The silken voice of Li Muwan, a tide of gentle affection deep as the ocean, washed over Wang Lin, stirring in his soul a quiet tenderness. The weathered lines etched upon his face seemed to soften, to momentarily retreat, granting him a fleeting youth. He gazed upon her, oblivious to the passage of years.

The words of Li Muwan resonated with a haunting familiarity, echoing the life he had dreamt, a life etched into his very being. He could not forget, for that dream had interwoven itself with his reality, conjuring before him the valley where they had dwelt for so long.

There, the blossoms unfurled and withered, season upon season, leaving behind the eternal echo of their shared existence, and the intoxicating melody of the zither that lingered in the air, weaving a spell of blissful reluctance to awaken.

Wang Lin harbored no desire to break free.

Within that valley, he had witnessed the ghastly demise of Li Muwan, her vibrant beauty fading to brittle bone and ashen hair. The heart-wrenching memory tore at his soul, leaving him drowning in a sea of grief.

He recalled clutching her lifeless form, unleashing a primal scream, a sound of raw anguish that reverberated across the heavens.

“Though the heavens decree your death, I will wrest you back!”

That desperate cry echoed ceaselessly within the chambers of his mind, born from the depths of dreams, infused with every ounce of his being.

“Let me linger within this dream, until the very end of time…” Li Muwan murmured, her voice thick with unshed tears, clinging to Wang Lin as though fearing his imminent departure, repeating her vow over and over.

Wang Lin raised his withered hands, gently caressing the silken cascade of her dark hair, his gaze softened with a deep tenderness. He nodded slowly.

This woman, even after her passing, had become the anchor of his soul during a thousand years of solitude and remembrance. Her specter deepened until it was all there was.

None who followed, neither Liu Mei nor Li Qianmei, could replace her shadow, none could ever truly enter the sanctum of his heart.

Wang Lin knew in his heart that it had perished at the hour in which he had so loudly proclaimed to the heavens that he could not live without Li Muwan.

The rainbow that was his life was forever missing a hue. He would seek her out for all of his existence.

“Are you willing to sever it…Can you even sever it?” Wang Lin pondered to himself as he turned towards the vast sky where he thought he saw a white bird soaring.

Thirty-one years after his departure from Zhao, Wang Lin, seated upon a weathered stone beside Li Muwan, was surrounded by a silent multitude of cultivators who kneeled in reverence across the vast expanse of the surrounding landscape, while together, they sought enlightenment from the heavens.

Slowly, Wang Lin’s utterances grew more infrequent, transitioning from speaking once a year, to uttering a rare word after the passing of several.

“Causation arises from the emptiness of nature…This is karma. Understand this, and you may attain the Dao…” In the winter of his thirty-second year away from Zhao, as snowflakes danced from the heavens, Wang Lin rose wearily from the stone. He could feel the waning strength of his life force, his journey nearing its inevitable conclusion. Though he resisted with all his might, death was inescapable.

This dream felt incredibly real, for in it, he was merely mortal.

Death, though an ending and the cessation of one dream, was also the precipice of a beginning.

Li Muwan, still radiant and youthful, offered him her gentle support, standing steadfast at his side upon the stone.

From afar, Liu Mei watched, her gaze fixed upon Wang Lin and Li Muwan. A growing disquiet had plagued her in recent years, morphing into a venomous bitterness that compelled her to cast her eyes down in despair.

“Do you remember…Where our home lies?” Wang Lin’s voice, now heavy with the weight of years, carried a haunting tremor.

Tears welled in Li Muwan’s eyes, and she nodded.

“Take me there…” Wang Lin’s hand moved to stroke her raven tresses, his aged face etched with two thousand years of longing.

Li Muwan bit her lip, supporting Wang Lin as she leaped into the air, cleaving through the veil of reality. Under the watchful gazes of the countless cultivators, they soared into the heavens, vanishing from sight as if they had never been.

The wind whipped past Wang Lin, carrying with it a strand of his silvery hair, which danced behind him, twining amongst the raven locks of Li Muwan. A tapestry of black and white woven together as one.

Li Muwan’s tender gaze shifted to Wang Lin, her face reflecting a poignant blend of warmth and devotion.

Wang Lin watched as the world unfurled beneath them, seeing volcanoes, valleys, forests, and the distant cities of mortal men.

How long they journeyed he could not tell, but the colors changed below him. The world slowly turned green and then forests of trees spread out before him. In the distance, there was a hidden valley.

A land that was both his and hers.

With a gentle descent, a flurry of movement swept through the valley’s trees, as leaves whispered and swayed. Li Muwan guided Wang Lin down so they could stand within their valley.

The valley was overgrown with weeds, with an occasional flower here or there that perfumed the air.

“We’re home…” Wang Lin’s voice was filled with sorrow and longing that came deep from within his soul, settling on Li Muwan.

Li Muwan looked around and smiled.

