Three years passed quickly. Miss Du missed the place she used to live when she was young so much that she “flied” with the night wind to Nan’an and revisited the garden where she had the dream. Each visit made her sadder as the garden grew more desolate. One night towards the end of her three years, she returned to the garden and looked upon the Plum Nunnery in the moonlight. It made her remember her aged father, loving mother and the maid who had been like a sister to her.
The air carried a whisper to her, as if someone was reading a poem. She heard someone calling “Sister, Sister” and chanting a poem. She listened carefully and realized that it was her poem in the painting she had wrote besides her portrait before her death. Knowing that the painting had been hidden in the garden’s rockery, she was quite confused. How could anyone chant my poem?
Looking around, she noticed a light coming from the window of a small room in the west veranda of the nunnery. She made her way to the window, looked inside and saw a young scholar censing and worshipping in front of a painting on the wall.
“My beauty, my sister,” he repeated quietly.
Without thought, she pushed open the door to the tiny room. A gust of wind entered the room so strongly it nearly blew out the candle. The young man hurriedly put his hands on the painting for fear that the wind might blow the painting away. By the dim candlelight she realized that he was the young scholar in her dream, and that the painting was in fact the one she had painted herself. She also noticed that another poem was now written besides her own and it was signed “Liu Mengmei.” “The young man in my dream was holding a willow branch in his hand,” Miss Du thought, “so I guess that my future husband would be surnamed Liu (a homophone to the Chinese word willow). It looks likely that we are connected and it may be a predestined marriage bestowed by the God Heaven.” Though exulted, she did not disturb the young scholar. Instead, she changed into a light breeze and drifted away.
She returned to this window day after day to watch him praying in front of her painting. She was so deeply moved by her devotion that she was no longer concerned with all the rules from her life and social etiquette of the young women from respectable families. Nor did she care that he was human while she was a sprite. All she wanted was to return to her human self and live a long life with her lover.
One night as Liu sat before the painting like usual he heard a rustling of the bamboo leaves outside. He listened more closely, and soon heard a knock on his window.
“Who could this be, as it is so late,” he asked himself, assuming that it was the nun bringing him tea.
“Is that Mother Stone? Thank you but no tea, please.”
“I am not Mother Stone,” said a woman outside the window. Puzzled, Liu opened the door hesitantly, only to see a beautiful woman standing before him. With a quick smile she skipped into the room. Confused, he quickly shut the door behind him, afraid that someone might have seen their brief interaction. The woman bashfully greeted the young man. He returned her greeting and asked her which family she came from and why she came here in the dead of night.
“Take a guess, my scholar.”
“Are you a fairy descending from heaven?” “How can it be?”
“Maybe you were traveling and got lost? Or you are a runaway?”
“No,” she said with a shake of her head and a smile. “Have you ever dreamed of a lover in this very garden?”
“Yes…”
“I’m here because of those dreams.” “Then, where’s your home?”
“Not far from here. In the village, near the nunnery, but no one lives there except for my lonely and helpless parents.”
“Then why are you here,” he asked her, still feeling very confused.
“Because I found you an elegant, handsome, refined young man and I wanted to talk to you.”
“Is this a dream?” Liu couldn’t place her but he felt as if he had seen her somewhere before. He rubbed his eyes, checking to see if he was dreaming.
“This is not a dream. This is real,” the girl answered. “What’s your name?”
“You will know everything soon,” she wanted to tell him everything but because she still belonged to the sprite world she was afraid she would scare him if she revealed the truth.
“Be patient.”
“Fine,” he replied slowly. “I will not ask again if you agree to visit me every night.”
Died of depression and grieve because of love, the girl had finally met her dream sweetheart and could live happily together. Though a sprite, she felt happier now than when she was a human because she could do whatever she wanted.
