Old Home and Lollipop

The wind in Aolai City carried the faint saltiness of seawater and the warmth of sunlight as it gently brushed across their faces. Tang Wulin and Gu Yuena slowly followed the winding coastal road toward the city center. Unlike the grandeur and prosperity of Shrek City, this small eastern coastal city seemed peaceful and leisurely, as though time flowed especially slowly here.

The scene within the city overlapped astonishingly with the image from ten thousand years ago that they had seen through Di Tian's spiritual projection. The street layout, the low old houses marked by the passage of time, even the shapes of some ancient roadside trees had remained almost unchanged. Only the occasional newly erected Soul Guidance high-rise reminded them that the era had ultimately moved forward. Perhaps because this place was remote and not a central battleground for Soul Masters or factions, it had managed to preserve this nearly frozen memory of the old city.

Following the general directions Di Tian had given them, as well as the increasingly clear pull in his heart, Tang Wulin held Gu Yuena's hand and passed through several familiar streets. None of the six companions he had known best back then had understood where his tragic life had begun. This area seemed shrouded in a strange atmosphere, cut off from the changes of the outside world.

When they finally stopped before an utterly ordinary-looking residential district, both of them felt a trace of disbelief.

The sight before them was almost identical to how it had been when Tang Wulin left ten thousand years ago. The low walls, the quiet little paths, even the style of the flowerpots on the neighbors' windowsills all carried an old, familiar feeling. Most eye-catching of all was the small, lush Blue Silver Grass garden in front of the little house, thriving almost excessively with life.

That Blue Silver Grass was no longer the ordinary weed found everywhere across the continent. Its leaves were thick, its entire body gleaming with a crystalline blue-gold luster as it swayed slightly beneath the sunlight, as if life itself flowed through it. A life aura far richer and more intimate than the one they had felt at the edge of the Star Dou Great Forest rushed toward them.

Tang Wulin instinctively spread out his divine sense. In that instant, he "heard" them. It was not sound, but countless pure, adoring thoughts, like the most devout subjects beholding their emperor. Every blade of Blue Silver Grass sent him silent cheers and submission. Their vitality was closely tied to this land, this house, and his own bloodline.

Unable to help himself, he tightened his grip on Gu Yuena's hand and led her step by step toward the tightly shut door, its paint already peeling.

The door was locked. Tang Wulin reached out without exerting any force. A nearly imperceptible trace of divine power curled around his fingertips as he lightly touched the rusted lock cylinder. With a soft click, the lock opened.

He took a deep breath, as if gathering his courage, then slowly pushed open the door that had been sealed for ten thousand years.

Creak—

The old hinges let out a long, hoarse groan, like a weary sigh. A familiar yet unfamiliar scent, mixed with thick dust, rushed out from within.

Light streamed through the doorway, illuminating the interior. Everything remained exactly as it had when he left ten thousand years ago. The simple furniture, the wooden table and chairs, the decorative painting on the wall whose original colors could no longer be seen... Yet everything was covered in a thick layer of gray dust, and the stale smell in the air made it seem as though time had solidified here into motionless gray.

Gu Yuena followed him inside. At some point, she had unconsciously removed her disguise and returned to her original appearance of silver hair and violet eyes. Those captivating violet eyes slowly swept across the cramped space, which was nevertheless full of traces of everyday life. In the Star Dou Great Forest, Di Tian had shared those earth-shattering events with her through spiritual projections. Those scenes had been grand and fierce, filled with racial duty and emotional struggle, but they had felt like something viewed through frosted glass—visible, yet impossible to touch or truly feel.

But here, in this dust-covered little house so quiet that they could hear each other's heartbeats, the fragments of memory lingering in her mind seemed to have found soil in which to take root. An indescribable undercurrent of bitterness mixed with warmth silently rose in her heart. Even she had not realized that the blackness she had used as a disguise had long since faded away, revealing her true silver hair and violet eyes.

This place... is this his and my home? The thought surfaced without warning.

Her gaze was involuntarily drawn to something on the old wooden table in the center of the living room.

It was a... lollipop.

Or rather, the remaining trace of a lollipop. The little plastic stick was still there, but the candy itself had long vanished. Only a small sticky mark remained, nearly blended into the dust on the tabletop, dark in color and on the verge of completely weathering away. It had been carefully placed in the center of the table, as though it were some incomparably precious treasure.

The moment her gaze fell upon those remnants, something deep within Gu Yuena's mind seemed to crack at one corner with a crack.

A clear and vivid memory, like a fish that had been imprisoned for far too long and finally broken free, suddenly leaped out of the water—

· A noisy street under warm sunlight. A little girl with silver hair and violet eyes, dressed in filthy clothes, stood timidly at a street corner and looked at the unfamiliar world around her. Her violet eyes were filled with unease and confusion. · A grimy black-haired little boy ran over. He had just driven away three young thugs for her, and a smile as warm as sunlight rested on his face. In his hand, he held up a sparkling lollipop with colorful spiral patterns. Carefully, he offered it to her and said in a crisp voice, "Here, have some. It's really sweet!" · The little girl hesitated as she looked at him, then at the tempting candy. In the end, she carefully accepted it and gently licked it with the tip of her tongue. In an instant, an unprecedented sweetness infused with fruity fragrance burst across her taste buds, driving away all the gloom and unease in her heart. She raised her head to look at the little boy, her violet eyes shining as she revealed a faint smile for the first time, one filled with dependence and joy. · Seeing her smile, the little boy grinned foolishly as well. Scratching his head, he asked, "What's your name? Where's your family?"

The tide of memory quickly receded, but the sweetness of that lollipop and the little boy's sunlit smile were engraved into Gu Yuena's soul with incomparable clarity and depth.

She stared blankly at the nearly weathered lollipop trace on the table, then slowly turned to look at Tang Wulin beside her. He too was immersed in the atmosphere of this old home, his eyes filled with remembrance and sorrow.

At that moment, in her eyes, Tang Wulin's extraordinarily handsome face, his shoulder-length black hair, slowly overlapped with the black-haired little boy in her memories who had offered her that lollipop.

So... so long ago, he had already pulled her away from loneliness and unease. He had given her a "home," and her first sweetness—the sweetness that had left the deepest mark on her. Even though an accident in the plan had caused her to lose her memories back then, the memories that happened here surpassed even the splendor of her days as the ruler of the Dragon Clan.

An indescribable emotion, mingling endless bitterness with utmost tenderness, flooded her heart like a burst dam. When her violet eyes looked at Tang Wulin again, they no longer contained the confusion and searching from before. Instead, they were filled with a profound, bone-deep tenderness and love, as though something precious lost had finally been recovered.

She gently raised her hand. Her fingertips seemed to want to touch the lollipop trace on the table, or perhaps reach for that lost time. In the end, her hand simply fell silently back down.

"This place..." she finally said, her voice carrying an almost imperceptible choke and absolute certainty, "is our home."

Hearing that, Tang Wulin abruptly turned to look at her. When he saw her restored silver hair and violet eyes, along with the deep emotions nearly overflowing from them—emotions he had never seen before—he instantly understood. She had recovered part of her memories. She was no longer looking at them as an outsider.

Some things, even if forgotten for ten thousand years, had never truly disappeared.

They merely slept in the softest place within one's heart, waiting to be gently awakened by a familiar scene, an old object, or an unchanging devotion.

Just like that lollipop, long since weathered away, yet still cherished and carefully preserved.