What people fear most is betrayal after trust, coldness after taking initiative, heartbreak after devotion, and distance after intimacy; boredom after familiarity, indifference after deep affection, separation after mutual understanding, and loss after cherishing. The words you once shared with someone with complete trust and open heart may well become the sharp arrows that wound you later.
Speech should be subtle; do not leave yourself without any retreat.
I waited in vain for the blooming of flowers that would shake the city, yet I have already seen through the wind and moon. I hoped for no moving rhythm of spring blossoms, yet my heart has already become desolate. In the red dust of life, the rings of the tree trunk engrave strokes of vicissitude, strokes of coldness, strokes of desolation, and strokes of lonely graves. That sorrow, without coffin or casket, walks to the left and to the right, lingering at the edges, gazing through the eyes, and sinking into the deepest depths of the sea of the heart. The fates of the mortal world touch me inch by inch with cruelty, touching my sorrowful expectations and waiting, touching my desolate affections and beauty. Before I could shake off the dust covering me, before I could take up the Konghou lute to play a segment of magnificent charm, I am already at the ends of the earth, with white dew turned to frost, surrounded by coldness and bleakness.