“Wang Lin, let us not think of what is and what is not. Let us stay and reside here…Will you stay here with me?”

“Yes…”

And thus, time began to wane as the weeds were uprooted and a simple dwelling began to form. The valley was filled with the music of the zither.

As the melodies carried throughout the valley, Wang Lin sat listening, his hand resting on a cane. His face was beginning to weather, showing the marks of time.

The spots that were developing each told a tale of his existence.
He remained clad in the white robes he always favored, a gentle smile gracing his lips, as he listened to Li Muwan’s music. Before him, the woman sat, ancient hands caressing the strings of her zither.

Her face, no longer the youthful bloom it possessed when they first arrived, was now etched with the wisdom of ages, mirroring his own transformation into an elder.

This guise was woven by Li Muwan’s sorcery, a kindness born of love. She could not bear for him to witness her perpetual youth while he succumbed to time’s relentless march. Instead, she chose to walk with him, as mortals do, counting the silver threads in their hair, until the very end of their days.

How could Wang Lin not understand her heart’s tender longing? He offered no objection, only gazed upon his wife with profound affection.

His wife.

There exists a love that disregards the passage of years, the fading of beauty. It cherishes only the soul’s first, electrifying recognition.

There exists a love that defies the relentless flow of time, the chasm between life and death. It thrives on the memory of a shared dream, a whispered promise.

This was such a love. Bathed in the glow of the setting sun, within the tranquil valley, two aged souls silently regarded one another. The old man’s smile was reflected in the old woman’s eyes.

He watched her, she played her zither, and it seemed as if nothing else existed in all the realms but them. Let the heavens crumble, the sun and moon exchange places, the winds howl and the skies darken – all these were insignificant before the love of these two venerable hearts.

Year upon year.

The white bird never returned, as if vanished from the tapestry of dreams.

Under their watchful gaze, guided by the melody of her instrument, Wang Lin and Li Muwan witnessed the resurrection of spring, the soft, ethereal snowfall of summer’s willow blossoms, the rustling passage of autumn leaves, which danced and swirled around their aged forms.

And they braved the rain, the snow, and weathered countless mild winters together.

This year marked Wang Lin’s thirty-fifth since leaving Zhao.

This year, Wang Lin felt the chilling whisper of mortality. He knew that one day, his eyes would close and never open again, that he would forever step beyond this dream. That day drew ever closer.

This autumn, withered leaves spiraled down from the heavens, descending into the valley. One, caught in the wind’s embrace, settled at Wang Lin’s feet, its journey halted by his aged frame.

With a strained effort, Wang Lin bent down and plucked the leaf from the ground with his spotted hand.

“Fallen leaves return to their roots… Muwan, my time is near… Grant me this last wish. Come with me to Zhao, taking Dafu along. Let us journey to Su, and there, fulfill this last promise to myself within this dream.

He did not come then. But this time, he must.”

Her white hair shimmering in the light, her eyes brimming with love and sorrow, Li Muwan gently supported Wang Lin as they left their humble dwelling. Hand in hand, they ascended into the sky, transforming into a streak of light, bound for the continent across the vast ocean, the land where Zhao resided.

This was a dream, yet not entirely a dream. It was a creation born of Wang Lin’s magic, a path forged by the Dao Fruit. The decades that unfolded within mirrored the passage of time outside.

Beyond the dream lay the Alliance of Cultivators, the Four Great Starfields, and the final, cataclysmic war between the Inner and Outer Realms.

Over these decades, the conflict had escalated into a maelstrom of death and destruction. The Outer Realm, emboldened by the rumor of the Venerable of Sealed Heaven’s demise, unleashed its full might upon the Inner Realm in a frenzy of invasion.

The ancient barrier, borrowed by Qing Shuang, had shattered over thirty years ago. Countless Outer Realm cultivators surged through the breach, and in the ensuing battles, both sides suffered unimaginable losses. Rivers of blood stained the cosmos, and the stench of carnage permeated the very fabric of reality. The Four Great Starfields of the Inner Realm had become a hellish landscape.

In the face of relentless despair, many powerful cultivators of the Inner Realm abandoned Yun Hai and Zhao He, concentrating their remaining strength within the domains of Luo Tian and Kun Xu, making a last, desperate stand.

With each crushing defeat, the whispers of the Venerable of Sealed Heaven’s death solidified into conviction. Even though Qing Shuang, transformed into Wang Lin’s grandmother, tried to maintain hope, during a battle over a decade ago, Qing Shuang was nearly slain by the Celestial Sovereign of Emptiness.

This only deepened the despair, dealing a fatal blow to the morale of the Inner Realm’s cultivators.

A moon ago, the Kun Xu Starfield faced an agonizing choice: abandon their home to reinforce Luo Tian, making one final stand, or remain within the Venerable’s homeland, outside the Vermillion Bird planet, and fight to the death against the encroaching darkness.