As Fleeting As The Morning Dew

Present Day, Earth

"And so, hero, how have things been going for you?" she asked Tang Ze after she was done explaining what had gone on.

She had managed to awaken her earlier memories when she was twelve years old, and after that, had been waiting for the right time to approach him.

"Wait - so what happened then?" Tang Ze asked. "After I died, I mean. Did I really end up killing that asura, I mean, it didn't resurrect itself or anything like that, right? What happened to Elder He Xuan? And Zhang Long? And-"

"Calm down," Shen Hui said. "One at a time, first of all, I don't know much about all of that and your teammates as I reincarnated soon after you won, but no, the Asura Emperor did not resurrect. You defeated him for good, ensuring the safety of the Raswatian Empire."

"That's good," Tang Ze said. Although that entity while he had been in limbo had told him that he had succeeded in vanquishing a great evil, a tiny voice in the back of his mind still wondered if that had been true.

"As for your friends, again, I am sorry, I don't know what happened to them," Shen Hui said. "They should be safe though."

Tang Ze sighed. "I guess that can't be helped. Wait - so you managed to bring yourself here in the past? How'd that work?"

"Time works differently between realms," Shen Hui said. "Like I told you. Or did you prefer that I be a two-year old child right now, and have to wait several decades until I could meet up with you?"

"No... it's just... confusing to wrap my head around," Tang Ze said. Xian Yue had some questions for him then as she had been unable to tell what had gone down in the secret realm, and so Tang Ze filled in the gaps. "Ah, and I'm sorry I never got to finish your dress. You must be really disappointed."

"Indeed I am," Shen Hui said. She then smirked. "But, what can we do about that now? You also promised to show me around if I was ever in your world - remember? Maybe you can make it up for me by doing so."

"Ah... sure," Tang Ze said. Before, when Shen Hui had been some random girl he'd just met, he'd have felt quite uncomfortable talking to her. However, now that he knew who she was, it was far easier to get along with her. "It must seem strange though, coming from a world you were so powerful in and then dropping down to Earth."

"Yes, it is," Shen Hui admitted. "The Qi is so weak around this planet that one could never hope to get higher than the sixth or seventh realm of Qi Refinement no matter how hard one tries."

"So it is possible to cultivate though?" Tang Ze asked. Naturally, Shen Hui would be much better than he was at it. "You're going to need to teach me about it… are you going to try to find a way back?"

"Why? I have what I came for right here," Shen Hui said, poking him in the chest. "If I wanted something else, I would've just stayed there, or taken my chances and reincarnated in a body back home."

"Oh..." Tang Ze said, quite flattered that she had gone through all of this effort just for him.

"Not to mention, your world isn't all bad," Shen Hui said. "There are so many things to enjoy here in your world - like the Internet, television, radio - oh, and before I can forget, porn. So much porn that you can watch just by punching a few buttons."

Tang Ze choked on what he was drinking before sputtering, "W-what?"

Shen Hui giggled. "It's so easy to get you riled up!"

"Gah - you always had a vulgar sense of humor!"

"Says the man who asked me to strip when he first saw me."

"That was purely for scientific purposes!"

They bickered, but that was merely the start of their relationship.

The next week, the two of them went to go see a movie.

Shen Hui had asked Tang Ze to 'show her around his world', but as someone who had already spent a significant amount of time here, this was just an excuse to spend time with him.

The movie they were watching was a superhero flick. It was standard fare, and Tang Ze was almost worried that Shen Hui was going to get bored in the middle, when she put her head on his shoulders.

His heart rate skyrocketed, but he tried his best to remain calm.

"What do you think about dressing up as those two?" she asked, pointing to a pair of superheroes on the screen.

"Oh, I don't do that anymore," Tang Ze said.

"Why?"

Tang Ze explained it to her in a low voice. There weren't that many people in the cinema with them, but he didn't want to risk annoying someone.

"You know, you shouldn't have stopped making costumes," Shen Hui said to him after hearing his excuses.

"My brother said the same thing," Tang Ze said.

"See? Your brother was right," Shen Hui said. "Wasn't that something you carried with you when you transmigrated, and caused you to develop that strange talent of yours? I think that it was a sign from Heaven that it was important."

"I don't know about that," Tang Ze said. "But if you say so... let me see if there's something that I'd be interested in."

"If you feel silly doing it, I'll be there with you doing the same, you know," Shen Hui said. She then sighed. "Now can you stop staring at my breasts? It's kind of annoying."

"Hey - I wasn't looking there, it was just that because there's a piece of popcorn there - let me help you get rid of it-"

"Trying to touch up a girl like that? Bold move."

"You know that's not what I'm trying to do!"

The two of them hissed at each other like this until one of the theater staff came to tell them in very polite terms to shut up or they would be thrown out of the cinema as they were causing a nuisance for everyone.

