The long river of time surged onward, yet Huo Yuhao's memories always held a handful of warm, gentle light.
That light came from Ma Xiaotao.
To Huo Yuhao, Ma Xiaotao had never been a passerby met by chance.
To Huo Yuhao, Sister Xiaotao was the guide who had offered him his first handful of hearth fire in the cold night of his life after his mother Huo Yun'er's death, and she was also his mentor in life.
Even after living his life anew, those feelings had never faded in the slightest.
Huo Yuhao still remembered that day, when he had missed his deceased mother in his groggy haze and mistaken Ma Xiaotao for her, asking, "When will I get to eat my fill of corn buns?"
It was Ma Xiaotao who had caught all his helplessness and soothed him with gentle words.
Just as his mother Huo Yun had sat beside his bed and stroked his head to comfort him whenever he had suffered some grievance as a child.
That warmth was never something he could convey to outsiders. Only Huo Yuhao himself knew that it had become the pillar that supported him through countless difficult paths, a tenderness engraved upon his heart.
So when everything began anew in this life, even though familiar things remained while people had changed, even though layer upon layer of grievances separated him from Ma Xiaotao until they had become strangers who might only nod if they crossed paths, he could never truly turn away and treat her as someone who had nothing to do with him.
The regrets of his previous life still clutched at his heart when he woke from dreams at midnight: back then, Tang Ya and Ma Xiaotao had taken one wrong step and fallen into the Holy Spirit Cult.