I fell silent.
I pondered his words: the place of origin, the place of return.
In other words, all things in the world were born from this place and ended here as well.
That was why this place was both Yuan Valley and Guixu.
"I understand now. He called himself Yuan, but from beginning to end, you never said what your name was. You never even told me who you were, so I naturally assumed you two were the same person and called you Mister Yuan too. But you aren't Yuan. You should be Return—Mister Return, right?"
He was slightly taken aback, then burst into laughter. Some emotion finally appeared on his face, which had previously shown almost no fluctuation.
"You were able to guess my identity from a single sentence. You are teachable. But you are wrong about one thing. You should not have doubted your initial guess. He and I are indeed the same person. He is Yuan, and I am Return, but Yuan is Return, and Return is Yuan. Do you understand?"
I nodded. "I understand."
"No, you still don't understand. Let me ask you: what do you think the relationship between Yuan and Return is?"
"An inevitable causal relationship. Where there is an origin, there will be a return, just as where there is life, there will be death."
"Wrong. Completely wrong. Yuan and Return are not actually connected by causality. Neither are life and death. The reason you think they are cause and effect is because you have imposed upon them the concept of time that you created. But what would you think if I told you that origin and conclusion occur at the same time?"
My mind became a little muddled.
I thought again of the example that woman had given me about time