Hội Minh — The White Realm in Dreams
Night fell over the silent mortal world. There was no rain, no wind—only the sky, seeming deeper than usual, as though the darkness were opening another layer of space to invite dreams of memory and heavenly secrets not yet ready to reveal themselves.
Hội Minh slept later than usual that night. The disaster caused by the breached levee had temporarily passed, but the roar of waves crashing against the cliffs still echoed in his ears. He lay on his side atop a bamboo cot, his eyelids tightly shut while his mind remained far from tranquil.
At the hazy boundary just before sleep claimed him, his consciousness was suddenly pulled to a completely unfamiliar place. It was not the banks of the Đại Hà, nor the poor fishing village, nor any corner of the mortal world.
It was an endless expanse of pure white, solemn and silent enough to send chills through the soul. There was no horizon, no trace of time. His footsteps left no marks, as though he had entered a realm without boundaries.
At the far end of that hazy whiteness, a figure stood quietly with her back to him. Her features were indistinct, her age impossible to tell. All he could see was a long cascade of black hair stirring gently in an invisible wind blowing from the dawn of time, carrying the pure fragrance of snow lotuses.
Hội Minh took one step forward, but the distance did not shrink. He took another. The white-robed figure tilted her head slightly, as though she had sensed his footsteps through an invisible thread of fate.
A shock rose in Hội Minh’s chest. It was neither fear nor joy, but a familiarity painful enough to break the heart. It was so familiar that his heart suddenly clenched, missing a beat heavy with obsession. His lips moved as he tried to call out. But he did not know who she was. He did not know her name.
The instant a fateful sound was about to reach his lips, a violent wind suddenly rose.
The White Realm reeled violently. The figure before him began to fade, like ink on a page bleeding into water before dissolving into the void. Hội Minh charged toward her desperately. The distance closed in the blink of an eye. He reached out, and just as his fingertips were about to touch the hem of that pure white robe—
The dream shattered.
Hội Minh bolted upright in the middle of the night, cold sweat soaking through the back of his shirt. In the darkness of the house, only the lonely chirring of insects outside the eaves remained. He sat motionless for a long time, staring blankly at his empty palm, feeling as though he had just let the most precious thing in his life slip away before he even knew what it was.
Viên An — The Crimson Current in Dreams
Ten thousand miles away, at Linh Sơn Monastery, cold mist shrouded the mountains. The young woman had also just startled awake, her glittering eyes still wet with the lingering image from her dream.
Viên An sat quietly, listening to her heart pound. A restlessness and confusion unlike anything she had ever known surged through her. The dream had been too real—so real it felt as though a seal on her memories had just been broken.
In the dream, she had stood beside the bank of a vast, ancient river. Its waters were bottomless, its surface still as the mirror of demons and gods. Yet beneath the crystal-clear water reflecting the moonless sky, a colossal undercurrent churned violently in a dark spiral.
Alone in the middle of the river, a man stood tall and unyielding. Floodwater reached his chest but could not carry him away. Instead, it swirled around him as though submitting to the spiritual weight of a true great man.
Viên An could not see his face clearly. She saw only a back as steadfast as a great mountain, yet filled with grief. A fierce impulse surging through her veins drove her to take one step forward.
At once, the still water changed color. It went from transparent to murky, and raging waves surged up between them. The man slowly turned his head. Amid countless glittering curtains of spray, their eyes met.
There was no promise, no surprise—only an eternal silence, as though they had looked at each other that way through a hundred million lifetimes of reincarnation. He extended his rough hand toward her. Viên An stared at it. Just one more step, and she could take hold of him.
But a sharp crack rang out savagely from the depths of her heart. The surface of the river shattered like a mirror hurled against stone. His figure gradually blurred, then vanished completely beneath the great flood. Viên An cried out and threw herself into the water, stretching her hand forward—
The dream dissolved.
Viên An jolted upright inside the meditation hermitage. Her fingertips still burned with a heat so real it stole her breath. The wind chime beneath the eaves swayed incessantly, though the air was perfectly still.
Her chest felt hollow, overcome by a heart-rending sense of loss. She had just missed someone incredibly important—someone fate demanded she spend her entire life searching for.
In the Beyond-Thought Palace, Nam Tao, the Supreme Deity, stood silently beside the window of the Celestial Palace, his cold eyes gazing down toward the eastern and western reaches of the mortal world. Before him, the celestial tome lay open, and the names Hội Minh and Viên An gave off a faint, bloody radiance.
“The dream was not a prophecy of the Heavenly Dao,” the Keeper of Fated Bonds said, approaching from behind with a soft sigh as he looked at the Book of Fate.
“I know,” Nam Tao replied, his voice utterly without ripples.
“Then why do you not use your divine power to sever this spiritual bond? They are finding each other in their dreams.”
Nam Tao lowered the jade tip of his brush to the edge of the page. He remained silent for a long while before speaking slowly.
“That dream arose from the attachment they carried from their previous lives. Even celestial law cannot interfere. I did not create their fate. I am only standing here… watching how they struggle against it.”
The wind above the nine layers of clouds suddenly changed direction and began to howl. Two souls in the mortal world had just shared a single breath in their dreams, though their mortal bodies had never once met. On the page of the celestial tome, a drop of pitch-black ink gathered at the tip of Nam Tao’s brush, poised to fall.
Some encounters begin with dreams broken in two. And some dreams exist only to foreshadow a parting between life and death that will last for all eternity.
Part III
Dreams of the White Realm, crimson currents deep, Where do two hearts, yearning, finally meet? Their faces unknown, yet their souls sealed tight, A hundred years in one breath… sorrow through endless lives.