I Can Never Escape My Longing for You

[Forbidden love + past and present lives + tragic romance + a groveling pursuit + the beauty of a tragic ending] He is doomed to eternal loneliness; her soul is scattered beyond recovery. “I have guided countless souls across, but I cannot guide you; my longing knows no end, and yet... I can never guide it to an end.” A solitary lamp cannot light the way home; a tiny firefly cannot burn away endless longing. He is Xie Du, a heartless ferryman on the shadowy road, guiding souls for a thousand years yet unable to escape his own heart's trial. She is Yu Ying, a lonely spirit kept behind by her attachment, lingering for a hundred years, waiting for someone who never returned. When the soul-guiding lamp reflects the yearning in her eyes, and memories of a past life tear through the disguise of the present, forbidden love burns like a firefly against the heart, illuminating the deepest pain. He is the one she has waited for all this time, while she is the soul he must send away with his own hands. The waters of the River of Forgetfulness run cold, and flowers bloom aflame on the far shore. She is willing to let her soul scatter for him; he defies Heaven to change her fate, accepting eternal punishment in solitude. But even after traversing the entire shadowy road and burning through all the lamp oil, some partings are already set in stone. In the end, she dissolves into stardust and vanishes into the Abyss of Return, while he walks alone through the eternal cold night, carrying that never-extinguished glass lamp. In its wick, a faint firefly flickers, like the tenderness she left behind, or the longing he can never guide to its end.