After a night had passed, Jinzhou City was once again brimming with life.
The Moon-Chasing Festival drew closer. Even the Border Fortress was decked out with festive lanterns, and joy was plain on everyone's faces.
The Moon-Chasing Festival came every year, but this year's seemed a little more special.
After everything they had been through, especially the momentous defeat of the Threnodian, they needed a chance to let it all out.
From Yinlin, Ling An learned that everyone would visit Peach Blossom Village to make wishes in the days leading up to the Moon-Chasing Festival.
Apparently, there was a tree there that never failed to grant wishes. Praying beneath it and submitting one's wishes had become a Jinzhou tradition.
Naturally, Ling An didn't believe any of it.
If praying to a tree could make a wish come true, that would make wishes far too cheap.
Still, it was much like what he and Changli had talked about back on Mt. Firmament: when she was young, the people in her village would write their wishes in the first snow.
Ultimately, these were simply ordinary people's hopes for the future.
Honestly, rather than making wishes to the Wishing Tree, they would be better off making them to him, Ling An.
Their chances might even be a little higher.
He was the Wish-Granting Master, after all. Those who knew, knew.
But as the old saying went, he was already here, so he might as well. Ling An looked up at the Wishing Tree before him, closed his eyes, murmured twice, and dropped in the slip of paper bearing his wish.
That took care of making his wish.
Ling An looked around. Nothing happened.
Around him, quite a few citizens wore the same devout expression he had.
Ling An grew curious about what wishes