As the ruined, incomplete body lying amid the rubble in the painting became a dear friend sleeping soundly among flowers under Qing Lan and Su Bai's hands, Qing Lan's tears flowed unstoppably through Su Bai's eyes.
Su Bai and Qing Lan, who had borrowed his body, simply sat quietly on a rock amid the ruins. His face held no expression at all, yet the tears would not stop.
Su Bai could no longer remember how long he and Qing Lan had sat beneath the Red Moon back then. He only remembered that, by the end, he could no longer tell whether the one crying was Qing Lan, who had lost her dearest friend, or himself, who had never cried no matter how desperate or lost he had felt since entering the Nightmare World.
Looking back now, Su Bai had been nothing more than a Regular student who had broken down into numbness after a series of upheavals. He was not the "observer" or "spectator" he would become ten years later, and he did not even understand how to use the Vengeful Ghost Puzzle's ability. His calm back then had come from numbness, from being lost, from knowing that no matter how much he suffered, he had no one to confide in. He had no friends, no family, and no home to return to.
Perhaps Qing Lan had felt his inexpressible pain while inside his body. She had stayed quietly beside him without disturbing him, keeping him company with a tenderness that needed no words.
Whether she put down her brush and chose to fight, or gave up fighting and picked up her brush, Qing Lan was a deeply gentle painter.
"Stay alive. Don't die."
Perhaps it was from that moment on that Su Bai began to feel that, besides Qing