"Foolish child."
Seeing the terror in his disciple's eyes, Wu Shisan instead smiled in relief. "When I was young, my memory was sharp. Whenever I missed home, I could immerse myself in it, as though I had truly returned."
The old Daoist's voice grew somewhat distant.
"But once you grow old, your memories blur. Whenever you miss home, you instead feel even farther away from it."
"Still..."
"Fortunately, in the end, I returned to this land..."
"It could be said that..."
"Fallen leaves return to their roots."
As he spoke.
Wu Shisan lowered his head impassively and looked toward Chang'an, a trace of yearning flashing through his eyes.
He merely watched the crisscrossing streets of Chang'an, watched the common folk wailing amid the ruins.
Watched this boundless mortal dust, this human world of hearth-smoke and flame.
In a daze.
Time seemed to flow backward more than a thousand years.
Those were the old years of the Han Dynasty.
There were no immortal blessed lands, no Tower-Climbing True Persons.
Only a dark alley reeking of cosmetics and sour swill.
There was a bastard with no father there.
And a whore who would spread her legs for a few copper coins.
The woman was not pretty, and her figure was bloated. Even among those brothels and pleasure houses, she belonged to the lowliest rank.
Every day, for a few copper coins, she had to force a smile for men reeking of liquor, while enduring the madam's beatings and the contemptuous looks of the pimps.
The child had been sensible since he was little. He knew he was the bastard that woman had given birth to.
But the woman protected him.
Whenever there was something delicious, she could not bear to eat it herself and stuffed it all into his mouth.
"Eat more.