At the Top of the Tower of Starfall, the night wind sang as it stirred the boundless darkness overhead.
Listening to Fang Ran's final answer echo through the wind, Ling, in her adult form, trembled slightly in her pale golden eyes and stared at him amid the countless lights, somewhat lost in thought.
Casting aside unease and accepting sorrow, the young man sat atop the tower with his burning coat hem drifting around him, smiling with the quiet resolve of someone who had endured a storm.
It was as if a stone had fallen into her heart, sending ripples through waters that could not settle.
During the day, even though she had felt nervous and awkward facing an unfamiliar version of herself, Ling could tell that everything he said had been meant for the previous her.
But at this moment, she suddenly realized with absolute clarity that, since the night began, every word he had spoken
had been spoken entirely to the person standing here now.
Not to the Ling who had first helped him and possessed memories of the Arctic, nor to the Ling who had traveled with him by carriage a hundred years ago,
but to herself, who could barely be said to have known him for a single day.
Especially that final sentence.
Even if he had lost all their shared memories, even if that would make him unbearably sad, he had still said with soft certainty that she remained his Queen.
A pure, unconditional recognition that transcended time and memory, without asking for anything in return.
Ling had never imagined that, decades later, someone would regard her existence as something so important. It was as though he had always stood at the crossroads of the future,
and no matter what she became, he would say with