#lotuses rising above the muddy water etc

[pastelcheckereddreams]

IGNORE THIS

Li Lianhua dies using the last of yangzhouman to heal the man that killed Li Xiangyi.

Li Lianhua dies at the moment Wuliao looks up from his meditation to the statue of the Buddha and stops his drumbeat.

(LLH says: Live well. Biqiu says: I'll listen to you. It is a goodbye.)

This is the unavoidable truth of the narrative: Li Lianhua is departing this world.

His ghost remains just a while longer, to ease the pain of his passing. Because that's what he's been doing all this time - living, to grow food. Living, to feed a dog. To feed a boy. Living, to die. Living.

It is not a sad thing.

But attachments are messy and burdensome, and as he forms more he spends a lot of time trying to ease the burden of his ghost off the shoulders of others; shielding everyone from that truth that is an unavoidable fact - he is dying.

That is, paradoxically, his burden.

At the moment LLH has no more to give, can carry no more, and knows it - Wuliao, the first to know he exists, the first to hope he won't die - lets him go.

In that instant, the sun sets. The moon rises.

From here, we play out the cycle of loss again, for emphasis: Li Lianhua is a ghost. He has settled all of LXY's debts. Now he must settle the ones LLH himself has accumulated.