A little bridge spanned flowing water beside homes, and dew lay upon the water lilies in the pond.
Each dewdrop seemed to reflect the three people on either bank of the pond...
His white robes fluttered as he faced the two people in the little pavilion, smiling through tears.
He seemed a fallen leaf blown from a branch, drifting far away upon the wind. He had waited a thousand years for the wind to blow toward the old tree, and now he rode it home.
This long stretch of time had lasted far, far too long...
Yet the two in the pavilion seemed to have aged considerably. The white at their temples resembled two wisps of drifting snow blown into his heart.
Seeping into his very soul...
The white-robed young man carefully straightened his appearance, then knelt on the ground and bowed deeply to the two elders in the little pavilion.
The three flowers above his head seemed like the longing filling his heart that he could not put into words.
The woman in the pavilion looked at the white-robed figure beside the pond and could no longer keep herself from covering her mouth. Crystalline jade beads rolled ceaselessly from her eyes.
A patch of the silk embroidery on her phoenix robe grew wet...
Emperor Ying trembled all over and looked up at the pavilion eaves, as though he dared not lower his head.
The three stood across the pond from one another. Unable to hold back any longer, the woman rose into the air and skimmed across the water to the white-robed youth.
She gently helped him up, raised her hands to cradle his cheeks, and opened her mouth, yet could not utter a word...
She seemed unable to believe it, as though afraid that all of this was