Deep in a subway tunnel, I once heard breathing that did not belong to this era.
It was no miracle, but a karmic tribulation no living soul could escape.
The “ding” was not a System, but the mournful cry of the compass in my hand striking a statue of a god.
I have witnessed the madness of sacrificing one’s own kin for immortality, and the devotion of someone keeping watch over a lonely grave for a hundred years.
The human heart is an abyss, and feng shui a mirror, reflecting the ugliest truths of this glittering world.
(I smile bitterly.) “It turns out the hardest thing to read has never been a tomb’s location, but the human heart.”
On a bustling street, I brushed past a god as the compass in my hand spun wildly.
In this journey of cultivation among mortals, the one I sent off was the god. The one I saved was myself.
