The "we" crystal in Lin Yue's palm suddenly fragmented into millions of points of light, drifting like dandelions towards the various star tracks in the "Habit Formation Zone." Xia Zichen's Star-Patterned Sword drew a navigation line within the light, but the tip of the sword always tilted to the upper right—the direction of Lin Yue's hair, as if it were an instinct etched into the blade. A black cat perched on his hilt, flicking its tail. "Meow! Swords know to protect the moonlight above. When did you learn to shield her from interstellar dust?"
The "Inclusive Seasoning" shelf at the entrance suddenly collapsed, sending salt and sugar rolling onto the floor in a yin-yang pattern. Lin Yue stepped on talking peppercorns and heard them mutter under her shoe: "He always uses your 'Wind Pocket' as a arsenal, but he didn't realize it contains lavender seeds that could cure your insomnia." Xia Zichen bent down to pick up a cinnamon stick that had rolled to his feet. The stick reflected the stress-resistant chip he had secretly added when repairing her sword tassel last week—ostensibly to "improve combat efficiency," but in reality, to prevent her from forcing herself to rest.
"So you secretly modified my pocket." Lin Yue crushed an accusing star anise, and from the crumbs popped the design drawings he'd been working on late into the "Mechanic Universe." A black cat with a wrench was etched in the corner of each drawing. Xia Zichen's ears flushed red as he used his scabbard to push aside the "Spice of Compromise" vines blocking his path. But the vines wrapped around his wrists, squeezing out a holographic projection: In the "Time Management Bureau" universe, he'd deliberately miscalculated the orbits of twelve planets so she could watch a once-in-a-century meteor shower, throwing the entire galaxy's calendar into a tizzy.
A resonance bell suddenly rang at the "Life Inertia Black Hole," and a mountain of "undefined bills" fell from Lin Yue's Wind Pocket: the false injury levels he'd reported each time he'd blocked an attack for her, the therapy appointments she'd secretly made for his sword wound, and the strawberry tarts he'd pretended not to like in the "Gourmet Universe" last week, only to be caught secretly eating in the kitchen in the middle of the night. Xia Zichen's Star Pattern Sword automatically scanned the black hole data, but when it read "She's learning to make cedar-flavored throat lozenges for you," a rare vibration rippled through the blade.
"Is your combat analysis system overloaded?" Lin Yue reached out to touch his scalding scabbard. Suddenly, the black hole erupted into a rainbow of "daily paradoxes," reflecting scenes they'd repeated countless times: how he'd twist the bandages into a tassel when bandaging her, how she'd tug a little longer when adjusting his collar—actually, wanting to feel that extra tenth of a second of warmth. The black cat swatted the "logical error" sign in the smoke with its paw: "Meow! The essence of habit is the illogical repetition of heartbeats."
Lao Zhang's pocket watch rolled out from the pile of spices. Half a strawberry tart crumb clung to the inside of the watch cover, and the inscription had become: "The entropy of the universe is increasing, and you are creating a low-entropy oasis in each other's time zones." Lin Yue looked at the watch and suddenly remembered that when he poured her coffee this morning, he automatically avoided the rim of the cup by three centimeters—the spot where she always stopped when drinking hot drinks. And when she gripped his wrist now, she also precisely avoided the protruding joint of his old injury.
The girl with the Scythe of Entropy sat on the "Inertia Asteroid" and tossed and caught seasoning bottles. The mustard-flavored "stubbornness" and the sweet "accommodation" condensed into a spiral galaxy between her fingers: "It's time to try the 'habit fusion experiment' - tune his sword tassel weaving method to the same frequency as your wind rhythm." Xia Zichen pulled out the spare sword tassel he carried with him, and Lin Yue took out the star track thread from the wind pocket at the same time. When the metallic luster and the flowing light were entangled together, the whole area suddenly rang with the "clicking" sound of gears biting, as if the two planets had found a resonant frequency.
"Look." Lin Yue held up the interwoven tassels, a blend of oracle bone script and wind whispers appearing on them. Translated, it means "Your rhythm, my direction." Xia Zichen's fingertips traced the runes, and the tassels suddenly unfolded into a small shield, shielding her from the oncoming "difference meteorites"—the very habits that had once made them frown were now deflected into shimmering meteors. The black cat's tail gathered up the meteorite fragments, piecing them together into a gustatory puzzle of "seeking common ground while reserving differences," each piece bearing the flavor of the other.
The core of the Habit Galaxy suddenly lit up like daylight. Lin Yue saw countless parallel versions of herself doing the same thing: in the pirate universe, she was mending his torn cloak; in the poet universe, he was designing a secret compartment for her wind pocket; in this reality, she was using the sword tassel weaving technique he had taught her, sewing fragments of his star pattern into her wristband. And his star-patterned sword, sheathed at some point, was now being used to lift her dangling hair like plucking the strings of a harp.
"In the Time Administration universe, I miscalculated the trajectory because..." Xia Zichen suddenly spoke, his ears red as if blood was dripping. "I want you to know that some things are more important than accuracy. For example, right now—" He paused and plucked a 'Change' fruit from the 'Compromise Spice' vine. Biting it open didn't reveal the flavor, but a list of her habits he had secretly recorded over the past month: she couldn't tolerate caffeine but always stayed up late with him, she was afraid of heights but insisted on accompanying him on patrols of high-altitude sentry posts, and... "Actually, you don't like strawberry tarts at all. You just want me to eat more sweets."
Lin Yue bit down on the fruit of discovery, and her tongue evoked the image of him secretly licking the frosting off his fingers every time he pushed the strawberry tart toward her. She suddenly remembered that time on the park bench in the "Stranger Universe," when he said, "There's a leaf in your hair." She had actually noticed the red tip of his ear, but she had deliberately lowered her head to let him in. This knowing "misunderstanding" now transformed into the gentlest attraction in the galaxy of habit.
The Answer Tree sprouted new branches in the center of the galaxy, each leaf a symbol of a habit they had cultivated together: her whispered blessing hidden in his sword's tassel, his emergency medicine bottle in her pocket, and even the black cat had learned to use its tail to simultaneously deliver both a sword and a bandage. Old Zhang's pocket watch read "0.999∞," its cover rewritten for the final time: "Perfect fit is a false proposition. True habits are those that can grow symbiotic roots amidst differences."
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