Once the theater attendant was out of earshot, Tang Ze couldn't help but whisper to her, "He dares speak to us like that? Courting death!"

The two of them couldn't help but burst into a fit of laughter so loud and obnoxious that they really were kicked out of the theater.

"Ah, forget it," Shen Hui said, still giggling even as they walked away. "I have a rather nice home theater system back at my place. Want to drop by there to watch some other movie?"

"I mean, it's kind of late, and what kind of movie would we even watch-" Tang Ze began to say.

Shen Hui sighed. "You know, you really can be dense sometimes. 'Watching a movie' doesn't mean that we actually have to watch the movie, and my family isn't home right now you know..."

The two of them, in a dark environment, alone with each other?

"Ah..." Tang Ze said, realizing what Shen Hui was getting at as she led him away.

The two of them would sometimes go to conventions together after that, and oftentimes they would dress up in couple costumes.

Shen Hui, in this new life of hers, seemed to want to eke out every bit of enjoyment she could find of it. In a way, she was similar to himself in that regard. Now that he had accomplished his goal of saving his brother - what was left but to live out life to the fullest? She had also not accomplished her goal, but abandoning it now left her free to do whatsoever she wished for.

The two of them grew close as in a way, they were the only ones who could truly understand each other in this world. Both of them had experienced what a higher realm was like, and the only people they could discuss cultivation with was each other.

Shen Hui had managed to get to the first minor realm of Qi Condensation, and would give Tang Ze pointers, though she admitted that with the way he was progressing, he would likely never ascend higher than the second minor realm of Qi Condensation. If they were back in Zhang Long's world, Shen Hui could probably ascend to the Eternal Soul realm once more in a very short period of time based on the experiences of her past lives, though she said that Earth's Qi was so weak that this was just not possible at all. When Tang Ze asked why this was, she likened it to climbing up a large tower. If one had climbed up before, they would find it easier to go back up as they already knew the route. However, they could not climb past the tower's peak, and on Earth, that peak was much shorter than back in her world.

"Don't feel flustered," she told him during the times he would occasionally get frustrated with his lack of progress. "It can take many lifetimes to master this, just work on being better than you were the day before."

Tang Ze had witnessed the Wheel of Samsara, or a portion of it, for himself. He had seen a few souls who had truly achieved enlightenment - what she was saying was true. As long as he kept advancing, the time would eventually come, even if it took ten million lifetimes, when he would truly be free.

A few months later Shen Hui took Tang Ze to meet with her parents. Tang Ze noted she had been born to rich parents- likely as a result of her targeting where she had reincarnated.

"Hey, you can't blame me for wanting things to be somewhat easy at some point," she would tell him when he questioned her on this.

Tang Ze honestly couldn't in good faith say that he wouldn't have done the same.

And who was he to judge the one person in this world who seemed to understand him the most? If anything, he wished that her life's road would be paved with gold and rose petals, and that she would enjoy every blessing that fortune would rain down upon her.

Seven years after the two of them had met in this world, in that café, the two of them got married. He did not leave her at the altar, and they would be together for the rest of their lives. Or, as Shen Hui told him before the ceremony, for at least seven lifetimes.

Tang Ze ended up moving through the ranks of the corporate ladder in a big company for a few years after he graduated. He would later transfer over to the company owned by Shen Hui's parents, which he would eventually take over.

Tang Ze would oftentimes ask Shen Hui if she didn't get bored staying on Earth. Despite modern-day Earth's marvels, he felt that it couldn't possibly live up to the world she had come from. Nor could accomplishing anything here come close to the joy of ascending to the Hinayana realm, her original goal.

Yet, whenever he asked her this, she would just gently shake her head before giving him a look that said 'This guy really can be dense sometimes' without elaborating on what it was that he was missing.

In the blink of an eye, or so it seemed (especially to Shen Hui), their mortal lives came to a close.

One day Shen Hui had been standing with Tang Ze at the altar, as his bride, and the next, she was sitting next to him as he lay in a hospital bed. A glorious lifetime had passed in between those two moments, but to her, who still remembered several millennia of her past lives, it was as fleeting as the morning dew. Though, much like the morning dew, it had been beautiful beyond description.

"Remember..." Shen Hui said to him. "Our bond is for seven lifetimes. Wherever you go next, I'll do my best to find you, even in the next life." It would be up to a toss of the cosmic dice if they could find each other again, but if the opportunity presented itself, she swore that she would seize it. 'You idiot,' she thought, 'You kept asking me if I felt bored while I was living here. How could I possibly get bored in this life? When even mundane moments with you are so special...' She had not married him to become closer to the Dao, or because she thought that it would help her ascend - but because she had truly, hopelessly, fallen in love with him.

Tang Ze passed soon thereafter, and Shen Hui followed him to the grave eight months later.