The east wind at night releases a thousand trees of flowers, and blows down stars like rain.
The Lantern Festival, the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, is the first full moon night of the new year. As dazzling fireworks bloom in the deep sky, tonight signifies that the past year has truly come to an end.
Just as Huan'er excitedly chased after the procession of lanterns and bridges, an old Taoist priest with a full white beard and wearing a blue robe suddenly appeared at the foot of the steps of the Dream Pavilion.
He held up a fortune-telling banner in one hand and stroked his short beard with the other, a smile on his face as he nodded repeatedly at the woman in the Dream Pavilion, seemingly quite satisfied. Then he raised his voice and said, "Well said, well said... What a wonderful line, 'Life is long, no matter what, you must always try to rely on yourself.'"
Upon hearing the voice, the woman inside the pavilion was startled and looked in the direction of the sound. Then, she asked in surprise, "Who is speaking over there?" However, she had a vague feeling that the voice sounded somewhat familiar, as if she had heard it somewhere before.
At this moment, the old Taoist priest in the green robe took out a copper bell, shook it slowly, and then walked slowly up the steps into the Dreamlike Pavilion, calling out twice: "Fortune telling, fortune telling, no money if it's inaccurate..."
"So you're a wandering Taoist priest. I was truly rude just now," the woman said apologetically, hurriedly groping to get up and bow to apologize.
Upon seeing this, the old Taoist priest in the green robe quickly pressed her down, saying, "Miss, you are not feeling well, there is no need for such formalities. I was simply attracted by the beautiful scenery here tonight, which is like a paradise on earth. I am tired from walking around, and I wonder if we could rest together in this Dreamlike Pavilion for a while?"
The woman smiled and said, "Of course you can. This pavilion is built by the roadside to provide a place for all travelers to rest. Please make yourself at home, Daoist."
“In that case, I thank you for your kindness, Miss.” The old Taoist in the green robe smiled and politely replied. Then, he leaned the cloth banner in his hand against the vermilion pillar on one side of the pavilion and sat down.
After a close and careful examination, the Taoist priest in the green robe asked, "May I ask your name, young lady? Are you a local? It's late and the dew is heavy; why are you resting here alone?"
The woman smiled, and after a moment's thought, she said, "I came out shopping with Huan'er. Since today is a festive day, I couldn't let Huan'er's holiday be ruined because of my own reasons. So, I let her go with the procession to stroll through the lanterns and walk across the bridge. As for me... because of my blindness, I can only stay here and wait for her to return. As for my name and other details, to be honest... this Taoist priest, I am not only blind... but also have amnesia. So, I don't know my own name, where I live, or what happened. I only heard the old lady who rescued me say that a few days ago, on a night with thunder and torrential rain, I was swept away by the river and ended up here."
"So that's how it is. I never imagined that Miss's fate would be so full of hardship!" The old Taoist in the green robe sighed upon hearing this. Yet, looking over, he saw that the woman's face still held a peaceful and gentle smile, which was quite beautiful.
The Taoist priest gazed at the strong and optimistic woman before him for a long while before saying, "Just now, I heard what you said outside the pavilion, Miss. You are quite self-reliant and strong, and I admire you greatly. In fact, there are many times in life when 'a loss may turn out to be a blessing in disguise.' Why don't you try it, Miss? Don't use your own eyes to see, but use your purest heart to feel the world. Perhaps you will see more things you have never seen before."
"Something I've never seen before?" the woman asked, her brows furrowing in surprise.
"Why don't you try what I suggest, young lady?" The Taoist priest in the green robe glanced around at the silence and said mysteriously.
After a moment's thought, the woman followed the old Taoist priest's advice, held her breath, and tried to relax slowly, forgetting all the noise and presence around her, until she seemed to enter a deep sleep.
Just then, the old Taoist in the green robe slowly got up, walked closer to the woman, and slowly extended a palm, beginning to channel his inner energy into the wound on her head, continuously pouring his true energy into the woman's body.
In the woman's dream, a wide avenue bustling with people and traffic first appeared. Then, in a brightly lit duplex apartment with stunning views of the surrounding landscape, a woman appeared—a woman with a graceful figure, fair skin, and a natural beauty, dressed in a purple silk bathrobe, her lips red and smooth, her beauty untouched by artifice. Suddenly, for some unknown reason, the woman collapsed to the ground. The woman, standing just steps away, tried to help her up, but could do nothing; her hands grasped only emptiness. She knelt before the woman, trying to see her face clearly, but the harder she tried, the more blurred it became. Suddenly, a blinding light appeared before them, and within the light, a wall gradually emerged. As the wall became clearer, it was as if a strange portal to another dimension was slowly opening, and the woman on the ground instantly fainted, the light vanishing.
