Meeting You on a Country Path

Seven hundred years ago, he plucked a flowering branch and tucked it into her hair. He said, "May I stay by your side, and never doubt you for all my life."

It was a vow he made with his own lips, and one he destroyed with his own hands.

Seven hundred years later, she stood before him as a revered goddess. Smiling, she bowed to him, her face serene and untroubled. She said, "Feng Heng of the Phoenix Clan pays her respects to Donghua Dijun. May the Lord be well."

She did not know that without her at his side, how could he ever be well?

The forest flowers have faded from spring's red; it all happened too soon. What can be done, with cold rain at dawn and wind at dusk? Tears of rouge leave one drunk with sorrow. When will we meet again? Such is life, with its endless regrets flowing east like the waters.

The waters of the River of Oblivion, the flames of rebirth: what can be forgotten is love. What cannot be forgotten is an obsession etched into the bones.

She thought that over their long lives, they had ultimately missed too much and made too many mistakes. If he could return, if they could begin again, she would surely tell him the promise she had carved into the flower raft:

"All I ask is that we share each day in happiness, until death do us part."