The trail leading deep into the wilderness narrowed as the setting sun cast its shadows. The day's last rays pierced the towering ancient canopies, shattering into patches of blazing golden firelight across the ground, like broken mirrors forged by creation itself, weaving a scene so mystical and poetic it ached the heart.
Hoi Minh strode steadily ahead, gripping the fated bamboo staff in his hand, his steps as solid as a great mountain. Vien An followed several paces behind him in silence, her plain robes gliding lightly like mist and smoke. The distance between them never changed. Neither of them was deliberately keeping their distance; everything was simply moving according to a natural law, an uncanny spiritual harmony so profound it took the breath away.
The mountain wind brushed across their skin, carrying the scent of leaves rotted over ten thousand years and damp tree sap mingled in the air. The lonely footsteps of the two travelers striking the dry leaves rang clearly through the deep, desolate silence.
From far away, a spirit bird suddenly flapped its wings and shot up from the forest canopy, tearing through the stillness before vanishing into the narrow patch of sky overhead. Hoi Minh looked up after it, a strange sensation surging abruptly in his chest. His divine sense dimly felt that he had once walked this trail alone countless times in the primordial age of a past life. Yet in his mortal body in this lifetime, he clearly had never taken a single step beyond Dai Ha Village. He shook his head with quiet self-mockery, trying to drive away those unfathomable signs of Heaven's workings.
The Astral Mountain Slope
The deeper they went, the terrain began to rise steeply. The enormous roots of ancient trees thrust up from the earth like ranks of strange, ancient beasts, forming perilous natural obstacles.
Hoi Minh was swift and nimble, easily clearing the treacherous terrain thanks to years of grueling self-training in the high mountains. When they reached a slick, precipitous rock face, he suddenly stopped. For the first time along the entire journey, he turned around, his deep eyes unable to conceal their worry as he watched the young woman behind him.
“This stretch is damp with baleful energy, and the rock face is dangerously slick. Miss, be careful.”
Vien An moved one step forward. She gave the perilous slope a faint glance, then drifted across it with ease, her steps airy yet astonishingly sure. She was nothing like a frail young woman facing the dangers of the mountain forest for the first time.
Hoi Minh took a brief look at her, admiration showing in his eyes.
“Your skills are remarkably graceful. As expected, you’re familiar with these lonely mountain paths.”
Vien An smiled faintly, her smile cool and gentle as a breeze passing over snow lotuses.
“My divine sense has been bound to Linh Son Peak since I was young.”
Hoi Minh nodded and asked no further questions. He understood that sacred silences had always existed between them—silences that needed no mortal words to probe more deeply.
Suddenly, a contrary gust rushed in and stirred the hems of their robes. From the canopy of a thousand-year-old tree, a dry leaf slowly drifted down, spinning through the unreal in three perfect circles before landing precisely on the boundary between two lives. By instinct, Hoi Minh reached out and caught it.
The leaf lay weightless in his palm, but the instant his skin touched it, the seal on his past life within his divine sense suddenly cracked. A shocking image flashed through his mind: the boundless, star-filled sky of the Celestial Realm, the grand ancient stone gates of the Silent Hall, and a deep, solemn voice echoing from the distant ages:
“It’s time.”
The image immediately dissolved into nothingness. Hoi Minh stood rooted to the spot, the veins in his forehead throbbing violently as he helplessly tried to hold on to fragments of ten-thousand-year-old memories. Behind him, Vien An took in every trace of his expression and softly asked:
“Brother Hoi Minh, is something wrong?”
Hoi Minh stared blankly at the dry leaf in his hand, then relaxed his five fingers. He answered indifferently:
“Nothing.”
The leaf fell onto the red earth and was immediately swept away by the mountain wind along the solitary path, carrying with it cryptic workings of Heaven that had yet to be answered.
The Quiet Clearing by the Stream
The mortal world shifted, and darkness gradually spread across the wilderness. The light in the depths of the forest changed from deep blue to a thick, mysterious black. Hoi Minh looked up at the sky through the gaps between the leaves, estimated the time, and said in a low voice:
“There’s an ancient stream ahead. Once we cross it, there will be a flat clearing. We can stop there for the night.”
Vien An nodded in agreement.
“All right.”
They continued onward. This time, an invisible spiritual pull drew them a little closer together, a natural bond neither of them could deny. The clear, cool sound of running water drifted from afar through the silent wilderness, like a symphony composed by creation itself.
