"None of that matters. Wasn't it because I wasn't around that you grew stronger?" I did not answer her directly.
"Even though Ningsui didn't want to trouble Big Brother Xia, I don't know why, but whenever something happens, I always think of you. I wonder what you would do if it were you." Yu Ningsui said aggrievedly.
I looked at the girl before me as she lowered her head and spoke, remaining silent for a moment.
Yu Ningsui kept her head lowered, as though waiting for a response. But after waiting for a while and receiving none, she looked up at me. "Why aren't you saying anything?"
"I'm thinking about how to answer you," I said. "This is the sort of thing that can easily make me sound like I'm humoring a child."
She pressed her lips together, seeming as though she wanted to smile but could not. "Then just say a few words."
"When you think of me, what do you do?"
She thought for a moment. "I stop first. If I've run into bad people, I ask myself whether killing them would be more clean and decisive. Then I act."
"What if you run into good people?" I asked with a smile.
"I've realized that when I meet good people, I suddenly don't know what to say. The old me wouldn't have been like this. After going through so much slaughter, it feels like I've become a different person." Yu Ningsui said blankly.
"Isn't that precisely what it means to temper one's heart amid the mortal world?" For this child, leaving her behind so abruptly before had indeed been far too cruel.
When I had first met her at the Mountain Sect, this little girl had been lively and innocent, able to chat with anyone she met. Now,