Na'er had left

At dawn, when Tang Wulin woke from meditation, the sky had only just begun to pale.

Dew had dampened the hem of his clothes and the tips of the grass. The little garden looked just as it always had, moisture hidden in the cracks between the stones, the soil quiet, the wind quiet too. He sat there in a daze for a moment before slowly drawing his awareness back from within his body.

Compared with before, meditation was different now.

After his soul power reached the Soul Master level, when he quieted his mind to sense it, the first thing he felt was no longer merely that vague heat and heaviness within his body, but a clearer sense of layers. The Star-Sinking Hammer rested within him like a black star pressed into the deepest depths, sinking silently. Golden Jun lay atop the hammer's shadow, tiny yet utterly steady. Every time his soul power circulated through his meridians, an invisible thread seemed to pull gently taut inside his bones.

It flowed more smoothly than before, and a little faster too.

Tang Wulin stood up and brushed the grass clippings from his trousers. Just as he was about to head home, he heard Lang Yue's voice in the distance.

"Linlin! Linlin!"

Her voice was so urgent that it trembled.

Tang Wulin's heart suddenly clenched. Without another thought, he immediately ran out of the garden.

"Mom, I'm here!"

The moment Lang Yue saw him, she visibly relaxed, only to tense up again almost immediately. She was breathless from running, her face pale, even her hands shaking.

"Home, hurry home." She grabbed Tang Wulin, her voice distorted. "Na'er... Na'er, she..."

Tang Wulin stopped dead.

"What happened to Na'er?"

Lang Yue's lips moved, as though those few words were too heavy for her to get them out.

"She's gone."

For a moment, Tang Wulin didn't understand.

"...What?"

"Na'er left." Lang Yue's eyes were already red. "There was only a note left on her bed."

A buzzing filled Tang Wulin's head. Before he could think anything through, his mother was already pulling him home at a stumbling run.

The house was very quiet.

So quiet that even the air seemed cold.

Na'er's little bed was perfectly tidy. The blanket she had slept beneath last night had been folded, and only a sheet of paper lay tucked beside her pillow. There was no disorder, no sign of a struggle, nothing out of place. It felt as though she had simply gotten up earlier than usual and tiptoed out the door.

But she hadn't come back.

Tang Wulin stood beside the bed without moving for a long time.

Tang Ziran had already picked up the paper. His fingers gripped it so tightly that his knuckles had turned white. In the end, though, he handed it to his son.

The writing on the paper was neat, but faint, as though she had hesitated with every stroke.

Dad, Mom, Big Brother:

I've left.

Thank you for looking after me all these years. I remember it all.

I remembered who I am, and what I have to do. Someone came to get me. I have to go.

Big Brother, I'm sorry I didn't tell you in person.

I remember all the snacks you bought me. I took the doll you bought me too.

And I'll always remember how you stood between me and the bad people.

Don't look for me.

Na'er.

The last few words on the paper were fainter than any of the lines before them.

Don't look for me.

Tang Wulin's hand trembled slightly.

He read the note from beginning to end, then read it again. He couldn't believe these words had really been written by the little girl who always followed quietly at his side. But the handwriting was unmistakably hers, delicate and well-behaved, just like her.

"How could..." he murmured, his voice almost too faint to hear.

No one answered.

Because none of them knew how to answer.

Na'er had arrived without roots, and her departure was just as sudden. This family had given her a bed, meals, lamplight, and a name, yet in the end, on the most ordinary of mornings, she had slipped silently away like a gust of wind they had failed to catch.

Tang Wulin stood stunned for several breaths. Then, as though something had suddenly occurred to him, he clenched the paper in his hand, turned, and ran outside.

"Wulin!" Lang Yue reached for him, but her fingertips only brushed the hem of his clothes.

"Na'er."

His voice burst through the courtyard gate, hoarse and trembling in a way even he couldn't control.

"Na'er!"

He had already run far away.

Aolai City wasn't large.

But if someone truly wanted to hide, they could still make another person search every street.

Tang Wulin went to the seaside first.

Then he went to the path behind the school, the little garden, the foot of the old wall where she had once crouched, the shop where he bought lollipops, and every place where he had taken her, comforted her, or kept her company.

He ran so hard that his voice soon grew hoarse.

But even hoarse, he kept calling.

"Na'er!"

"Na'er!"

