonial honours and left the hall in silence. While walking in the shade towards the stables, he did not utter a word, neglecting the anxious attempts of his beautiful wife to look into his eyes and read the reason for the unusual behaviour of her husband.

      Chapter Four

      Openly repair the gallery roads, but sneak through the passage of Chencang

      Still silent, Chen Li Hong took his place in the procession, made sure that everybody was in, and signalled to move. It was a long journey to make, but fifteen days later he would have to come back to this place with his daughter. Two white stone Tigers with strange muzzles, which resembled monkeys more than tigers, were dispassionately watching the procession go. The green and grey roofs of the stone building of the country-side mansion of His Illustrious Lord were slowly disappearing behind the tops of pine trees. One farewell glance towards the mansion – and after the bend in the road all that one could see was the impenetrable forest.

      It was then that Chen started realizing the desolate implications of the situation. He had a number of wives, and many daughters and sons. But his favourite wife had only one daughter. All the other children by her died in their infancy; after that she appealed to the nuns in the cloister, who gave her a herbal drink which made her unable to get pregnant.

      The astrologists, who were invited upon the arrival of the daughter, were merciless. They refused the bounties offered to them in order to reserve the right to tell the truth. The estimations made on the basis of the date of conception and the date of birth undoubtedly showed that the only daughter by his beloved wife Fan had to die at the age of fifteen. But Fan was happy to hear even that, as all of her other children had not been able to live even a single full day. Bao was a reward to Fan, she was literally the greatest treasure Fan had in her life.

      Fan was exceptionally beautiful, but rather simple-minded. She talked the astrologists into changing the date of her daughter’s birth so that the predictions could be favourable.

      “What if the Gods see that date and give my daughter a chance?” thought Fan.

      The astrologists, charmed by the beauty and guilelessness of the hostess, did what she was begging for. They wanted to soothe her pain. Chen, also, did not want to contradict his wife and allowed to be entered the re-calculated date of birth instead of the real one. One could not change destiny, but if one could give Fan some relief and soothe her pain caused by numerous losses, why not do that? The baby had fifteen years ahead of her, maybe something would happen that would help the little one survive.

      The baby was growing feeble and was prone to illness, but she was dazzlingly beautiful, just like her mother. The sisters from the cloister visited Bao and helped her mother to cope with the problems. Bao loved the nuns, and they loved her dearly. They would bring her books, they taught her calligraphy and how to play the harp, and also the special exercises she could do to support life and energy in her feeble body.

      Bao spent a lot of time reading books. She did not join the games of her sisters borne by the other wives. They were younger and spent whole days playing happily and carefree in the garden. However, she liked to watch how they would dress up in various clothes, wear masks and make up their faces with fancy designs, and perform funny skits. Later, when the servants came to wash them, they would scream, and laugh, and splash water at one another, and they also tried to reach for the tap and close it with their tiny fingers, so that the spurts of water reached everyone within three zhangs .

      Their favourite pastime was to play a game called ‘Bride’. Some girls would climb into red sedan chairs, designed like little rooms with windows, decorate them with their dolls, toy birds, images of saints, multicoloured flags and ribbons with pompoms, and cover them with embroidered table cloths with colourful tassels on the sides. Then, having applied make-up and put on dresses of vibrant colours, they asked their servants to carry them in the sedan chairs along the alleys of the garden, while other sisters and servants were expected to play various musical instruments or pretend to be the bride-groom and his family.

      That day they found somewhere a huge dusty cloth dragon, and climbed on it in order to scare the servants. The servants prostrated themselves; they were doing their best to demonstrate their sacred awe. It was not clear who enjoyed the game more.

      At that very moment the main gate of the estate opened and a procession entered the courtyard. The stablemen rushed to the horses, the servants hurried to bring the sedan chair to take Missus Fan to her room. Mister Chen, darker than the night, went to his library, silent. He stopped, though, when he saw the little ones playing with the dragon, and gave a faint smile, but soon it gave way to a frown, and a tear slowly went down his dusty cheek. He bit his lip and hastened to the library.

      “Once Missus Fan is ready, let her join me here.”

      The servants hurriedly took the travel ‘armour’ off their master. He proceeded into his bathroom, where there was a cool rosemary bath waiting for him. It looked like a little swimming pool at the level of the floor, and the man slowly sank into it. The comforting, warm bitter smell of the ‘heart herb’ took away the weariness of the journey and set his heart at ease. The feelings of illness and uncertainty went away, but the anxiety remained.

      Now Fan entered the bathroom. Chen signalled her to join him. The servants helped her to undress and descend