Crossing the collapsed mountain gate, they walked up to the hall. Bathed in the dim yellow light of the lamp, Mu Yunle felt as if she had stepped from the dead of night into broad daylight.
The lamplight was not bright. Amid the lonely peaks stretching a thousand li, it seemed small and solitary. The world before her was still dim, still indistinct, yet compared with the darkness beyond the temple and the curtain of pouring rain, it felt so much warmer, so much more peaceful, so much brighter. A halo rested on each lotus blossom, outshining a bath in sunlight and stirring the sigh, "Lotuses reflecting the sun glow red in a different way."
Tok, tok, tok... Mu Yunle's state of mind suddenly grew tranquil. She had a poetic soul, as befitted someone from the Flower Washing Sword Sect, and in an instant she seemed to have journeyed from the chivalrous fervor of "Ten steps to kill a man, a thousand li without a trace" to the faint, mournful serenity of "Behind the lamp, beneath the moon, beside the flowers—ten years of traces, ten years of heart."
Her expression softened, her gaze grew gentle, but her vigilance did not wane. She raised her right hand, intending to knock.
Just then, the tottering doors of the Main Hall creaked open. At some point, the sound of the wooden fish had stopped.
Behind the door stood a monk in gray robes, his face gaunt and his age difficult to guess. Thirty seemed plausible; so did forty.
Mu Yunle paused. The monk looked ordinary and haggard, but a closer look revealed striking features. In his youth, he must have been a handsome man of elegant bearing. Now his spirit seemed like withered wood, and weariness and exhaustion lay plain in his eyes.