"There has never been one who found ultimate bliss in this world; bronze flowers fall before the lotus. The fortune-stick tube shatters the moon at the eaves... For whom was this supreme fortune stick drawn!"
In a small courtyard weathered by many years, within a simply furnished bedroom, Granny Ji—her hair gray, her teeth loose and fallen—sat hunched before a bronze mirror, combing her silver hair with a wooden comb as she recalled a summer from many years ago.
She too had once been in the full bloom of youth, carrying a heart that loved, brimming with visions of the future.
How had she grown old afterward?
The mirror was stained with dusty haze; her rosy face gradually withered.
Ash piled up in the incense burner, year after year.
A single bean-sized oil lamp lit the meditation room. On this night, she saw a hazy past within the mirror... The lamplight swayed, outlining a tall, slender figure.
It drew nearer and nearer, becoming ever more distinct in the bronze mirror.
At last, a handsome face appeared, set in the mirror alongside her own face, wrinkled like old tree bark.
The round mirror was like a window. The faces within it stood one behind the other, one far, one near.
Like a fresh flower beside a tangle of thorns.
Granny Ji gently pushed the bronze mirror forward—
Farther away from the self she despised... and from that greater distance, she could see the visitor more clearly.
The delicate, handsome man in the mirror wore ceremonial robes that were somewhat beyond his station.
A Crown Prince's robes were embroidered with four-clawed purple-gold dragons. The round dragon emblem on his robes also bore four claws.
This prince had never concealed his ambition, nor did he care for such notions as "frugality and virtue