Flowers fell, their fragrance spent in the Buddhist hall; a withered Buddha sat alone in the tower.
Before the temple, people sought others to pray for good fortune; an old monk silently swept the autumn.
Year after year, autumn winds painted lovely scenes; the evergreens first showed their heads.
Yet year upon year flowed away like water, and deep sorrow spread across the placid river...
The evergreen trees in the mountain forests seemed so conspicuous only when all other trees withered and yellowed. Year after year, it was always so.
The people of this world hurried through their busy lives. Who would care about the withered grass and trees?
Decades had passed since the White-Clad One died. The ordinary people of those days had all grown old, and countless new people had been born. The Flowers of the Other Shore that had covered the world were ultimately forgotten by its people; only a scant few still remembered...
Nor did the world know that a Little Girl in the mountain forests had never grown any older...
Vast and unending, the years slipped by like flowing sand.
Time flowed like water, and another century passed in the blink of an eye.
In an unknowable place, a pitch-black Book of Life and Death seemed to cross the endless Long River, drifting into a boundless expanse of white mist.
Nothing could be seen clearly within that white mist. It seemed weightless, detached from heaven and earth...
A Heaven-Piercing Stone Stele stood within the white mist, like a world unto itself.
Beneath the Stone Stele stood a woman in a pure white long dress. Her slender figure stood graceful and tall, and a golden Divine Rune marked her forehead, yet her face could not be seen clearly.
The Book of Life and Death floated before