Final Thoughts
It's over.
First, let's talk about the arrangements for the Great Thousand World.
The Great Thousand World itself leans more toward an afterstory. It's the kind of thing that doesn't matter at all if you don't read it. If I have to put it into words, aside from the history of an old married couple starting a business, it also counts as the last bit of completion for Yao Wan.
Xiao Se is Yao Wan's mirror, reflecting the way Yao Wan ought to have been. He is a mold forged from her former values, a form that fits this world more closely. This is also one of the two important reasons why Yao Wan is neither warm nor cold toward him.
To Yao Wan, Xiao Se's personality is more like her own immature self, the self who had not yet gone through all of this. So he carries a little fantasy, but is also not very mature, with the wishful thinking of a child about to grow up.
As someone who had already been through it, Yao Wan naturally couldn't stand it. That inability to stand it, along with her sense of responsibility as a mother, made her especially conflicted, just like the way her past self once judged her own old man.
And in the end, Xiao Se also made his own choice. Life is his own, so he chose to leave. A long childhood will not necessarily be smooth sailing, but in the future, he will always return safely.
As for the final confession, that also counts as Yao Wan finally letting go of the last bit of specialness deep in her heart. Although her starting point came from a distant shore, her home now is here.
That's about it.
It took nearly two years, three