A speck in the vast sea, years leaving no trace. Life is like an ant, like a passing cloud: we come into this world with nothing and leave without a sound, bringing not a drop of rain and taking not a wisp of cloud. Who ever knew? Who ever remembered?
I only remember that I was once here, and I know that I will one day leave. But I don't know, nor do I remember, what brought my life into being or why it must end.
That year, that month, just as I was beginning to remember things, I was sent, half-awake and half-aware, to settle in a remote village on the Jianghan Plain. To my surprise, I somehow stumbled into a fairyland of lakes and marshes. I also somehow found myself cursed with romantic entanglements and heartbreak. Every girl from the water town was as beautiful as a cherry-lipped beauty with a willow-thin waist, with skin like jade and a face like a peach blossom. Some were gentle as water, others passionate as fire. My life was helplessly swallowed up and submerged by these beautiful temptresses, until I became a wisp of smoke, floating forever above the watery plain.
A handful of yellow earth covers how much of history's dust; a heap of desolate graves buries how much of the world's sorrow. Since ancient times, beautiful women have been fated to die young. Why does Heaven envy their beauty?
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