The Spring Festival came early that year. After a long winter of thin rice porridge and broken shoes, Dongxi village bloomed with red lanterns, sweet cakes, and the sounds of firecrackers chasing away evil spirits. Banners of Fu were pasted upside down on every door, wishing for fortune to arrive.
Even the temple, quiet and distant on the mountain, came alive. Villagers climbed up with baskets of offerings: oranges, dried mushrooms, roasted duck, and bundles of joss paper. It was the only time of year they came without suspicion.
Lu stood beneath the cherry blossom tree in the courtyard, a broom in her hand and thoughts too sharp for her age.
She was thirteen now, tall for her years, with hair as black as river ink and eyes too knowing. She did not speak unless spoken to, and even then, she measured her words like a merchant counting coins.
Master Wang watched her from a distance. He had watched her for thirteen years, and still, he could not see through her. She had the silence of a cat, the grace of falling snow, and something else he dared not name.
Sister Li approached with a warm mantou bun and a frown.
"You've been sweeping that same spot for half an hour," she said.
Lu blinked and looked down. Her broom had stilled, her thoughts wandering far from the stone beneath her feet.
"Do you ever wonder why they come only once a year?" she asked.
"To honor the gods," Sister Li replied.
Lu tilted her head. "Or to ease their guilt."
Sister Li sighed. "Child, you think too much."
Lu offered a small smile. "I was born to think."
That afternoon, a traveling fortune teller arrived with the villagers. He was an old man with no teeth, a wooden cane carved like a dragon, and a monkey on his shoulder that wore a red vest.
Children squealed with delight. Adults lined up for readings. He laid out his table near the offering altar, placing his eight trigrams, bamboo sticks, and coins beside an old bronze mirror.
Lu watched from the temple steps.
The monkey looked at her and hissed.
The fortune teller squinted. "You, girl. Come."
Lu didn't move.
He waved her closer. "Let me see your hand."
She walked slowly, cautiously. Her feet were silent on the stone. He took her hand and turned it palm up. His smile faded. His fingers trembled slightly. The crowd around them fell quiet.
"This one…" he murmured. "No father, no mother, no roots. Yet…" He touched the line that ran down the center of her palm. "This is a phoenix line. It is rare but see here?" He pointed to a deep cross on her fate line. "The phoenix is burned before it rises."
"What does that mean?" a woman in the crowd asked.
The fortune teller looked into Lu's face. "Sorrow, betrayal. A fire of many kinds. But she will rise high. Too high for the rest of us to reach."
The monkey shrieked and covered its eyes. Lu said nothing. But in her chest, something stirred. It was not fear.
That night, after the villagers had left and the lanterns had burned low, Master Wang called Lu to his study.
He poured her tea himself. She bowed politely, then sat on the woven mat across from him.
"You are not afraid of what the fortune teller said?" he asked.
"No," she said. "Because I already knew."
Master Wang studied her face.
"You speak with a fire behind your words," he said. "You must learn to control it."
"I will," Lu answered. "But not until I know who I truly am."
The monk nodded slowly.
"I have something for you," he said, rising and opening a lacquered chest. From it, he took out a silk bundle wrapped in red cloth. He handed it to her.
Inside was a hairpin. Jade and gold, shaped like a phoenix in flight. It was old but valuable.
"This was left with you the night you came to us. We kept it hidden, in case it brought trouble. But I believe it is time you carried it."
Lu touched the hairpin. The jade was cold, but it hummed in her hand like it remembered her.
"This is not a poor man's pin," she said.
"No," Master Wang agreed. "It may be the key to your past or your Future."
The next week, Lu left the temple for the first time in years.
Master Wang arranged for her to visit the village once a month to learn from a retired scholar named Old Madam Cheng, who had once served in the palace as a calligraphy tutor.
"She has no family," Master Wang said. "But she has knowledge more than we can give you here."
So Lu walked down the mountain in a borrowed cloak, her phoenix hairpin tucked into her sleeve. Dongxi was smaller than she remembered. The people stared as she passed, but none recognized her.
Old Madam Cheng lived in a house filled with scrolls and dust and the scent of old ink. She greeted Lu with narrowed eyes and a sniff.
"You have manners," she said. "Good. But I will break you of pride."
Lu bowed. "Then I will learn quickly."
The old woman almost smiled.
Their lessons began with poetry and history. Lu learned the names of emperors long dead, of dynasties lost to greed and betrayal. She memorized poems by Li Bai and Du Fu, wrote them with brush and ink until her wrist ached.
"You have talent," Madam Cheng said. "But your words lack softness."
"Because they are sharp," Lu replied.
But Dongxi held more than scrolls and whispers. One day, on her way back from Madam Cheng's home, Lu heard laughter from behind a tea shop. It was that of boys, teenagers. The laughter was loud and cruel.
They surrounded a smaller girl, thin, ragged, clearly from the poor side of the village. One boy pulled her hair. Another tipped over her basket of vegetables. The girl cried, scrambling to pick them up.
Lu watched for a moment. Then stepped forward.
"Leave her," she said.
The boys turned. One of them, a tall boy with a red sash and greasy hair sneered.
"And what will you do, temple girl?"
Lu didn't answer.
She walked past him, helped the girl to her feet, and handed her a fallen turnip.
The boy stepped in front of her. "Did you not hear me?"
"I did," Lu said calmly. "You sound like a pig."
He raised a hand to strike her. She moved before he could blink. Her fingers jabbed the pressure point in his wrist. He dropped to one knee, gasping. Lu's eyes never changed.
"I learned from monks," she said softly. "They taught me peace. But also balance."
She walked away, the poor girl clutching her sleeve. The boy didn't get up until long after she was gone.
Back at the temple, Master Wang said nothing when she returned with dirt on her robes and a leaf in her hair. But he smiled faintly as he swept the steps.
In the candlelight of her small room, Lu sat with the phoenix hairpin in her lap. She turned it in her fingers, watching how the jade caught the light. The fortune teller's words echoed in her ears.
"A fire of many kinds."
She traced the pattern of the phoenix's wings.
"If I must burn," she whispered, "then let me burn brighter than them all."