From then on, he took his bow into the mountains each morning at first light and returned at dusk with a deer slung over his back and pheasants in hand. The stove fire was gently warm, and steaming millet porridge filled a coarse pottery bowl. The two sat side by side, murmuring softly as cooking smoke curled upward. The years passed in peace.
But when the clan's white-haired old priest peacefully passed away in his sleep, Chang'e's heart quietly sank. She spent the entire day in a daze, silent and distracted, a faint, unshakable sorrow ever lingering between her brows. Even Hou Yi, who was usually careless and rough around the edges, gradually noticed something was wrong. He anxiously rubbed his hands, grabbed her wrist, and pressed her for an answer. "Ah'e, what happened to you?"
She looked up at him, her dark brows slightly furrowed and her eyes glistening as though they held autumn waters. Unable to evade his questioning, she finally revealed her thoughts in a low voice. "Human life is like a candle—born at dawn and dead by dusk. No one can escape the crushing wheel of reincarnation. No one can withstand the erosion of time. Faces wither, black hair turns white. I'm afraid that one day, you'll still be here, while I won't. I didn't dare say it because I was afraid you'd worry." Her voice was clear and sweet, like a new oriole singing for the first time in the forest, yet also like water washing over stones in a mountain stream, so pure that it held not the slightest trace of worldly dust.
After hearing this, Hou Yi pulled her into his arms and comforted her again and again for a long while, but for the moment, he could find no way to break