The ancient stream appeared between two enormous stone slabs. Its pure, refreshing water was so clear that they could see every moss-covered pebble deep below. Hoi Minh stepped into the water first to test the way. The current reached only his calves, and he turned back.
“The current is calm. We can cross.”
Vien An stepped in after him. As she passed Hoi Minh, the rough-silk ribbon tying her hair stirred lightly before his eyes. Once again, the connection to the red thread that had bound their past-life souls together sent a sharp ache through Hoi Minh's heart. He said nothing, silently escorting her until she reached the opposite bank.
The clearing ahead was fairly level, enclosed by large boulders and the sturdy trunk of a thousand-year-old tree. Hoi Minh set down his pack and bamboo staff.
“It’s safest to stay here tonight.”
Vien An stopped and lifted her delicate face toward the night sky. Through the openings in the wilderness, the first stars of the nine-tiered heavens had begun to appear, glittering like diamonds against the universe’s black velvet, silent and solemn.
The Fateful Firelit Night
The night wind howled through the mountain passes, carrying the bone-deep cold of the ancient forest. Hoi Minh quickly built a small fire from dry wood. The blazing red light flickered across the trunks of the ancient trees, temporarily driving away the thick darkness and the mortal world's bitter chill.
The two of them sat leaning against separate stone slabs, keeping a comfortable distance—not too far apart, yet not too abrupt. The space sank into an eternal silence, broken only by the crackling wood and the dancing flames reflected in the eyes of two people burdened by an obsession with fated bonds and karma.
After a while, Hoi Minh opened his rough-cloth bag and took out a handful of fried rice and some dried fish that his kind mother had carefully prepared. He considerately offered half to Vien An. She accepted it with a small nod of thanks, then opened her pack as well and took out some dried rations and ripe fruit picked from Linh Son Peak, placing them on the rock between them.
“Let’s eat together, Brother Hoi Minh.”
They ate in the still silence of heaven and earth. The flickering scent of smoke and fire, the aroma of Dai Ha grilled fish, and the pure sweetness of the Linh Son fruit mingled into a strange fragrance amid the mortal world—the fragrance of companionship, of fate merging into a single crimson thread.
After the meal, Vien An gently leaned her slender back against the ancient tree, her long lashes half-lowered from fatigue after the long descent from the mountain. Firelight flickered across her otherworldly face, weaving features so peaceful and still they stirred the heart.
Hoi Minh remained motionless as a stone statue. While keeping watch over the fire, he gazed pensively at her face as she slipped into sleep. Deep in his veins, a ten-thousand-year flame of longing rose to scorch his heart. This was not the fledgling affection of ordinary men and women in the mortal world, but a recognition that transcended time—a thread of fate that had bound them together since the primordial age of the earth. His heart beat out of rhythm, pained yet unwavering. He quietly added a few more dry branches to the fire and stayed awake through the night, silently guarding her peaceful sleep.
High in the deep sky, the two stars that watched over their destinies shifted, drawing closer together than ever before. Their light shone steadily and steadfastly, like an eternal, unbreakable vow keeping the mortal night from shattering.
In Beyond-Thought Palace — the Silent Hall
Nam Tao, the High God, stood beside the Celestial Palace window and silently snapped shut the heavenly book of fates.
The Keeper of Time approached from behind, his deep gaze fixed on the mortal world.
“Will you no longer use your divine brush to inscribe their fates for this lifetime?”
Nam Tao turned his cold, emotionless eyes toward the layers of cloud and mist below, his low voice ringing out.
“It isn’t necessary yet. Some of the greatest trials… must be faced by their own feet as they cross the blood-soaked cliffs of the mortal world. I want to see which is stronger—their love and obsession, or my merciless celestial law.”
Outside the Silent Hall, the sky of the Celestial Realm was as vast and profoundly silent as an ancient ocean. In the distant mortal world, two tiny stars had just brightened by another beat, bearing witness to the High God’s cruel challenge directed at the two sinful souls below.
Seventh Prelude
The forest road rolls on, the rocky slopes rise high, Bamboo leaves brush the path as restless dreams drift by. Beside the stream, by firelight, two shadows sit as one— The stars above bear witness... which way will fate run?
The heavenly book is closed; the brush no longer falls, Let fate sweep the two of us wherever it calls. With steadfast hearts unbroken through a thousand storms, Three lives of karmic bonds... beneath one roof, transformed.