Zhang Xiao stood on a stretch of withered, yellow earth, gazing up at the sky.
Against the pitch-black night, the stars shone with a radiant glow. Their arrangement seemed to follow a peculiar pattern, linking them into an enormous net.
What was this?
Zhang Xiao looked at the stars, and the stars seemed to look back at him.
For a fleeting moment, the stars seemed to turn into human figures, watching him with calm, utterly emotionless eyes.
When he looked more closely, the figures seemed to vanish. There were only stars again.
Where was this? Zhang Xiao tried to take a step, but it was as though he had triggered some kind of switch.
The stars trembled violently. The next moment, every star in the sky vanished.
He found himself still in the underground banquet hall, surrounded by ghosts weeping with joy and The Four Little Ones, thoroughly satisfied with the spectacle they had witnessed.
"I tasted it! I really felt it! That was the taste of food!"
"Ever since I died, I've missed the taste of apples. I've missed it for so, so long..."
"Is this what bread tastes like? So this is bread..."
Looks like I succeeded? Seeing the ghosts' tear-streaked, excited faces, Zhang Xiao couldn't help smiling too. That wasn't so hard.
But what was going on with those stars I saw earlier?
Just as Zhang Xiao gazed up at the stars, Zhang Chengdao abruptly raised his head in the capital of Huaxia and looked toward the sky. Several elderly people who looked well advanced in years did the same.
"Dad?" After watching for a while, he turned sideways and quietly addressed an old man beside him.
The old man was tall and straight-backed, with a long beard, long eyebrows, narrow eyes, and a gentle face.