Above the vault of heaven, the celestial pillar was rebuilt, then collapsed again, again and again.
The towns upon the earth cycled between destruction and peace, while the figures on the streets alternated between whole and shattered. Survival and destruction replayed endlessly, until in the end, even time and the past itself became so utterly hollow.
Ji Jue walked through these surviving records, looking around at those shattered old days, at that unreachable Yellow Millet Dream.
It seemed close at hand, yet it could not be touched.
All that one sought in a lifetime amounted to nothing but emptiness.
Compared to the ruins of the past, which was crueler for Mercury?
Amid the bell sound from the sanctuary, he stopped in the square and no longer wished to look. He felt that perhaps he already knew where Feigong was.
The bell thundered and echoed.
From within that towering bell tower...
Ji Jue silently raised his head, gazing up in a daze at the clock face atop the tower, and beyond its hands, at the weathered, age-stained stained glass window.
Mercury's old Workshop.
Over the long years four centuries ago, she had stood there, gazing day after day, waiting and singing alone. What kind of scenes had she been hoping for?
Guests in formal attire arrived from all directions with smiles on their faces. Petals rained down, white doves spread their wings and rose, and the laughing bride and groom linked arms, following the bell sound toward the hall that would witness their wedding.
Hoping to begin a brand-new life from that day onward.
Yet in their ignorance, they walked toward their destined deaths.
Once, and once again.
As the "chief culprit," did Mercury's heart ache as though being cut by knives when she watched such scenes?
In that brief daze,