Fragrance

Author: Ximen
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-10-20
Features: 30-episode TV series "The Fragrance Family," broadcasted by China Central Television in the summer of 2005 during the prime time. Lianyi once stood for a long time before the open, carved window of the bamboo and wood cottage. At that time, she was like a goddess, immersing her beautiful face in the cool moonlight, making the unique moon in her eyes appear as a pair. When she closed her eyes alone, she would gently converse with them in her heart, but she didn’t know if she used the cold light to freeze or warm the vows once made. To this day, I still remember the way the light yellow silk robe swayed lazily in the breeze, and the ripples traced on her soft body by the moonlight. I guess that a woman who can sing "Farewell on the Path" to the point of pain would surely have an unparalleled sorrow in her eyes when she thinks of me.
I have cultivated the divine ability of smelling through countless kalpas, sniffing all the infinite beings in the ten directions, knowing the fragrances of virtue and evil, subtle and fine, fire, water, noon, worldly, and Daoist fragrances, as well as the fragrances of the Bodhisattva sitting under the tree king, the fragrance of precepts, concentration, wisdom, liberation, the fragrance of liberation and insight, teaching all beings with boundless compassion, the fragrance of pity for all beings, the fragrance of joyous and gentle faces, the fragrance of letting go everywhere, the fragrance of distinguishing the subtlest dust, the fragrance of distant illumination, the fragrance of gathering the masses in harmony, the fragrance of the five aggregates in purity, the fragrance of holding without arising, the fragrance of stopping and extinguishing all impurities, the fragrance of hearing precepts and practicing charity, the fragrance of shame and humility without arrogance, the fragrance of immortal methods surpassing fragrances, the fragrance of speaking without hindrance, the fragrance of Sheli Han spreading noon, the fragrance of sealing the Buddha’s treasury, and the fragrance of endless seven treasures.
The novel tells a tragic and melancholic love story in the form of a diary, told from the perspective of a ghost who has been lurking in the Qinhuai River for two hundred years, waiting for rebirth. During the Hongwu era of the Ming Dynasty, Lin Yiruo, the young master of Juxia Fang in the Fragrance Family, brought the art of perfumery to its utmost beauty. He was ethereal and unrestrained, wandering between the palace and the ladies’ quarters, with countless beautiful women lost in the mists of his Qilin fragrance. Perhaps by fate, Lin Yiruo fell in love with the beautiful and sorrowful woman Lianyi. Lianyi disliked all fragrances and did not believe in true love in the mortal world. Thus, a love story that transcends life and death unfolded.
Later, there was a perfume made from withered flowers on graves, tears of blood from eyes, and the deepest love in the heart—the Fragrance of Lianyi. Its scent drifted along the banks of the Qinhuai River, and anyone who smelled it could not help but feel sorrow.