Until one day, a youth suddenly appeared on the rear mountain platform of Small Bamboo Peak. After Zhao Min saw him cultivating, he sat on the platform with his back to her, staring blankly into the distance just as she did.
Looking at the youth shrouded in moonlight, Zhao Min seemed to see her former self sitting alone on the platform amid the night. From him, she sensed a faint sorrow...
Not long after, she saw the youth raise a hand, as though wiping away tears. Then he stood facing the moon, straightened his clothes, and knelt down with utmost reverence...
"You... you mortals really have something called a year-end festival?"
On the roof of a pavilion in the prince's residence's rear courtyard, Zhao Min, looking like a young maiden, murmured softly. As that scene surfaced in her mind, her thoughts seemed to carry her back to that very moment, and she spoke together with the Zhao Min of her memories.
Then, in her mind, the youth bowed down and respectfully kowtowed toward the front of the platform.
"Father, Mother, Happy... New Year... Happy New Year..."
From that night onward, the platform amid the bamboo forest on the rear mountain gained another ordinary-looking youth in its nighttime scenery. Like her, he sat at the edge of the platform, with a bottomless abyss beneath them. Both dangled their feet in the air, swinging them back and forth under the moonlight...
From then on, Zhao Min no longer spent most of her nights beneath the moon simply staring at the full moon and stars overhead. Instead, she would gaze together with the youth at the mountain peaks in the distant darkness.
The mountains in the night became rolling, undulating curves, as though they had separated heaven and earth from this place, dividing