This is a cup of tea called "Fleeting Life." It tastes very bitter, but after the bitterness, there is a deep and lasting sweetness. Without tasting bitterness, how can one know sweetness? Life itself is a journey of both sweetness and bitterness shared.
I would like to dedicate this story to all the people who are trudging on the journey of life.
- Shaluo Shuangshu (Author)
He excelled in brewing wine.
This hobby began countless millennia ago.
Many considered it the greatest fortune to taste a cup of his exquisite wine, sipping it slowly, savoring its rich aroma, feeling it flow smoothly down their throats, and the beauty of the entire world seemed to blend within.
However, no two cups of wine tasted the same.
He said that his wine is not the same because the drinkers themselves are always different.
Today, another seeker of his wine had come, drawn by his reputation.
In his wine cabinet, the top shelf held three intricately carved jasper inlaid green jade wine flasks. Each flask had a delicately sculpted lid in the shape of a tree leaf. When the light passed through their translucent bodies, the liquid inside seemed to swirl and flow, creating a mesmerizing spectacle of beauty and tranquility.
The guest desired these three flasks, but he replied that they were not for sale; they were brewed for a friend, waiting for her return.
Each of the three flasks was engraved with two characters—
The first flask was "Dust Stained," the second was "Thorny Road," and the third was "Unceasing."
These are their names, he explained with a smile.
The person who could make him invest so much effort in crafting such exquisite wine made the guest both envious and intrigued.
What kind of story surrounded this "her"?
The guest agreed to choose another wine, on the condition that he would share this story.
He leaned against the wine cabinet, smiling at the guest, his hair of lake-blue color looking particularly enchanting in the flickering light.
"This might be quite a long story," he said to the guest.
Dust Stained[1]
When I brewed this bottle of wine, it was during the best season on Mount Fulong. This world's highest mountain was brimming with spiritual energy everywhere you looked. Even a single rock, a mountain stream, trees, grass, flowers and birds all seemed to possess an extraordinary vitality. However, the greatest wonder of all was the tree at the mountain's summit.
This tree had once been the most captivating sight on the peak of Mount Fulong. Its trunk was tall and slender, its branches lush, and its leaves a vivid emerald green. At night, it emitted a five-colored radiance from its body, and when the wind rustled its branches, it created a breathtaking and unparalleled spectacle. Countless mortals regarded this unique tree as a "deity" and stubbornly believed it could grant their wishes and bestow supreme happiness. They disregarded everything, climbing up the sheer cliffs, solely to hang their threads of hope on the "Sacred Tree" above, even if it meant risking their lives and falling off the precipice, all in their quest for the "deity's" protection.
However, the tree was not a deity; it was merely a tree demon unable to move freely. It was lonely, so lonely that it collected the worship of humans as "nourishment" to fill the void in its existence. Even as the pile of bones at the foot of the mountain grew, it was unwilling to give up its self-deception and deception of others.
No one imagined that the life trajectory that even the tree itself thought would never change would be led in a completely opposite direction by a person on that clear summer night.
Zimiao, a celestial being from the heavenly realm, the Water God of the Four Directions, held dominion over rivers, lakes, and seas across the world. With a drop of crystalline water between his fingers, he severed the tree demon's capricious and lonely cycle of existence. From then on, there was one less "Sacred Tree" on Mount Fulong, and a young girl named Shaluo appeared, taking on a female form. She followed Zimiao around, learning and practicing in the mountains, and time passed peacefully.
The name Shaluo was given to her by Zimiao. This gentle and wise man granted her a human form, freeing her from the tree that couldn't move an inch. He taught her various spells, worldly wisdom, and the understanding that all things had spirits, and life was priceless. To prevent any more misunderstandings from humans, he cast a spell to conceal her tree form and planted a flower called "Colorless" for her, which bloomed once a year with a flowering period of just one day and served as a reminder. Every time the flower blossomed, she had to return to her true body for twelve hours to maintain her human shape and ensure her safety for generations to come.
