Dreams Shattered, Soul Faded for Fifty Years

That night, the northern sky was full of stars.

Xunyang City, once the capital of Great Jin. At its northwestern corner, beneath Mount Zhong, lay an abandoned wilderness garden called Willow Garden. Old willows trembled softly in the May night breeze amid the rank grass beneath them.

A white-haired old man stood in the ruined garden, one hand stroking an ancient willow. His hand was like a century-old tree itself, full of the weathering of time. He was Zong Chi, Great Corner's Imperial Preceptor, who had left White Water Residence in Great Corner's capital.

"Grandfather, is this the willow tree you planted long ago?" the girl beside him asked.

"Yes. When Grandfather left home, I planted twenty-nine willow trees with my own hands, representing my twenty-ninth year. It has now been exactly fifty-three years. The nation is gone, the home is broken, the people are dead, the willows are old, and so am I. Cough..."

A violent fit of coughing seized him, and specks of blood scattered beneath the willow roots.

The girl supported her grandfather's withered, frail body as it swayed on the verge of collapse. At a complete loss, her face turned white with panic. "Grandfather..."

Zong Chi slowly straightened up. A smile gradually appeared on his paper-pale face. "After fifty years away from home, I have finally returned. That dream of my distant homeland, so far away it seemed beyond imagination, has finally shown the first glimmer of dawn. Grandfather is not sorrowful. Grandfather is very happy. Grandfather still wishes to compose a poem..."

He extended his hand, and a Precious Brush appeared in it.

He strode forward to the screen wall before Willow Garden.

Starlight flowed like water, and Willow Garden seemed as it had once been.

In that instant, he seemed to see himself standing