On a cliff behind a cascading waterfall, Mu Bai took out a dagger and carved out a cave abode several zhang across. The waterfall, flowing day and night without rest, hung like a curtain outside it. Whenever the sun rose in the east over the Dao Sea, whenever watery moonlight shimmered in the starry sky, Mu Bai liked to sit cross-legged at the cave entrance, gazing at the vast land and all its living beings before him.
For more than a decade, Mu Bai had never known such peace. He could think of nothing at all, or spend great stretches of time pondering a single matter, thinking of one person, or contemplating a principle or a truth.
Even the waterfall's roar gradually took on a rhythm, lingering in his ears, rising and falling in resonance with his thoughts.
The scenes shifted. With the thunder of the water, Mu Bai seemed to travel upstream along the long river of time. Yet his journey did not end in the Haibei Tribe. Instead, he passed through life after life, seemingly without end. Everything he saw and experienced in each lifetime seemed shrouded in mist. He strained to break through it, yet could never see anything clearly.
Through all those lifetimes, the only thing he remembered clearly was a woman in white by his side. In every life, they walked hand in hand, never leaving or abandoning each other.
After an unknown length of time, after who knew how many cycles of reincarnation, Mu Bai finally awoke, his eyes weathered by the ages and filled with bewilderment.
"Why was it like that? Who was that woman in white?"
Mu Bai bared the single-petaled Pear Blossom Mark on his right arm, recalling how, when he first inscribed a Soul Mark, the figure of that woman