Life is futile in a fleeting moment; death comes in an instant, and all vanishes in the blink of an eye, like a mayfly. Yet the Scarlet Crow endures through the ages, rising at dawn and setting at night. How can it last not merely a thousand years, but ten thousand? Why?
Heaven and earth are an inn for all things; time is a passing guest through the ages. Mortal life is like a dream, so how much joy can we truly find? Longing for the sun and moon's eternal life, I gave up my body and moved my soul, wandering the human world, abandoning my family and living on in misery.
I have watched green mountains fade and oceans turn to fields, and tasted both death and separation, joy and sorrow. Greed, anger, and delusion remain unfulfilled; love, hate, and desire are hard to abandon. At last, I set things right. Before I depart, I leave this scripture behind and pray that those who come after will cherish it.
In short, a slacker senior disciple with no particular dreams, written by an author with no particular dreams, somehow gets caught up in a world-shaking conspiracy...