People at the street corners turned to look at him. The shopkeeper recognized him and froze for a moment, wanting to say something. But when she saw the child's reddened eyes and sweat-covered forehead, she ultimately only shook her head.

The sea wind blew hard, leaving a hollow feeling in his chest.

Tang Wulin ran along the shoreline for a long time. The loose stones hurt beneath his feet, but he found not the slightest trace of her. The little girl who always tugged gently at his sleeve and looked quietly at him with her purple eyes really had been erased from this little city in an instant.

Meanwhile, at the mouth of another secluded alley in the city, Na'er leaned against a wall, tightly clutching the rag doll in her arms.

The doll was very old, its stitching coarse and its fabric far from fine. Its silver hair had been dyed afterward, and one of its purple eyes was slightly crooked. At a glance, it was hardly anything exquisite. Yet held in her arms, it mattered more than any jewel in the world.

Tang Wulin had bought it for her with his first month's wages.

Back then, he hadn't known how to judge quality. He had only thought that the doll's purple eyes looked like Na'er's, so he gritted his teeth and bought it. After returning home, he bought dye himself and painstakingly dyed its hair silver, getting color all over his hands. In the end, he had still smiled proudly and said it finally looked like her.

"Big Brother..."

Na'er whispered the words.

Tears rolled down her cheeks, one after another, striking the dirty, worn hem of the rag doll's skirt.

She remembered everything.

She remembered all those scattered little moments, how he took detours after school to buy her food, how he came to pick her up with the smell of metal from the workshop still clinging to him even when he was exhausted himself, and how his eyes reddened when he stood before the bad children, yet he never backed down.

Precisely because she remembered, she couldn't turn back.

Outside the alley, a calm voice spoke softly.

"Miss, we should go."

Na'er hugged the doll, but her tears fell even harder. Only after a long time did she slowly raise her head, suppress the tears in her reddened eyes, and tuck every bit of her reluctance deep inside.

Then she turned and left the alley.

She didn't look back.

Tang Wulin didn't return home until evening.

His soles were covered in dust, his voice terribly hoarse, and the wind had reddened his eyes. He looked as though he had been hollowed out completely. When he entered the courtyard, Lang Yue started toward him, but one look made her feet stop short.

Because it was as though someone had suddenly drawn half the light out of that child's eyes.

"...I didn't find her." Tang Wulin spoke first, his voice so raspy that he didn't sound like a nine-year-old.

No one spoke.

Tang Ziran sat beside the table in silence for a long time before gently pushing something across it.

It was a pendant.

Silver, smooth, and softly cool, it resembled a small, polished piece of the moon. A seven-colored glow flowed faintly within it, understated but unmistakably expensive. It was utterly out of place in the Tang family's little courtyard.

"She left this," Tang Ziran said quietly.

Tang Wulin reached out and picked up the pendant, his fingertips trembling.

What good was it, however valuable it might be?

She was gone.

The moment that thought arose, a piece of his chest seemed to be scooped out. When the wind passed through it, his whole body grew cold.

He barely spoke that night.

The next day was the same.

So was the third.

For the entire following week, Tang Wulin seemed to have lost his soul.

He still went to school, still went to the Mang Tian Workshop, still brought his hammer down blow after blow, but he always seemed half a beat behind. His eyes had lost the spark that used to glow within them, and his work lost its precision. Even on his way home from school, he couldn't help detouring through the streets and alleys to look a little longer, as though Na'er might suddenly emerge from some doorway the next moment, lift her head, and call him "Big Brother."

But she didn't.

Not even once.

Tang Wulin made two mistakes in a row at the workshop.

The first time, he took a piece of metal out of the furnace before it had heated long enough. The second was worse: his hammering rhythm slipped, ruining a mecha joint that had already taken shape.

Mang Tian looked at the ruined part, his expression as dark as iron.

"If your heart isn't here, don't pick up a hammer," he said.

Tang Wulin lowered his head and offered no excuse.

Mang Tian stared at him for a moment before finally adding coldly:

"Starting today, your working hours increase to three. When you get your head back where it belongs, I'll reduce them again."

Tang Wulin kept his head lowered and said softly, "Yes, Teacher."

Not a single word of protest.

Because he knew his teacher was right to scold him.

But knowing was one thing. That loss and emptiness still surged up in waves like the tide. He didn't know whom to hate or whom to blame. In the end, he could only ask himself over and over:

Why had she left?

