To Reduce Separations That Should Never Happen

As soon as the words left his mouth, Jingxing felt he had made too grand a claim.

"Hang it at the highest point in Thousand Stars City"—coming from a recent graduate standing in a land at war, it sounded awfully grand, however he put it.

He hooked a pebble from the middle of the road with his toe and kicked it into the river, trying to distract himself from the declaration he had just made.

Robin noticed, and the corners of her mouth lifted slightly, but she said nothing more.

The two continued on. After several kilometers, the riverbed began to narrow noticeably. The earthen slopes rose higher on either side, and the exposed gravel had been bleached grayish white by the sun. Their boot soles made a constant, fine scraping sound as they walked over it.

As Jingxing walked, he compared their surroundings to the map in his head. If nothing went wrong, they could reach the town where they planned to make their first stop by the afternoon.

"Do you think there's anyone still alive there?" he asked casually.

Robin recalled the information she had gathered from various sources as she answered, "There haven't been any recent reports from there, but I heard government troops were stationed there for a while."

She paused. "Then the front moved south, and the garrison withdrew."

What happened after they withdrew—the two did not discuss it further. Both sides in the fighting accused the other of harassing civilians, but Jingxing and Robin both felt certain that both sides had done it.

After more than three hours, Jingxing finally saw the first wall he had come across since leaving the refugee camp.

It belonged to a house, but half the roof had long since collapsed. Charred rafters jutted diagonally from the rubble, their broken ends darkened by repeated soakings in the rain. The door lay in the mud, the wood warped from absorbing water and split by several cracks across its surface.

The owner of the house was probably gone.

Jingxing looked away.

The two went on. The entire street was empty. The window frames held no glass, and the doorways were pitch-black, like a row of eyes peering out. Someone had scrawled a line of local script in white paint on a door.

Jingxing stopped and studied it for a few seconds. "No food inside. Keep out."

Robin bit her lip. She thought of the refugee camp. The people crowded into the camp, waiting for supplies, could at least receive some rations. But here, just over ten kilometers away, there seemed to be no one left at all.

The two continued deeper into the town. The empty streets magnified every sound—each footstep echoed back and forth between the broken walls several times before fading away.

Jingxing slowed down instinctively. He disliked places like this. Not because it seemed desolate and frightening, but because, after seeing it as it was, he could easily imagine what it had once looked like.

The contrast between imagination and reality crowded his mind, and the impact was simply too strong.

Just as they were preparing to find a place to build a fire and cook lunch, figures suddenly emerged nearby.

Jingxing's first reaction was to step forward and shield Robin. But a second later, he saw that they were not soldiers, but a local family. An elderly woman carried a bundle on her back, a woman held a child, and several youths pushed a cart missing a wheel. Pots, bowls, and several sacks of grain, already nearly empty, were piled on it.

They saw Jingxing and Robin too. The group fell silent at once. Several of the youths instinctively moved in front of the woman and child, only breathing a sigh of relief when they confirmed that the newcomers carried no obvious weapons.

The gray-haired elderly woman stepped forward, leaning on a cane. She stared at the two for quite a while before speaking quietly. "You two... are you going to the capital too?"

"Yes," Robin answered of her own accord.

She did not approach too closely, keeping a distance that would put the other woman at ease. "Ma'am, do you know if the road ahead is easy to travel?"

The elderly woman shook her head. "Past the river bend is a rebel checkpoint. They're checking people strictly now. Farther ahead, there are some routed soldiers in the mountains too—no food, no pay, and they'll snatch anything they see."

She glanced at Jingxing, then looked at Robin. Her gaze lingered on Robin's face for a moment. "Girl, with looks like yours, you definitely won't be safe on that road."

Jingxing's brow twitched.

The elderly woman was right. In a place like this, Robin's appearance was a risk in itself. But since she was a Pathstrider, surely ordinary soldiers with guns couldn't threaten her?

Robin, however, only smiled. "Thank you for the warning. We'll be careful."

The elderly woman seemed to want to say something more. In the end, she only sighed and turned back to the cart, fishing out two potatoes whose skins had been roasted black. He pressed one into Robin's hand and the other into Jingxing's.

"Fate brought us together. You don't seem to have any luggage, so have these to tide you over on the road."

Jingxing looked down at the potato in his hand. He was just about to refuse when the elderly woman walked back to the group, leaning on her cane.

He tightened his grip, leaving five finger marks on the roasted potato.

"Kindness from everyone," Robin said, catching sight of Jingxing's expression. She took a bite of her potato. "Now I have to work even harder to restore peace here with my singing."

Jingxing and Robin stepped to the side of the road to let them pass. Just then, a gaze came through the group—a girl of five or six was hiding behind her mother, only half her face visible, watching Robin the whole time.

Robin noticed her too. As they passed each other, the girl finally summoned her courage and poked her head out from behind her mother. "Hello, miss."

Robin tilted her head and bent down until she was eye level with the girl. "What is it?"

The girl stared at her face for a few seconds. "Are you the person who sings on TV?"

Jingxing saw the fingers Robin had resting on her knee curl slightly.

"Do I look like her?"

"Yes!" The girl nodded vigorously. "Dad said you sing really well."

Her voice gradually grew quieter.

"But... Dad went to fight the bad guys later, and he never came back."

Jingxing turned his head away. Robin was silent for two seconds, then reached out and gently stroked the girl's head. "After the bad guys leave here, I'll sing for everyone again."

The girl gave an emphatic "Mm-hmm!" A smile finally bloomed on her face, and only then did she set off to catch up with her family walking ahead. After going a dozen meters or so, the little girl could not resist looking back once more.

Robin stood where she was, the smile still on her face.

Jingxing looked down at the potato in his hand. It was no longer hot. He broke it open, and the flesh inside was still a little warm. He held out one half to her.

"Have some more. I'm not hungry right now anyway."

Robin did not refuse. After taking it, she lowered her head and took a bite.

The two stood by the empty street and quietly finished the food the elderly woman had given them.

"Let's hurry." Robin took a deep breath and was the first to set off. "To reduce separations that should never happen."