Nine Cloud Dream Quotes

“Every evening, they enjoyed the moonlit streams, and in the day they explored the valleys, searching for plum blossoms. When they happened upon a sheer cliff face they would compose poems and play the lute in the shade of the pine trees.”
― Kim Manjung, The Nine Cloud Dream

“Look north, he said, In the middle of that vast plain is a single lonely peak. In the light of the setting sun you can just make out the ruins of A-fang-kung, the palace of the great Ch'in Shih-huang, among the weeds and the high grass.
Look west. The wind is rustling the woods where the gray mountain mist hides Mou-ling, the tomb of Emperor Han Wu-ti.
In the east you can see the white wall reflecting the green hills where a red rooftop pierces the sky and the pale moon comes and goes. No one leans on the on the jade balustrades at Huang-ch'ing-kung where Emperor Hsuan Tsung frolicked with his ill-fated concubine Yang Kue-fei.
Those three emperors were for ten millennia the heroes of our history. Where are they now?
[Fenkl translation]”
― Kim Manjung, The Nine Cloud Dream