By the time they reached the third steeping of tea, Di Tian set down his cup and looked at Tang Wulin. Most of the scrutiny in his golden eyes had faded, replaced by a deeper gaze, as though he were trying to recognize something.
"Tang Wulin." Di Tian suddenly spoke, his voice low but much gentler than before. "Come with me."
Tang Wulin instinctively glanced at Gu Yue. She gave a slight nod—the meaning was, It's fine. Go. He stood and followed Di Tian toward the northern shore of Lake of Life. They passed several towering ancient trees and stopped on a flat slab of bluestone by the lake. The water narrowed here, and on the opposite shore stood the Stone Palace where Gu Yue had slept for tens of thousands of years. Its half-closed doors were covered in moss.
Di Tian stood with his hands behind his back, gazing at the Stone Palace across the water. "Do you know that during all the years the Silver Dragon King slept, I stood on this stone for one hour every day? Not to guard her—guarding her was my instinct. I stood here because I wanted to sense even the faintest fluctuation of her aura from within that palace. For tens of thousands of years, there was no sound from inside. No breathing, no heartbeat, no circulation of Soul Power. There was only the tide of the lake and the wind in the forest."
Tang Wulin said nothing, merely standing quietly at Di Tian's side. His gaze also fell upon the moss-covered Stone Palace across the lake—Gu Yue had once slept there alone for tens of thousands of years. She knew nothing in that darkness, while outside, someone—or rather, a black dragon—had kept vigil for her through countless sunrises without her knowing.
"The day my lord awakened, the lake sensed her aura before I did." A faint tremor, suppressed for tens of thousands of years, entered Di Tian's voice. "The silver light on the lake suddenly brightened, and every soul beast in the forest stopped moving at once. I knelt by the lake and watched her walk out of the water. At that moment, those tens of thousands of years of waiting no longer mattered."
He turned to Tang Wulin. The scrutiny was gone from his golden eyes, replaced by a solemn gaze that was almost one of entrustment. "When she awakened, I was not by her side. During her earliest days in the human world, you and Ninth Sister were the ones who stayed with her. When she first entered Eastsea Academy, she would not eat human food, speak to anyone, or even step through the school gates—I know all of that. But she changed afterward. She learned to eat sugar pancakes and drink soy milk, to order grilled fish at barbecue stalls, to lean on Ninth Sister's shoulder beneath the ginkgo trees and act spoiled. She used Water Mirror to block attacks for you in practical combat class. She sat in the forging room and watched you hammer metal for an entire day. Those changes were not because of me—they were because of you and Ninth Sister."
He paused and placed a hand on Tang Wulin's shoulder. That hand was heavy, carrying the weight of eight hundred thousand years of cultivation, yet its force was controlled with extraordinary gentleness—the exact same restraint Gu Yue had shown when she pushed the tip of the Ice Spear toward him back then. "You possess the Golden Dragon King Martial Soul, but you do not need to become the Golden Dragon King. You are yourself—Tang Wulin, a human who would forge Ice Spear components for her in the forging room all day. That is enough. I can rest easy entrusting the Silver Dragon King to you."
Tang Wulin stood straight and met Di Tian's golden eyes. He did not say, "I'll protect her"—Di Tian did not need to hear such empty words. He simply placed a hand over his chest, feeling the Golden Dragon King's silent gaze within his sea of consciousness, then answered with utmost sincerity, "All right."
Di Tian removed his hand from Tang Wulin's shoulder and turned toward the ancient trees. After taking a few steps, he stopped without looking back. "Oh, right. Ninth Sister said you also made her a hairpin?"
"...Yes. I carved it from a bamboo stick. I broke several before managing to make one."
"Use beast bone next time. In the bamboo grove, the third joint of the Millennial Iron Bamboo is the hardest and suited for making a hairpin blank. Temper it with fire before polishing it—the Golden Dragon King's bloodline can temper it with fire, making it three times brighter than ordinary water tempering. She likes bright things."
Tang Wulin froze for a moment, then understood—Di Tian was teaching him how to make Gu Yue another hairpin. His lips curved upward, and he nodded solemnly.
Beneath the ancient tree, Gu Yue sat beside Lu Menge on a protruding root, holding a teacup in her hands. Lu Menge sat with one leg crossed over the other, watching the two vague figures across the lake. She tapped Gu Yue's teacup with her thermos. "Di Tian called Tang Wulin over to the lakeside to talk. What do you think they're talking about?"
Gu Yue raised her teacup and took a sip. "No need to guess. Di Tian is making arrangements for after his death."
Lu Menge choked on her tea. "Making arrangements for after his death? He's perfectly healthy. He can still live for hundreds of thousands of years after more than eight hundred thousand years. If he heard you say that, he'd kneel down and argue with you for three days and three nights."
"Not that kind of arrangement." Gu Yue set her cup on her knee and looked at the side profiles of Tang Wulin and Di Tian standing side by side across the lake. "He is placing what he has guarded for tens of thousands of years into Tang Wulin's hands."
Lu Menge tilted her head to look at Gu Yue. Fragments of sunset light slipped through the leaves and landed on Gu Yue's black hair, giving the tips a faint silvery sheen. Her tone remained calm as she spoke, but when her gaze fell on Tang Wulin's back, the slightest curve touched her lips—one she could not hide at all.
"You're very happy," Lu Menge said.
"I'm not." Gu Yue shifted her gaze back to her teacup, drained the tea that had already gone cold, then stood and brushed the grass clippings from her skirt. "I'm going to check on Lake of Life. Are you coming?"
Lu Menge did not move. She merely waved her thermos at Gu Yue, her gaze passing over Gu Yue's shoulder toward Tang Wulin, who was walking back from the lakeside. The two children exchanged a look through the tree shadows scattered with broken gold from the setting sun—Tang Wulin gave Gu Yue a slight nod, and her steps toward the lake slowed by half a beat. Only after he and Di Tian returned beneath the ancient tree did she begin walking again. This was how the Silver Dragon King trusted someone: not through words, but through her pace. It was her willingness to slow down and wait for him on the far shore of Lake of Life, so they could walk together.
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