But scarcely had they had a chance to express their love or recall the awakened secrets of the past, when the birds of the mountains began to twitter in the branches of the trees, and the silken blinds to lighten. The fairy said to the Master: “I must not detain you longer. To-day is my appointed time of return to heaven. When the officer of the genii, at the command of God, comes with flags and banners to meet me, if he should find you here we should be accounted guilty. Please make haste and escape. If you are true to your first love we shall have opportunities to meet again.” Then she wrote for him a farewell verse on a piece of silk which ran thus
"Since we have met, all heaven is filled with flowers,
Now that we part, each bud is fallen to earth again.
The joys of spring are but a passing dream,
Wide waters block the way far as infinity.”
When the Master had read this he was overcome with regret at the thought of their parting, so he tore off a piece of his silken sleeve and wrote a verse which ran:
"The winds of heaven blow through the green stone flute,
Wide-winged the white clouds lift and sail away.
Another night shall mark our gladful meeting,
E'en though wild rains should block our destined way.”
The maiden received it, and said: “The moon has set behind the Tree of Gems; hasten away! On all my flight to heaven I shall have this verse by which to see your face.” So she placed it in the folds of her robe and then urgently pressed him: “The time is passing, Master, please make haste.”
The Master raised his hands, said his regretful good-bye and was gone. He had scarcely passed beyond the shadowed circle of the grove when he looked back, but there was only the green of the mountains that seemed piled one upon the other till they touched the white clouds in companies. He realised then that he had had a dream of the Lake of Gems and thus he came back home.
But his mind was all confused and his heart had lost its joy. He sat alone thinking to himself: “Even though the fairy did tell me that the time had come for her return from exile, how could she tell the very moment, or that it was to-day? If I had only waited a little or hidden myself in some secluded corner and seen the fairies and their meeting, I would have come back home in triumph. Why did I make this fatal blunder and come away so quickly?” So he expressed his regrets over and over as he failed to sleep the night through. With these vain thoughts upon him he greeted the dawn, arose, took his servant, and went once more to where he had met the fairy. The plum blossoms seemed to mock him and the passing stream to babble in confusion. Nothing greeted him but an empty pavilion. All the fragrance of the place had vanished. The Master leaned over the deserted railing, looked up in sadness, and sighed as he gazed at the grey clouds, saying: “Fairy maiden, you have ridden away on yonder cloud and are in audience before Heaven's high King. Now, however, that the very shadow of the fairy has vanished what's the use of sighing?”
So he came down from the pavilion. Standing by the peach tree where first he met her he said to himself: “These flowers will know my depths of sorrow.”
When the evening shadows began to lengthen he returned home.
Some days later Thirteen came to Master Yang and said “The other day on account of my wife's illness we failed in our outing together. My regret over that disappointment is still with me, and now though the plums and the peaches are past and the long stretch of the willows is in bloom, let us take half a day away, you and I, to see the butterflies dance and hear the orioles sing.”
Master Yang answered: “The green sward with the willows is prettier even than the flowers.”
So the two went together outside the gates of the city across the wide plain to the green wood. They sat upon the grass and made counting points of flowers to reckon up the drinks they had taken. Just above them was an old grave on an elevated ridge. Artemisia weeds grew over it, the fresh sod had fallen away, and there were bunches of spear grass and other green tufts mixed together, while a few weakly-looking flowers strove for life.
Master Yang, awakened from the dejection caused by the wine he had drunk, pointed to the grave, saying: “The good and the good-for-nothing, the honourable and the mean, in a hundred years will all have turned to heaped up mounds of clay. This was the regret of Prince Maing-sang long, long ago. Shall we not drink and be merry while we may?”
Thirteen replied: “Brother, you evidently don't know whose grave this is. This is the grave of Chang-yo, who died unmarried. Her beauty was the praise and admiration of all the world in which she lived, and so she was called Chang Yo-wha, the Beautiful Flower. She died at the age of about twenty and was buried here. Later generations took pity on her and planted these willows to comfort her sorrowful soul and to mark the place. Supposing we, too, pour out a glass by way of oblation to her lovely spirit?”
The young Master, being by nature kind-hearted, readily said in reply: “Good brother, your words are most becoming.” So they went together to the front of the grave and there poured out the glass of wine. Each likewise wrote a verse to comfort her in her loneliness.
The Master's words ran thus:
"The beauty of your form o'erturned the State,
Your radiant soul has mounted high to Heaven;
The forest birds have learned the music of your way,
The flowers have donned the silken robes you wore.
Upon your grave the green of springtime rests,
The smoke hangs o'er the long deserted height,
The old songs from the streams that bore you hence,
When shall we hear them sung?”
The scholar Thirteen's words ran thus:
"I ask where was the beautiful land,
And of whose house were you the joy,
Now all is waste and desolate,
With death and silence everywhere.
The grass takes on the tints of spring,
The fragrance of the past rests with the flowers,
We call the sweet soul but she does not come,
Only the flocks of crows now come and go.”
They read over together what they had written and again poured out an offering. Thirteen then walked round the back of the grave, when unexpectedly in an opening where the sod had fallen away, he found a piece of white silk on which something was written. He read it over, saying: “What busybody, I wonder, wrote this, and placed it on Chang-yo's grave?”
Master Yang asked for it, and lo! it was the piece he had torn from his sleeve on which was the verse he had written for the fairy. He was astounded at it, and greatly alarmed, saying to himself: “The beautiful woman whom I met the other day is evidently Chang-yo's spirit.” Perspiration broke out on his back and his hair stood on end. He could scarcely control himself, and then again he tried to dismiss his fears by saying: “Her beauty is so perfect, her love so real. Fairies too have their divinely appointed mates; devils and disembodied spirits have theirs, I suppose. What difference is there, I wonder, between a fairy and a disembodied spirit?”