The monk stood beneath the Bodhi tree, a beautiful and surreal vision. Lin Feiran’s eyes teared up a little. He asked, “How should I tell her?”

After all, in this life, she was only a Bodhi tree.

Who knew if she could understand human speech...

“Benefactor, you need only speak to her.” A flash of gentleness passed through Cheng Guan’s eyes and was gone. “She has grown here for three hundred years and has developed awareness. Like a human, she can feel her surroundings, but she cannot access the Yin-Yang, and so cannot feel my soul... Benefactors, you two have talked for so long to this empty space under the tree. She is clever and sensitive and has probably guessed the gist of it. I only ask that you tell her one more time.”

“All right.” Lin Feiran nodded gravely. He thought for a moment, then asked, “You also have feelings for her, right?”

Cheng Guan only lowered his gaze and did not answer.

Lin Feiran’s eyes flashed and his lips lifted in a crafty smile. He followed up: “If you don’t, then say you don’t. If not, I’ll take it as a tacit admission.”

This scandalous behavior must have been a result of Gu Kaifeng’s influence!

Cheng Guan kept his eyes lowered. His long, thick lashes cast a small gray shadow in his eyes so that Lin Feiran couldn’t tell what he was feeling, but he didn’t shake his head. Eve his clothing didn’t move at all. He seemed to have turned into a statue in that moment.

Lin Feiran didn’t ask again. He moved closer to the Bodhi tree and placed one hand lightly on the bark. He thought for a bit, then said adorkably, “Nice to meet you. Can you hear me?”

“Pfft.” Gu Kaifeng covered his mouth and turned his face away.

Lin Feiran looked at Gu Kaifeng with narrowed eyes for a while, then turned to the Bodhi tree and said with enlightenment: “I want to tell you something. Monk Cheng Guan has stayed with you here for three hundred years. Since he passed, he has stayed under your shade and released other souls. He has never left you... My boyfriend and I have the Yin-Yang Eyes, and can see him. Monk Cheng Guan told us that your favourite flowers are the hibiscus on the western slope and asked us to bring them here for you to look at. My boyfriend dug up two of them and planted them here for you to see in the future.”

After these words were spoken, the Bodhi tree remained as it was, ordinary. It didn’t suddenly turn into a human, and didn’t suddenly open its mouth to speak. The reaction was so unexceptional it didn’t do justice to that tragically beautiful legend.

Lin Feiran paused and glanced at Cheng Guan, who was looking at him. He put one hand over his mouth, as if worried that Cheng Guan would hear him. He quietly whispered to the tree bark, “Monk Cheng Guan has feelings for you too. He tacitly admitted it.”

This was a promise.

A slight uncertainty surfaced in Cheng Guan’s calm face. He gripped the prayer beads in his hand tightly and stepped away, then turned and returned to the tree’s shade and gazed at it alongside the two of them.

The Bodhi tree still did not react at all.

The Bodhi tree’s leaves looked a little like hearts. The tree had an entire crown of hearts, yet seemed like a heartless tree.

Lin Feiran was a little disappointed. He was considering repeating himself, but then a warm wind suddenly descended from the distant clouds, just touching the Bodhi tree’s crown. It rustled its leaves and left. This phenomenon was faint, and departed quickly, but the Bodhi tree’s crown was left lightly moving up and down. The jade-green leaves rustled as they rubbed against each other, as if the Bodhi tree was bowing its head and whispering. Some loose leaves floated down with the wind; one of them gently brushed against Cheng Guan’s translucent face, like a kiss that was three hundred years too late.

And the hundreds and thousands of red silk ribbons people had tied onto the branches for prayers also started waving gently with the motion of the tree. Close to each other, they drifted gracefully, looking like an unbroken sea of red, audacious and joyful. Inexplicably, it made Lin Feiran think of the red veils that brides wore in the olden days.

–She had heard.

This sweet yet bitter notion passed through Lin Feiran’s heart. He gazed at the tree and stretched out his hand to take Gu Kaifeng’s, who squeezed back even more resolutely.

“She heard,” Cheng Guan said, a smile surfacing on his lips. He turned and bowed to the two, saying, “Thank you very much, my benefactors.”

“No need for thanks. I’m glad we could help.” Lin Feiran waved his hand. He thought, then asked tenderly, “Monk, from now on... will you still stay here?”

“I, your humble monk, will stay here and release ghosts.” Cheng Guan sat back under the tree in the same position he had always been and said, “Until there are no more ghosts that need releasing in this world.”

His tone was light and calm, as if he was speaking of a very ordinary thing.

“Benefactors, you need not pity us.” Cheng Guan kept looking at the two of them. “Benefactors, you are truly kindhearted, so I will say a little more, though I do not usually do so.”

Lin Feiran nodded. “Go on.”

Cheng Guan asked, though he already knew the answer: “Benefactors, are you in love?”

Lin Feiran faintly recalled that Buddhists were not very supportive of homosexuality, but while he was hesitating, Gu Kaifeng admitted it bluntly: “Yes.”

