Tang San: In all my years, I've never seen anyone lose quite so spectacularly

Sunlight slipped through the clouds and fell on Kallen. She turned as though she had heard someone call her name, then waved into the distance. No one saw the figure standing where she waved, almost indistinguishable from the light. It had no face, no color, only the faintest outline, as though the wind had blown the last trace of someone's obsession into shape.

"Was that him?" Xiao Xiao asked.

"Maybe," Huo Yuhao said. "Maybe it was just light. Just wind. Just one of countless ordinary moments in Kallen's world."

"Could he still see her?" A'Dai asked.

"Yes," Gu Yuena said. "He just couldn't let her see him. He would always stand behind her. Not guarding her. Watching from afar, as though they stood on opposite banks of a river that would never close. She was on one side, he was on the other. Two worlds: one alive, one empty."

"Was this really the path he chose?" Bei Bei's voice was bitter. "Five hundred years for one glimpse?"

"Not one glimpse," Huo Yuhao said. "He traded them for her entire life. That life would hold many sunsets, many clear days, many times she ran through an alley. And Otto would become the wind in those moments. Every time it brushed her bangs, it would be as though he had returned. She just wouldn't know."

"So in the end, his existence wasn't even worth a name," Zhou Weiqing said quietly.

"No," Tang San said. "His name would become a warm breeze in Kallen's world, one that came from nowhere. No one there would ask where the wind came from. But when it blew, flowers would bloom, trees would turn green, and she would smile. That was enough. For Otto, that was enough."

"But we'll remember him," the Dragon Prince said suddenly. "We're