The Moment Between Flying and Falling

Book 2: Chapter 9

Before long, Yanbo settled into a routine. In the mornings and afternoons, she would help the nun with a bunch of daily chores, like making a trip into the town, drawing fresh water from a nearby well, or sweeping away mud tracked in by the occasional passerby. After everything was done, she would sit outside in the sunlight and read, slowly making her way through the stacks of novels. They were mostly epic tales of heroism, love and betrayal, success and failure, tragedy and comedy, and more. She read them with minimal interest, but she allowed herself to be swept away into the stories, and day by day, she slowly came to heal, even telling the nun, who she'd regarded as a senior, who was to be respected but not gotten too close to, her true identity and the event that had caused her to be kicked out of her home. The nun merely smiled and accepted her answer without much comment, only giving a few words of, "the dead are already gone," in a vague sense of comfort.

Often, pretty awful storms would set upon the area, driving many people to take refuge in the temple, and, so, the name of the small temple to Lin Jinghe, goddess of justice and equity, became well-known throughout the nearby Longnan town. With that came a couple of people who were relatively more shameless, putting their pride away to stay in the temple for extended periods of time while they tried to earn money and get a foothold on their life, and once those shameless people took the initiative, other people began to feel less ashamed about overstaying the hosts' welcome, and the once quiet temple became more and more active and lively.

Even though the expenses for supporting so many people only grew and grew as more people came, the nun and Yanbo never asked or demanded a cent from any person who stayed. Luckily, their added fame in the town led more people to come and donate, some of the richer families of the nearby Longnan town even pledging monthly donations. Therefore, their donations box became quite a steady source of income to support the many people streaming in and out of their temple.

Yanbo's routine, however, remained unshaken throughout the changes and developments in their temple, which was now becoming an infamous homeless shelter in the local area. She continued reading, with one particular story catching her attention.

It was about two wealthy female girls from two wealthy families, but those two wealthy families were competitors with each other, so they never liked each other. The two girls met when they were very young and immediately took a liking to each other, and the book detailed some interactions that Yanbo had distinctly remembered had only ever been mentioned in books between boys and girls. Even if it wasn't a boy and a girl, it would at least be a boy and a boy. She had never heard of female cut-sleeves before.

Yanbo asked the nun about it, and the nun reasoned that if it was possible with a boy and a boy, a boy and a girl, there was no reason why it couldn't be possible with a girl and a girl.

"But I don't think you see them often. Parents are always rushing to get their daughters married off to some man because they usually won't get anything good from staying single all their lives, so even if a girl has such... tendencies, it would never get past their parents, and they'd be married off to a man anyways." The nun explained, sounding rather expert on the topic. Yanbo nodded thoughtfully and returned to reading the story. The story didn't have a happy ending, like many of the cut-sleeve books she read, and it disappointed her quite a lot.

However, when the disaster of the next day struck, she didn't have time to think about it anymore.

It had been one year since Yanbo had left behind her broken family at her mother's request, and she was rather surprised that she hadn't bumped into any of her fellow cultivators from the cultivating world. Even though the town of Longnan wasn't within the borders of any cultivating Sect, there would at least be some cultivators passing through the town now and then.