They laugh at your folly in pampering and spoiling;
The caltrop blossom faces the snow in vain.
Beware the time after the Lantern Festival—
For that is when the smoke disperses and the fire dies.
English titles, text, and notes are AI-assisted for reading only; for scholarship cite the Chinese and authoritative editions.
Annotation
Spoken by the Lame Monk to Zhen Shiyin in Chapter 1, foreshadowing that Yinglian (later renamed Xiangling) would be kidnapped on Lantern Festival night, and the Zhen family would suffer a fire. 'Caltrop blossom' alludes to Yinglian/Xiangling.
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