Cheng Guan watched them, but his gaze seemed faraway. He said calmly, “In your past lives, you suffered a lot. You were kept apart in life and in death, and that is how you could meet each other in this life.”

Lin Feiran’s eyes opened wide, and Gu Kaifeng frowned lightly.

Cheng Guan smiled slightly. “From now on, benefactors, all things will go your way and you will have a lifetime of joy and peace.”

When he finished, he reached out to Lin Feiran’s right hand. “Benefactor, may I see your right hand?”

Deeply moved, Lin Feiran stretched out his right hand, and Cheng Guan touched Lin Feiran’s palm with a finger. In the instant Cheng Guan touched him, Lin Feiran not only did not feel the same terrible chill enveloping him that he usually did when ghosts came near him, but rather felt very warm. Immediately afterwards, Cheng Guan drew a mark on Lin Feiran’s palm. When he finished, the mark shone golden and bright, then turned dark. Lin Feiran examined his palm closely but saw nothing at all.

“A small thank-you,” Cheng Guan said. “This mark will let your right hand touch ghosts. The ability to use the Yin-Yang Eyes resides in you, but you are not skilled in magic and still cannot do many things. And you are probably unwilling to isolate yourself to cultivate this...”

Gu Kaifeng’s gaze turned cold and he held onto Lin Feiran tightly.

They came out on vacation! How could his wife undergo pabbajja?

Cheng Guan continued: “This mark may help you in small ways, so do keep it.”

“Thank you, Master!” Lin Feiran put his hands together, his eyes shining.

He couldn’t think of many uses for touching ghosts at this point, but in the future it would probably come in useful.

Cheng Guan nodded in agreement and said slowly, “When you two descend the mountain you will meet several beggars. The young man wearing blue is the one who truly needs help. If it’s not too much trouble, please give him some food.”

With that, Cheng Guan raised a hand and rested it on a ghost who had been waiting to be released for a while and attentively recited a scripture.

One by one, the ghosts’ grudges vanished amidst the sound of chanting. They grew translucent and insubstantial. Drifting lightly alongside a blade of grass, they caught faintly on a bird’s feather, and wafted along with the scent of a flower... vanishing into the wind.

Before they left, Lin Feiran took a photo of the Bodhi tree.

It was afternoon in the temple’s back garden and the tree was an ordinary one, but Lin Feiran and Gu Kaifeng knew the touching scene that had transpired beneath its shade. They bowed and bid Monk Cheng Guan farewell. After leaving the temple Gu Kaifeng shut his Yin-Yang eyes, and in unison they sighed deeply like they had just completed a momentous task. Then they locked eyes and smiled.

“RanRan, according to the monk...” Gu Kaifeng looked at Lin Feiran, eyes flashing darkly. “We’ve known each other for several lifetimes, haven’t we?”

Lin Feiran skipped along the narrow path down the mountain. “Mm, it sounded pretty tragic.”

Gu Kaifeng swiftly caught up. “That’s why everything goes smoothly in this life. It’s quite nice.”

Lin Feiran looked into the distance and said gravely, “I wonder what we were like in our previous lifetimes. Were we men or women?”

Gu Kaifeng said with a smile, “Maybe we were gay in every lifetime.”

Lin Feiran: “......”

There must have been at least one lifetime where I was on top!

Lin Feiran bent down to pluck a dandelion from the roadside and blew it into the wind. How lively!

“Ay, I’ve never seen something like that before.” Gu Kaifeng stuck a hand out to catch the fragile white puffs. “It’s rather touching. I can’t describe the feeling.”

“Me neither,” Lin feiran said with melancholy. “But if even you can’t say it, then how could I?”

He was bad at literature, so this was very characteristic of him!

Gu Kaifeng smiled and took his hand. “In the future, we won’t be apart in life and we won’t be apart in death.”

After a pause, he explained, “No matter which of us dies first, our soul will keep the other company. When the other dies too, we’ll become a pair of ghost husbands. Neither of us will reincarnate.”

Lin Feiran thought carefully about the plausibility and said, “Mm, my grandpa and grandma are like that now. The two of them keep each other company in their old house and neither of them go to reincarnate.”

Gu Kaifeng suddenly said worriedly, “But I don’t know if ghosts can do that. If we can’t, then wouldn’t we lose some excitement?”

Lin Feiran was both angry and amused. He pinched Gu Kaifeng’s face and pulled. “Save it! According to the monk, this lifetime will go smoothly. We’ll die peacefully in our sleep, and by that time we’ll be seventy or eighty. Whether human or ghost, you won’t be able to get it up.”

“Tsk, you’re so sure?” Gu Kaifeng wickedly lifted an eyebrow. “I’ll keep that in mind. When we’re old, we’ll see.”

Lin Feiran turned red and ran forward, leaving Gu Kaifeng behind him. “......”

My husband is shockingly stubborn in certain ways!

The two went down the mountain, and wondered where they would meet the beggars who really needed help that Monk Cheng Guan had mentioned. Lin Feiran even went to a convenience store and bought some food – mostly instant food that one only needed to open the bag to eat, and also two piping hot buns. He also bought some simple daily necessities.