Endgame
That desperate and long embrace seemed to have drained all their strength.
Jiu Che released his grip first, took a step back to avoid Qi Yuan's gaze, and quickly turned away. His shoulders and back remained upright, but with an indescribable stiffness. He raised his hand and swiftly wiped the corner of his eye with his fingertips. When he turned back, his face had regained most of its usual coldness, but beneath that icy exterior, cracks remained, and lingering red marks and a hint of dishevelment remained in his eyes.
Qi Yuan wasn't much better off. She stood there, the fabric of her clothes, soaked with his tears, still slightly cool to the touch, her fingertips seemingly still carrying the lingering echo of his trembling back. The high walls built over a century crumbled before the truth and tears, leaving behind only devastated ruins and a near-utterly utter bewilderment.
The room was deathly silent, with only their somewhat disordered breathing remaining.
Finally, it was Jiu Che who broke the suffocating silence. His voice was still hoarse, but he tried his best to remain calm: "...Is there anything unusual about the seal?"
He asked about the seal, but his gaze fell on her wrist, which he had gripped so tightly that it had left red marks.
Qi Yuan followed his gaze, shook his head, and said in a low, hoarse voice, "...It's alright."
Another awkward silence ensued.
Jiu Che walked to the table and put down the food box he had brought today. As he moved, his snow-white sleeve slipped down, revealing a very shallow, almost invisible old mark on the inside of his wrist—a mark left from the dissipation and tearing of his meridians when his immortal essence was destroyed during the backlash of his love tribulation a hundred years ago.
Qi Yuan's gaze lingered on that old mark for a moment, his heart felt like it had been pricked by a needle, and he quickly looked away.
"Today... there are Spirit Rhinoceros Mushrooms." Jiu Che looked at the food box and suddenly said something out of the blue.
Qi Yuan was taken aback. The Spirit Rhinoceros Mushroom, a delicious yet extremely delicate fungus that only grows in specific celestial realms—she had mentioned liking it once a hundred years ago, but then forgot about it. He actually remembered?
She looked at the food box, then at his still expressionless profile, her heart filled with mixed emotions.
He said nothing more, as if he had completed a task, and turned to walk towards the door. But before stepping across the threshold, he paused, his back to her, and his voice came in a low tone:
“...I will have someone take good care of that stream.”
After saying that, he left without looking back.
Qi Yuan stood alone, looking at the closed door, then looked down at the food box on the table. Next to the delicate pastries inside, there was indeed a small dish of stir-fried Lingxi mushrooms, which gave off a unique aroma.
"...I will have someone take good care of him."
He mentioned the water flow again.
This time, Qi Yuan clearly heard the sound of the ice in the depths of his frozen heart lake completely melting.
She slowly walked to the table, sat down, picked up her jade chopsticks, took a slice of Lingxi mushroom, and put it in her mouth. The delicious taste spread on her tongue, but it was accompanied by an indescribable bitterness.
Between them lies a century of deception, betrayal, war, and harm. The difference between immortals and demons, the enmity between their races, is an insurmountable chasm.
But the lingering emotions, the watermarks preserved for centuries, the dish of mushrooms that remembered her favorite, and the scalding tears and the desperate embrace just now… all silently tell one story—
Some things are never truly severed.
It was just buried deep.
Beneath the dust and tears of time,
Stubbornly surviving.
How do we clean up this mess?
She didn't know.
All she knew was that when she looked at the ancient plum tree outside the window again, what she saw was no longer just the boundary of a cage.
There's still a sliver...
Extremely faint,
A glimmer of light named "possibility".
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