After a while, she lifted her head. Her eyes seemed a little red, but her gaze had regained its clarity. She only looked deeply at Mo Wang, carrying a hope that bordered on despair. "Mo Wang, this time... can you not leave?"
Looking at the face in his arms, almost no different from several centuries ago yet bearing far too much weathering, looking at the undisguised dependence and longing in her eyes, Mo Wang opened his mouth, but his throat felt as if it had been blocked.
He thought of his long journey, of the goal he had yet to find, of those who were likewise waiting for him or needed him... Stay? He could not make that promise.
And then Kongming saw the obvious difficulty and silence on Mo Wang's face. The last glimmer of hope in her eyes quickly dimmed, turning into a self-mocking look of understanding.
She forced out a bleak smile, loosened the arms wrapped around him, and took a small half step back, putting distance between them. "I know... it's impossible. After all, you have your journey too, your mission, and you're still searching for... that person in your heart. What I said was nothing but... a foolish wish."
The night wind brushed past, carrying the faint warmth of the sky lantern's candle flame, yet it could not disperse the heaviness and loneliness that had suddenly spread between them.
And at the very instant Kongming's words fell, Mo Wang's gaze abruptly sharpened!
It was not because of Kongming's words, but because his keen senses had caught a sharp whistle through the air that had almost blended into the night wind—from the direction of the rockery to the side, aimed straight at Kongming's back!
"Watch out!"
In that flash of lightning, Mo Wang had no time