As the meteor shower slammed into the protective shield with a metallic whistling sound, Xia Zichen's sword tassel suddenly broke a silver thread. Lin Yue's Wind Whisper Rune immediately wove along the broken part, her fingertips finding the micro-locator he had hidden inside the tassel—the one he had secretly implanted "just in case" after she lost contact in the Lost Star Region three months ago.
"You've tampered with my equipment again," she chided, mingling with a faint laugh. But she paused when she saw the fresh bandage on his wristband—the edge of the bandage was embroidered with tiny wind wings, the very design she'd scrapped last week. The black cat crouched on its scabbard, shattering the oncoming "questioning meteorite" with its claws. From the shattered light emerged his dream from last night: on the back of her hand, burned by dark matter, a healing star-shaped flower bloomed.
The Instinct Nebula's gravity well suddenly activated, their grip increasing dramatically in the weightlessness. Lin Yue's Wind Pocket was ripped and deformed, spilling out a stack of crumpled "tactical notes": "Drink less coffee" written in star coordinates by him, "Replace the worn part of the hilt" drawn in wind-speaking symbols by her. Xia Zichen's Star-Patterned Sword spun automatically in the weightlessness, its blade reflecting her profile as she adjusted the frequency of his light blade—her hair, stained with motor oil from the night before while he was tinkering with the sword, now looked like diamonds in the blue light.
"Hold my sword tassel." His voice trembled with a rare tremor, and as she tightened her grip as he commanded, he suddenly snapped the mechanism at the end of the tassel into her wristband. Amid the clacking of gears, pale golden ripples rippled through their energy fields. The meteorites of difference that had once caused them to stumble were unexpectedly swept into a stellar ring swirling around them. The black cat suddenly stood up, its tail pointing deep into the gravity well. "Meow! It's the 'cognitive difference' black hole!"
Countless fragments swirled within the vortex of the black hole: his insistence on repairing his shields before pursuing the enemy, her habit of using the Wind Pocket for surprise attacks, her mixing of lavender seeds into his sword oil, his secretly tuning the stress-resistant chip to her favorite cedar scent. Lin Yue watched those fragments shatter and reassemble at the edge of the black hole, suddenly remembering what Lao Zhang had said: "The flip side of habit is unspoken care." She loosened the Wind Whisper rune on her wristband, allowing her energy field to open to the vibrations of his Star Mark.
Xia Zichen's pupils constricted as he felt the rhythm of her wind adapting to the rhythm of his sword's momentum. As her wind lifted the tip of his sword, his star-patterned blade sliced through the wind barrier she had cast. A resonant web of sword shadows and flowing light suddenly blossomed between them. The moment the most dangerous "value meteorite" collided with the resonant web, it shattered into shimmering dust reflecting the unique characteristics of both—his rigor becoming the nodes of the grid, her agility condensing into connecting threads.
"It turns out that differences are not obstacles." Lin Yue's fingertips brushed across his knuckles, which were calloused from holding the sword for a long time. There was a light-colored scar shaped like the wings of the wind. "It's the gap in the puzzle." Xia Zichen's Adam's apple rolled. He saw half of the "Star Track Bookmark" he gave her exposed in the secret compartment of her Wind Pocket - he made it with the fragments of the broken sword, but she used it to clip in the "Interstellar Flora" that she could never finish reading.
The gravity well's suction suddenly reversed, hurling the two toward the nebula's core. Lin Yue's wind pocket opened amidst the violent turbulence, and lavender seeds and throat lozenges rolled together, unexpectedly growing into miniature symbiotic flowers in the weightlessness. Xia Zichen's Star-Embroidered Sword automatically protected her head, but the pressure-resistant chip in the scabbard overloaded, revealing a holographic projection of his "wish list" he had hidden for six months. Next to the first item, "Take her to see a starry sky without meteor showers," she had unknowingly drawn a smiley face.
The black cat suddenly pulled two bottles of "Trust Lubricant" from its scabbard and, curling its tail around them, pressed them against their touching wrists. The moment the transparent liquid seeped into the wristband runes, the meteor shower across the nebula transformed into luminous butterflies. Lin Yue recognized them as the "Resonance Butterflies" he had captured for her in the "Nature Reserve Universe." At the time, he'd said he was "just studying ecology," but after she fell asleep, he used his Star Pattern Sword to create a wall of light around her, keeping the butterflies at bay.
"Actually, in the 'Time Administration' universe..." Xia Zichen looked down at her while surrounded by butterflies, the tips of his ears brighter red than the wind feather gem on the sword tassel. "I miscalculated the trajectory because... I wanted you to get closer to me." Lin Yue's wind runes climbed up his neck as he finished speaking, turning into a secret code that only the two of them could understand: "I knew it a long time ago, but I deliberately let myself get lost."
A portal of light appeared at the core of the Instinct Nebula, and behind it floated the outline of a zone of "unconscious tacit understanding." Lin Yue found her fingers had unknowingly become entwined with the braided tassels of his sword, and the tip of his sword trembled in time with her breathing. The black cat used its paw to smack open the "language barrier" in front of the portal, revealing the "tacit understanding test stones" suspended within—each stone engraved with the code of their unspoken habits.
Xia Zichen picked up a stone inscribed with "3:00 AM," reflecting the biological alarm clock she had secretly set back for him. Lin Yue touched the stone marked "Third Notch on the Sword Handle," and the image of the peace spell he had inscribed with her wind rhythm emerged. As they both placed the stone into the light gate, the entire nebula suddenly resounded with the clear sound of gears meshing. Their shadows cast a totem of sword and wind across the light gate, like a contract forged by time.
The wind blew again, carrying the sweet scent of symbiotic flowers and cedar. Lin Yue watched as the bandage on his wristband had been repaired by her Wind Whisper rune, and the edge of her Wind Pocket had been sewn with his customary star-patterned hem. The black cat, swishing its tail, leaped into the light portal. Turning back, its eyes caught their intertwined reflections. "Meow~ Time to teach the body to react faster than the brain—for example..."
Its words were swallowed by the sudden surge of light. Xia Zichen, in his weightless state, embraced her waist, a movement that was surprisingly faster than the activation of the Sword Spike defense system. Lin Yue's Wind Pocket automatically unfolded into a cushion, catching his knee, which was trembling slightly from an old injury—the arc of his knee was exactly the angle she had secretly measured countless times when he knelt on one knee.
Old Zhang's pocket watch had appeared at the edge of the light portal at some point. Newly written words on the inside of the watch cover were drying: "When habit becomes muscle memory, heartbeat becomes instinct." Lin Yue heard his own heartbeat syncing with the hum of his sword, weaving in the resonance of the instinctive nebula into an equation more brilliant than any star map.
(End of Chapter 42)
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