This morning, orioles sang and stirred me from my dreams,
Breaking off last night's half-played zither tune.
I heard only morning songs pursuing departing swallows,
And saw no player remembering his lonely mother.
The child returned home, longing for the old kitchen,
Only then to learn no one lit the stove's flame.
Where longing lingered, along the Long River's road,
Upon the Other Shore, a pair... all returned to nothing...
Obsession, obsession... obsession came to nothing, all things were emptiness.
Two newly blooming Flowers of the Other Shore shimmered softly. They were like two obsessions that could remain together forever. One was longing for family, and the other was also longing for family...
Su Mo watched the two newly bloomed Flowers of the Other Shore, his expression blank, his head lowered toward the flowers beside him.
He suddenly discovered that he no longer quite understood the Flowers of the Other Shore.
Immortal Ziyu and his mother had, in the end, been buried here at Floating Life's End.
At floating life's end lay the Other Shore; beside the Other Shore, soul flowers appeared...
"These Flowers of the Other Shore weren't brought here by Girl ten thousand years ago. These Flowers of the Other Shore were all... formed from obsession..."
Looking at the Flowers of the Other Shore blooming all around him, Su Mo remembered Girl saying, "Flowers of the Other Shore are things of longing"...
Obsession arose from longing...
Only the obsession formed by someone yearning for another could become a soul flower beside the Other Shore...
Su Mo gazed up at the sky, his expression bewildered, and murmured:
"Girl, did you really find a Flower of the Other Shore... 'very easily' back then?"
When Girl saved him, she had said that, to travel upstream against the Long River, she had