At the edge of the bustling city market, where reality seemed to sprinkle its dust onto realms unseen, an old woman sat, hunched over her wares. Her stall, cluttered with strange artifacts, drew attention yet deterred approach. What passersby didn’t fathom was that the worn wooden table held relics of long-lost dreams. Among them lay a pristine, untouched lipstick—“干净的” was scrawled in faded paint on the case.

Ning, a young woman with curious eyes and a heart both impulsive and timid, wandered the market aimlessly, the chaos around her dull compared to the storm of thoughts inside. She paused before the stall as if tethered by an invisible thread. Her gaze fell upon the lipstick, a humble tube exuding an inexplicable allure, as though whispering promises of secrets unuttered.

Despite the oddity of it—a seemingly innocuous object amid the bizarre—it was the old woman’s eyes, sharp yet knowing like a seer hidden beneath mundane garb, that anchored Ning’s intrigue. She leaned forward.

“Do you desire to know your fate?” the woman asked, her voice unexpectedly crisp, cutting through Ning’s hesitance. She gestured to the lipstick, inviting yet with an undercurrent of gravity.

Ning hesitated, fingers hovering above it like a moth skirting flame. “How can something so simple reveal fate?”

The woman chuckled, a sound both comforting and unsettling. “In a world where reality weaves with dreams, even the cleanest of things hold mysteries. Try it. If you dare.”

Resolute in her belief of harmless indulgence, Ning picked it up. The cool metal tingled in her palm as she carefully twisted until the lipstick swiveled up, an immaculate pillar untouched by time. Unsure but compelled, she applied it, like the tentative brush of a painter’s initial stroke on a vast canvas. A warmth spread, coursing through her, as if the boundaries of her world rippled and reshaped silently around her.

“My name is Min Yang,” she spoke aloud, the words spilling forth beyond her intent. To her ears, they hung foreign yet familiar, like a melody forgotten but once dear.

The old woman nodded knowingly. “You remember.”

Ning—or was it Min Yang?—felt a dizzying cascade of images: lifetimes lived, loves lost, dreams chased and torn. Each cycle vivid yet achingly fragile. Her heart raced with the weight of innumerable hearts in unison, beating in the rhythm of history woven into her soul’s tapestry.

“Where does it lead, this cycle?” she asked, her voice steady against the disarray inside her.

“To understanding, perhaps,” replied the woman. Her gaze softened, a luminescent compassion radiating. “Or to the next beginning. Endless, like the path of a river winding to the sea, each anew yet eternal.”

The market morphed around them, familiar faces and stalls transformed into echoes, distant yet resonant. Ning blinked; the visions settled like dust after a storm. She stood alone once more before the stall, the lipstick clean and returned to its place.

“It’s just a lipstick,” she murmured, shaking her head, trying to ground herself in the mundane truth of things.

The woman was gone, as though never there. Yet the weight of new understanding lingered. As she turned to leave, the market beckoned unchanged, vibrant and constant.

Though each step she took felt freshly laden with the gravity of rejuvenated purpose, of circles unbroken yet anew. And amidst the vibrant hum of life around her, Ning walked on, both an echo and a harmony to the endless song of existence, knowing now it would always return to the beginning.