The elderly Daoist's voice carried a profound weariness.
"Everyone envies cultivators, believing they live free and unfettered, with immortality within reach."
"But only after setting foot on the path of cultivation do you realize that the Upper Realm is flowers in a mirror, the moon on water, forever beyond your grasp. Even three hundred years of striving cannot bring you so much as a glimpse of its entrance."
"Time slips away, your spirit is worn smooth, and when your lifespan runs out, you have no choice but to relinquish everything and depart for another incarnation."
"Your spiritual awareness grows clouded, your true self struggles to awaken, and everything from your previous life becomes one great dream. Life after life wears you down, until the obsessions you once held dissolve amid the smoke of mortal hearths." "The soaring ambitions of youth cannot escape the falling of spring's last blossoms."
"Cultivators merely remain awake a little longer than ordinary mortals..."
The woman slowly walked outside the Library Pavilion. As though guided by blurred memories, she deftly circled several clumps of shrubs and came to a small pool beside the building. Its water was clear and shallow, with a few water lilies floating on the surface.
The spot was utterly unremarkable. Anyone unfamiliar with it would never have made a special detour there.
She lifted the hem of her skirt, found a flat green stone, and sat down with an easy, natural motion.
Resting her hands on her knees, she lowered her head and gazed blankly at her reflection in the water. Her posture was so natural that she seemed to have sat beside this pool a thousand times before.
The old man sighed. With his fly whisk resting in the crook of his arm, he slowly explained where the woman had come