Zimiao treated her with the utmost care, like a celestial being to a supernatural being, and a man to a woman, attending to her every need.
Zimiao was my dear friend, and during the days when he was guiding the young tree demon in her practice on Mount Fulong, I often went to play chess with him. In the process, I would also request some rare and precious water sources for my winemaking, which was one of the benefits of having a close friend who was the Water God.
I liked to tease the little tree demon who was new to the world, watching her clumsy but joyful running back and forth for Zimiao. From those beautiful eyes of hers, I could easily see that in the eyes of the little tree demon, Zimiao was her whole world.
However, I had a subtle sense of unease.
It was just a chance encounter, a touch of sympathy, but Zimiao changed the fate of a tree demon. Yet, who could have known that on that moonlit summer night, more than just the fate of a tree demon was altered.
Shaluo, the tree demon, went from being a tree isolated at the mountain's summit with no freedom to a vibrant existence in the world, assuming the form and soul of a real woman, all thanks to Zimiao's intervention.
This was only the beginning.
There was so much for her to learn, including the myriad complexities of love, hate, joy, and sorrow that were an inseparable part of the mundane world.
The tree demon, Shaluo, was destined to be a woman whose life would be intertwined with stories.
I secretly brewed the first pot of wine for her and named this pot of wine "Dust-Stained."
Thorny Road
Immortals make mistakes, and mortals suffer the consequences.
It was nothing more than a love affair with a mortal woman, yet the gods of the heavenly realm bestowed upon the mortal world a three-year drought as a "gift." The innocent humans suffered, but the punishment was actually meted out to the Water God, Zimiao.
When he decided to turn all his true essence[2] into rain to nourish all things, he came to me and entrusted the safety and future of a person to me. He said that Shaluo, that young girl whose emotions are plain to see on her face, is the most important relative[3] in his entire life.
I know that for the tree demon, the word "relative" was like a sharp blade thrust into the heart.
Zimiao had always been everything to her. He treated her so well. She naturally believed that her place in his heart was the same as his place in hers.
Until, she learned that the appearance he'd bestowed upon her was modeled after the woman he loved most in his heart. She was stunned, fell silent, and then erupted in anger.
She considered it a humiliation, believing that the days spent together were the most sincere moments of joy between her and Zimiao, but it turned out that she was just a substitute whose face didn't even belong to herself.
When she saw the scene of the woman with the same appearance as hers cuddled in Zimiao's arms, she felt she was drowning. Her final meeting with Zimiao ended with his faint sigh and her leaving in despair.
The forest she had walked through, once lush and vibrant, had suddenly turned dry and withered, mirroring the state of her heart. On that day, we stood together at the peak of Mount Fulong, and I had to tell her the truth: the rain falling at that moment was Zimiao's true essence. The drought was over, but he could never come back.
It was the first time I had seen her in tears.
Zimiao, as the Water God, had dominion over all the world's waters, except for her tears – they were an exception he could never control.
Zimiao disappeared, and her world was on the brink of collapse, but I quietly left because I knew there was someone better suited to take care of her.
When Zimiao fell out of her world, the one who was by her side was always that incomparably domineering, hard-spoken but softhearted evil dragon.[4]
The evil dragon was not a malevolent creature; he hailed from the dragon clan of the East China Sea, and further, he was the legitimate grandson of the Dragon King, whose name is Ao Chi. The East China Sea Dragon Clan holds a noble status, equal to that of gods and Buddhas, and were originally born to subdue monsters and eliminate evil, protecting the world. Initially, it was only Ao Chi's willful playfulness that caused havoc in a lake. It caused the city to be flooded, resulting in countless casualties. Zimiao intervened, and Ao Chi was severely injured. The acquaintance between the young tree demon and the evil dragon began with this right-and-wrong hostility, a clash of fire and water.
Right in front of Zimiao, the wounded Ao Chi forcibly took Shaluo away and imprisoned her in the Hopeless Sea, isolated from the outside world. There, he subjected her to a barrage of malicious words and actions, relentlessly targeting the young woman who refused to yield to him, even going so far as to slap her. And she continued to stand her ground, responding to his "malice" in her own unyielding way.
