"An honored person?" The scholar was taken aback, then smiled faintly. "You used 'nobility beyond words' to describe him? To hear words like that from your mouth truly surprises me!"
The Saintess of the Underworld glanced at him, reached into the silver urn, and grabbed a handful of black sand, scattering it evenly and meticulously across the ground in the courtyard. Handful after handful fell silently from her hand, yet the black sand made a soft rustling sound as it landed, breaking the stillness.
Seeing that she ignored him, the scholar gave a bitter smile. He looked behind him, stepped back, and plopped down onto the knee-high corridor beneath the eaves. Drawing up his bare feet, he sat cross-legged beside the millstone, his hands resting on his knees, silently watching the Saintess of the Underworld scatter black sand while slowly backing away.
He had thought himself patient enough to wait for her to tend the entire courtyard at her leisure. Yet she was meticulous to the last thread, so naturally she could not work quickly. After more than an hour, less than half of the tiny courtyard had been tended. The scholar helplessly rubbed his forehead. He discovered that his patience could scarcely endure even an hour, much less the at least another hour it would take at this rate. Compared to the long ages he had lived through, what were one or two hours? Yet now... this was simply unbelievable.
So, sitting beneath the eaves, he said almost to himself, "Ever since that great war in the mortal world, it was as though clarified butter had been poured over my head, and I finally learned that Heaven's might was unfathomable. Somewhere in the unseen, there seemed to be a heavenly eye watching everything; it was not something people like