Memory World, time flowed on.
Yue Yang watched that little girl gradually grow up. Her younger sister, too, changed from a baby who slept all day into a lively, restless little girl. The younger sister loved her elder sister and always clung closely behind her. Wherever those little running feet went, laughter scattered all along the road... Yet in the end, their beautiful, loving mother never gave them another little brother.
One night, beneath a magnificent meteor shower that endlessly streaked across the sky, that ever-smiling mother fell forever.
"Why?" Unlike her younger sister, who cried and begged for their mother, she remained strong and merely asked her aunt, who had brought back the terrible news in confusion, "Why? That wasn't a mission we were supposed to carry out, nor was it a duty we were meant to bear. Why did Mother have to shoulder it alone? Didn't Mother say she would give us a little brother? She said that once we had a little brother, he could revive the Celestial Ladder and our homeland in the future. Why did she break her promise? Without a little brother, how are we supposed to revive the Celestial Ladder? How could she leave us behind and sneak away alone like this? Why? Why did she do this? I don't understand. I don't understand!"
"..." Her aunt, with those slender, pale jade fingers—the teacher who could ordinarily answer any question she had—gave no answer. She only sighed softly.
Then came another night when a meteor slashed across the vast heavens.
Their aunt, who had loved them dearly,
never returned either.
The auntie who brought the news slowly handed her the relic her aunt had left behind—the Jade Spirit Ring that had always been worn upon those long, slender, pale jade fingers. Then she