Wang Hao wailed and demanded to take back his move, which made everyone laugh. Taking advantage of the chaos, Han Feng led the three women out the door, the night breeze immediately washing away the smell of smoke from their clothes.
The motion-sensor lights in the villa turned on one by one, their warm yellow light flowing through the entryway and casting long shadows of the four people on the polished floor. The lingering jazz music from the car stereo seemed to still vibrate in the air, creating an eerie contrast with the heavy silence.
Han Feng turned to face the three women, taking a deep breath that carried the familiar scent of home, but he couldn't suppress the pounding of his heart. He saw Su Wanwan still unconsciously twirling the ends of her hair with her fingers, Liu Mengran's gaze returning from the window with a hint of confusion, and Dongfang Wantang's calculating fingers frozen in mid-air—three pairs of eyes simultaneously focused on him, like stars awaiting judgment.
"There's something I need to tell you," Han Feng's voice was calmer than expected. "I'm leaving Blue Star in a week."
The air seemed to freeze. Su Wanwan's hair slipped from between her fingers, Liu Mengran's fingers, which were resting on the shoe cabinet, tightened slightly, and Dongfang Wantang's lips moved silently as if she were rapidly calculating something.
"So fast?" Liu Mengran was the first to find her voice, her fingertips digging into her palm.
Han Feng nodded: "All arrangements are complete. The core of the interdimensional communication array is within my body. As long as the teleportation base is established over there, we can maintain real-time contact." He tried to lighten his tone, "Like an interstellar travel package?"
Su Wanwan suddenly lunged forward and grabbed his collar: "Didn't we agree to break through to the Great Dao Realm together? You liar!" Her eyes were already red, but she stubbornly glared at him, refusing to let the tears fall.
"Wanwan." Han Feng gently took her hand. "Wang Hao will be coming with me. Although he hasn't been a cultivator for long, his strength has already reached the threshold of the Great Dao Realm." He looked at the other two women. "And my current Origin Realm level is enough to at least protect myself in a higher-level plane."
Dongfang Wantang finally stopped her divination, her eyes sparkling as she looked up: "The Northwest Gate of Death is wide open, the Southeast Gate of Life is flawed... This journey will surely be fraught with danger, but..." She suddenly bit her fingertip, the blood forming a complex rune in the air, "I will use astrological divination to extend your life for seven days."
The moment the blood talisman pierced Han Feng's heart, he felt a warm bond taking root in his meridians. This was a blessing from a astrologer, secured by their blood essence; the price was that the caster would share a portion of their destiny.
"Silly girl." Han Feng tried to ruffle her hair, but Dongfang Wantang dodged him.
"Don't interrupt." Her face was pale but she smiled. "If you dare to lose contact over there for more than three months, I'll reverse the cosmic orbit and drag you back—I don't care about any dimensional barriers."
Liu Mengran suddenly walked towards the kitchen: "I'll make a cup of tea." Her voice was tinged with a barely perceptible sob. The stainless steel kettle was knocked to the ground by her, crashing and shattering her feigned composure.
Han Feng hugged her from behind, feeling her thin back tremble. "I'm sorry," he said, burying his face in her tea-scented hair. "Once you both reach the Great Dao Realm, I'll build a home over there and wait for you."
"Who wants to be with you..." Su Wanwan mumbled, her voice nasal, but she rested her forehead against his back. Dongfang Wantang's hand also gently rested on his shoulder, and the four of them huddled together like a human pyramid.
As the night deepened, they huddled on the living room carpet watching a space movie. Su Wanwan scattered popcorn everywhere, Liu Mengran leaned on Han Feng's shoulder, feigning sleep, while Dongfang Wantang earnestly analyzed the flawed space jump theory in the film.
"Actually, they look very similar," Han Feng suddenly said. The three women looked at him at the same time.
"What does it look like?"
"Like the first time we watched a horror movie at the villa," he gestured with a laugh, "Wanwan was so scared she spilled her cola all over me, and Mengran was clearly terrified but tried to act calm..."
The floodgates of memory opened, and laughter washed away the sorrow of parting. Su Wanwan lunged forward to cover his mouth, but Han Feng pulled her into his arms. Dust swirled in the projector beam, like miniature galaxies encircling them.
"Promise me," Liu Mengran suddenly whispered, "you must let us know you're safe whenever you have a chance."
"And one more thing," Su Wanwan added, "We need to constantly check if you've been bewitched by some alien fairy!"
Han Feng kissed each of their foreheads: "Okay, I agree to all of them."
Outside the window, a shooting star streaked across the sky. The four of them tacitly refrained from making any wishes—they knew that every reunion had to be earned through their own efforts.
---This is the dividing line---
The week seemed to stretch on endlessly, yet also flew by in the blink of an eye. Han Feng deliberately shut out all other matters, immersing himself entirely in the ordinary routine of daily life.
On Monday morning, he first accompanied Liu Mengran to Kyoto's largest library. While the girl buried herself in piles of economics books, he sat opposite her, studying the array diagram sent by Ikegami Aya on his tablet. When Liu Mengran looked over in confusion, Han Feng explained without changing his expression that it was a "new type of financial model topology diagram".
"There's a problem with the energy flow at this node," Liu Mengran suddenly pointed to a spot on the screen. "Wouldn't reverse injection be more stable?"
Han Feng was surprised to find that she had pointed out the weak point of the formation. That night, he tried adjusting it according to Liu Mengran's suggestion, and the stability of the formation indeed improved by 20%. This discovery made him unable to resist hugging his girlfriend and spinning her around several times, which made the librarian stare at him in disbelief.
Tuesday was Su Wanwan's turn. The little hacker dragged him straight into the Longyuan Base's simulation training ground: "Heard you want to learn a new skill? Let's test it in real combat!" Han Feng's formation trapped an entire virtual enemy army, but nearly crashed the main system. While cursing and fixing the code, Su Wanwan secretly backed up the data to his private server: "This is amazing... I'll use this trick to hack into bank systems in the future..."
Wednesday was Dongfang Wantang's astrology lesson. She set up a star array in her courtyard, teaching Han Feng how to integrate the power of the stars into the array: "Star trails are the array patterns, heaven and earth are the array plate." When Han Feng successfully drew the power of the stars to create the first complete array, the entire Dongfang family's astronomical instrument lit up simultaneously, alarming all the elders.
"The Star Lord truly..." The Grand Elder gazed at the courtyard bathed in starlight, tears streaming down his face. "The ancestral prophecy was true..."
Friday was family day. Han Feng brought his three daughters home for dinner, and his mother cooked a table full of dishes. No one mentioned the upcoming separation, but Han's mother's constant picking of food and Han's father's extra two glasses of wine betrayed their feelings.
"Eat more, the nutrition outside isn't as balanced as at home." Han's mother added another bowl of soup for her son.
Han Feng lowered his head to drink the soup, the steam making his eyes sting.
Late Saturday night, after the three girls had all gone to sleep, Han Feng contacted Ikegami Aya alone on the balcony. The girl in the holographic projection seemed to have lost some weight, but her eyes were even sharper.
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