The dream shifts. On the edge of a cliff, a beautiful and elegant woman about to give birth is being approached step by step by several masked, burly men in black. With nowhere left to retreat, the woman glances longingly at the figure of a boy hiding not far away, gently lifts her feet, closes her eyes, and leaps into the abyss. Watching this tragedy unfold, I frantically reach out to grab the woman, but grasp nothing, and too, I float down the cliff. Halfway down the cliff face, a man and a woman are gathering herbs. They rescue the woman, only to be told that they can only save one—the mother or the child. Without hesitation, the woman chooses to give birth, entrusting the child to the man and woman before passing away.
The dream flashed again, and in the blink of an eye, the man and woman had raised the woman's orphan to adulthood. One day, the orphan was feeding fish by a lotus pond in a mansion that seemed somewhat familiar to her when she suddenly saw a seven-colored phoenix winking at her in the pond. Startled, she accidentally fell into the water. Standing beside the orphan, she reached out almost simultaneously to pull her back, but could only watch helplessly as the orphan frantically splashed in the water until she sank to the bottom, leaving no ripples or waves on the surface. After being rescued by the people of the mansion, she remained unconscious ever since.
A year later, one night, thunder roared and a torrential downpour began, accompanied by dazzling flashes of lightning streaking across the night sky. Suddenly, a blinding light descended from the heavens, resembling the seven-colored phoenix that had perched in the pond. But this time, it circled high in the night sky, spreading its magnificent phoenix wings, before swooping down and landing on the pavilion in the backyard of the mansion. That night, the woman's orphan finally awoke.
The dream ends on the same cliff where the woman about to give birth fell. Her orphaned child also falls in, but this time, she is held tightly by a man with a cold, dignified face, seemingly otherworldly. The man lies prone in the thorns at the cliff's edge, blood streaming down his arm, yet he remains motionless. Finally, the branch connecting them snaps under a sudden force, and the two fall together into the abyss.
At this moment, the Taoist priest in green robes standing beside the woman, his eyes closed as he channeled his energy into her, gradually showed signs of weakness, while fine beads of sweat appeared on the woman's forehead. Suddenly, as if in a nightmare, he murmured, "What is destined to be yours will be yours, what is not, you cannot force; cause and effect, reincarnation, a hundred lifetimes of covenant, flowers blooming and withering, since you are here, accept it."
Upon hearing this, the old Taoist priest in the green robe immediately withdrew his power, slowly opened his eyes, lifted the corner of his robe, and sat back in his previous position.
Then, the woman took a deep breath, as if she had finally woken up from a deep dream. She then frowned, her face full of admiration but also full of doubt, and asked, "What you said, Daoist, is indeed true. When I tried to feel this world with my heart, I really saw many scenes that I had never seen before. It's just a pity that everything was only blurry, and it even seemed a little hard to tell what was real and what was fake."
Upon hearing this, the old Taoist in the green robe stroked his beard, nodded, and smiled, saying, "Truth and falsehood, reality and illusion, this world is nothing but a mirage, and in the end, it's all just fleeting clouds."
The woman smiled upon hearing this, but then her face fell with disappointment and pain as she said, "In my dream, I saw many women facing danger, but I could only watch them helplessly, unable to save them, and I couldn't even see their faces clearly. I could only watch them die."
The Taoist priest in green replied, “Everyone’s cycle of birth and death, past and present lives, is predetermined, yet people are always so stubbornly ignorant. The more people try to grasp something, the more they care about it, the less they can hold onto it. It’s like an hourglass; the tighter you clench your fist, the faster it slips away, and the less you can hold onto until, in the end, your hands are empty.”
The woman was silent for a while, then suddenly touched her chest and said, "But after seeing those things in my dream, my heart suddenly aches and I feel so powerless."
The old Taoist in the green robe stroked his white beard, paused for a moment, and said, "The reason you couldn't save them was because your destiny wasn't aligned at the time. Although you couldn't save them in your dream, you can, through them, have the opportunity to save many more people in this world suffering from fire and water. With an hourglass in your hand, the most important thing is to cherish every moment of encounter and possession while it's still firmly in your grasp. Let everything take its course, neither running away nor forcing anything; the Tao is all about following the natural order."
At this moment, the woman, whose heart was filled with sorrow over this great dream, probably had no mind to comprehend the profound meaning of these words. She could only think that this was clearly a Taoist priest, yet his words sounded more like those of a Buddhist.
After pondering for a moment, since we had only just met and were not familiar with each other, I didn't want to ask too many questions. Instead, I asked, "May I ask, Master, what is the meaning of the saying, 'What is destined to be yours will be yours, and what is not destined to be yours cannot be forced; cause and effect, reincarnation, a hundred lifetimes of covenant, flowers blooming and withering, and since you're here, make the best of it'? It's as if I've heard it somewhere before."
Unexpectedly, upon hearing this, the old Taoist priest in the green robe suddenly burst into laughter, "Hahaha..."
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