The Sapling

The familiar room, familiar furniture, familiar little living room, familiar studio apartment.

Everything remained exactly as it had been when he left, like a piece of amber frozen outside the shell of time. No matter how much time passed, nothing here would change.

Zhou Ming walked into the studio apartment's small living room. Standing in the home where he had lived for many years, he let out a soft breath.

He had not returned here in a very long time—sometimes, he even felt that he had forgotten this studio apartment, forgotten the "other world" it represented.

But in the end, that self-deceptive "forgetting" had no real meaning.

He smiled and shook his head, then headed straight for the desk. He did not inspect the tightly shut window as he had before, because the clutter on the windowsill and the flour he had deliberately scattered there had already been cleaned away during his last visit. In this final little house deep within the mist, he no longer expected any visitors.

A faint layer of ghostly green fire was slowly fading above the desk. Within the dying flames, he saw that a new "collection" had gradually taken shape.

Zhou Ming walked over and sat down in the chair, placing both hands on the desk. His gaze was calm and gentle as he looked at the lively-looking... "sapling."

She floated above the desk, her canopy roughly as wide as an adult's forearm, lush and verdant with thick branches and leaves. Beneath her trunk was a large clump of soil, her roots deeply embedded within it, with a few roots extending from below the soil and exposed to the air.

She simply floated there, about ten centimeters above the desk, maintaining her suspension in an... unbelievable manner, utterly unlike the other "collections."

Zhou Ming