Zhuge Qingfeng's smile stiffened. "Please!"
Lin Su recited in a drawn-out voice, "A new Ci tune, a cup of wine; last year's weather, the old pavilion. When will the setting sun return? Helplessly, the flowers fall away; familiar somehow, the swallows come back. Alone I wander the fragrant path of the little garden!"
Zhuge Qingfeng's heart twisted into knots...
This Ci was beyond compare!
This Ci was peerlessly exquisite!
This Ci embodied the highest attainment of the Ci Dao. It was the ceiling of the poetic path he had pursued all his life.
Yet this Ci drifted forth so leisurely in such circumstances, landing on him like a crushing blow!
Because he understood its meaning.
A new Ci tune, a cup of wine—his life had entered a new realm.
Last year's weather, the old pavilion—he and Lin Su had met only last year. The people remained the same, yet the world had already turned upside down.
He refused to accept being beneath Lin Su, but what could he do?
In the Dao of poetry and Ci, he was inferior!
In cultivation, he was inferior!
In wisdom, he was inferior!
Those words Lin Su had once spoken turned into venomous serpents once more, coiling tightly around his heart: Wherever I am, it is not your turn to point at mountains and rivers! You must accept defeat, and you must get used to it!
The three things Zhuge Qingfeng had relied upon for fame and taken pride in all his life—the glory of poetry and Ci, the radiance of wisdom, and his status as a cultivation genius—had been suppressed one by one by Lin Su. Zhuge Qingfeng's era had passed!
This was helplessly, the flowers fall away!
And Lin Su had stepped into a new realm. Looking around, he stood alone!
This