Similar personalities are the easiest to clash, yet also the easiest to find common ground. The term "frenemies" seemed to describe the relationship between Ao Chi and Shaluo perfectly.
The time they spent in the Hopeless Sea was another turning point bestowed by fate.
If it weren't for Ao Chi constantly being by her side, forcing her to return to her true body before deadline, there would have been no tree demon named Shaluo in the world.
Her three decades with Zimiao had concluded in endless pain, but it was Ao Chi's unwavering presence that gradually pulled her out of the sorrowful memories that had consumed her.
One was inherently proud and accustomed to commanding others with authority, while the other was stubborn to the core, refusing to bow down to any form of oppression. Over the years, I witnessed countless arguments and conflicts between them. I also saw Ao Chi repeatedly teaching her various spells, all the while scolding her for being foolish and annoying, but also doing everything in his power to make her happy.
Over millennia, they both grew and evolved unconsciously, although this process was far from easy. They seemed like a match made in heaven, and everyone believed they should be together in a romantic sense.
However, thousands of years later, Shaluo was still Shaluo and Ao Chi was still Ao Chi. The two were still tit for tat.
Was it really so difficult for them to soften, compromise, and honestly confront their feelings?
One day, Ao Chi disappeared.
No one knew why, nor where he had gone.
Shaluo told me, he can go die as far as he likes.
But I finally saw genuine concern and bewilderment in her eyes.
The mutual dependence for thousands of years had to be confirmed only after their separation.
When I received news of Ao Chi's disappearance, I was in the process of brewing the second pot of wine. Besides "Thorny Road," I was unwilling to give it any other name.
Unceasing
During the twenty years after Ao Chi's disappearance, Shaluo traveled tirelessly, darting from one place to another all around the world, seemingly never able to stop. When asked if she was searching for Ao Chi's whereabouts, she always denied it.
I must admit that time and experience had made the once-young tree demon mature, but there were some things she had never changed.
A year ago, she went to a small city.
At this point, he didn't continue with the story but instead said to the eagerly waiting guest, "Actually, the third jug of wine hasn’t finished brewing yet. It will require much more time to complete than the first two."
"Then why do you call it 'Unceasing'?" The guest was puzzled.
He smiled slyly: "Because in a little alley in that city, the tree demon opened a small dessert shop called 'Unceasing.'"
"What a strange name!"
"Yes, the story that unfolds in that shop might be even stranger. As I mentioned, she's a woman forever entwined with stories in her lifetime. And this time, there are more individuals with stories of their own who became a part of her story, including me," he said with a laugh. He smiled and looked up at the three flasks of wine, adding, "These three jars of wine are part of the same set." He extended a finger and wrote two magnificent words in the air, saying, "This set is called..."
The guest looked intently and the words floating in front of their eyes read—
Fleeting Life[5].
Footnotes:
[1] 染尘: It means to be stained with the world of mortals.
[2] zhēn yuán : vitality
[3] The actual word used here is qīnrén: relative; kinsfolk; one’s own flesh and blood. Figuratively, a person with whom one has a close relationship; beloved.
[4] niè lóng: According to folklore, nie long(dragon of sin) can make water rise/flood to cause calamities.
[5] fú shēng can be translated to "transient life," "ephemeral existence," or "this mortal life" in English. It conveys the idea of the impermanence and fleeting nature of human life.
Translator:
This is my first BG project! With such a fascinating prologue, I had to pick this story for translation😄
The manga (English version) of this novel is available on sites like Mangatoon. The book and manga versions are different, with the main variation being how the tale unfolds. I read the first arc of the manga and have to say that I prefer the novel version much more. The manga is rather simple while the novel version has a sense of mystery/drama that I, as a reader, enjoy. Of course, everyone has their own preferences, and perhaps the best option is to read both the manga and the novel to get the most out of the tale.
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