He turned around upon the old monk's arrival.
"Did she leave?" the man asked.
The old monk nodded. "She left. She's smart—I know she'll find it soon."
The beggar-looking man smiled. "She will. Thank you for letting me catch a glimpse of her. She looks so different from the Bei Sangyun I once knew. There's more life in her eyes. This life… it must have been good to her."
The old monk remained silent, his gaze fixed on the karmic threads around the man. Like the others, his threads had been severed. But unlike the rest, his karmic threads were vanishing at an alarming rate.
The price for what he had done—the act of interfering with the will of heaven—could only be paid with a great sacrifice… A silent sacrifice that would go unnoticed, unrecognized by the people of this world and the heavens.
The old monk sighed. "...You know what will happen, don't you?"
"I do. The 'you' from that life told me what was coming."