Why hadn't she even been willing to say a word to him in person?

Why now, just when he had finally become a Soul Master?

He couldn't understand.

And there was no answer.

Only after a week did that dazed, muddled state finally begin to ease.

It wasn't that he no longer felt sad.

It was that no emptiness, however vast, could tear life completely apart. People had to keep moving forward, even if they had to drag themselves along.

Red Mountain Academy.

Lin Ximeng stood at the front of the classroom, holding a stack of papers and calling names from a list one by one.

"Tang Wulin."

"Here."

Tang Wulin stood and walked to the front.

Lin Ximeng glanced at him, her gaze a little gentler than usual. She had probably heard about what had happened in his family recently. She didn't ask any questions, merely handed him the stamped Letter of Recommendation.

"Keep it safe," she said. "This is your Letter of Recommendation for guaranteed admission to the Intermediate Soul Master Academy. Don't lose it."

Tang Wulin took the letter, his fingertips tightening slightly, and said quietly:

"Thank you, Teacher Lin."

The letter was very thin.

Yet it had a very real weight in his hand.

His time at the elementary Academy ended here.

Having it meant he would soon leave Aolai City for somewhere larger and continue along the path of a Soul Master.

As he returned to his seat, Wan Yunchao immediately leaned over.

"Hey, got your Letter of Recommendation?" He waggled his eyebrows and lowered his voice. "You've looked like you lost your soul these past few days, so I didn't feel right asking you to fight. You should be up for it now, right? You're a Soul Master now. I want to see what your soul skill actually is."

Tang Wulin said nothing, merely folded the Letter of Recommendation and put it in his schoolbag.

Thinking Tang Wulin was ignoring him, Wan Yunchao became even more worked up.

"No way." He deliberately drew out his words. "You're not afraid of losing, are you? Well, your martial soul never looked all that impressive anyway. If your soul skill is no good either, losing would be pretty embarrassing."

Tang Wulin's hands finally stopped.

He turned and looked at Wan Yunchao.

His gaze wasn't fierce, but the emotion buried in that single look made Wan Yunchao instinctively swallow the rest of his words.

"I'm not a coward," Tang Wulin said.

His voice was very level.

Yet the more level it was, the more genuinely angry he seemed.

Wan Yunchao stiffened his neck, unwilling to lose face either.

"Then fight me. After school, in the grove."

Tang Wulin stared at him for a while, then suddenly nodded.

"All right."

After school, the little grove behind Red Mountain Academy was very quiet.

Most of the students had left. Wind passed between the trees, stirring the faint rustle of leaves brushing against one another. This was normally where they had nature class. It was seldom crowded even then, and after school it was emptier still.

Wan Yunchao arrived quickly, clearly having waited a long time for this sparring match.

"I'm not going easy on you today," he said, already heading eagerly toward the center of the clearing. "Don't say I'm bullying you. We'll both use only our first soul skill."

Tang Wulin didn't answer. He only followed in silence.

Too much had weighed on his heart this past week.

Grief, emptiness, questions he couldn't understand, and that helpless feeling of calling until his voice gave out without anyone answering. They were all piled there like cold, wet stones, one pressing down upon another.

And now, Wan Yunchao's barbed remarks gave him just the opening he needed to hammer out some of what had been bottled up inside him.

In the center of the clearing, Wan Yunchao released his martial soul first.

With a flash of light, the short saber appeared in his hand. Compared to before he had a soul ring, its blade was noticeably broader and its edge sharper. Fine patterns of light shimmered across it, finally giving it something of the look of a true Soul Master's weapon.

The next moment, a white soul ring slowly rose from beneath his feet.

The smugness on Wan Yunchao's face grew even more pronounced.

"See that?" He waved the saber in his hand and grinned. "My first soul skill won't go easy on you."

The soul ring lit up, and a half-foot-long blade of light suddenly flickered out from the tip of the short saber.

That blade of light was white, but far from insubstantial—a breath of cold forcibly spat from the saber's edge. Though it was still nowhere near sharp enough to feel truly threatening, it was already quite impressive for a child who had only just become a Soul Master.

"Come on, Tang Wulin."

Wan Yunchao stood with his saber held across his body, doing his best to strike an imposing pose.

"Let me see just what sort of soul skill you've managed to squeeze out this past week."