Ye Qingyu had indeed never been to Maple Forest City, but her letters had.
They spoke of a young boy's confusion in his youth, a little girl's innocent curiosity, and the red maples beyond the small city that burned eternally like flames...
They had once flown there in words.
Not having visited the hometown of the one she loved was, to some extent, a regret. It felt as though she had failed to take part in his childhood, absent from his past.
Especially... because it was a past that boy himself could no longer experience. In those days of lush grass and orioles in flight, all the beauty preserved in memory now lay buried in graves. Even Jiang True Lord, capable of anything in heaven and earth, could only remember. There was no way to make up for it.
But if time were turned back to that year, the young mistress of High Heaven Pavilion truly had not considered visiting Maple Forest City.
At the time, her impression of the name "Jiang Wang" was based only on gratitude and admiration.
She admired a clean-hearted young man, and was grateful for the "debt of saving her life"—
Though he had not actually saved her life.
But she was not the kind of person who looked down on what others gave.
She would not think, "I didn't need you to save me. I have plenty of ways to preserve my life."
She remembered that moment of flustered panic and danger, and the instant afterward when she found herself foolish enough to laugh. At that time, the greatest hero in all ages of the human world had not yet begun training her fighting abilities.
What she cherished was that feeling of a chance encounter, yet receiving a helping hand.
Such people did exist.