Xia Xiaoxiao looked at the wooden house and thought of her daughter who was still in Wuzhong.
She had thought about returning to Wuzhong to be with her daughter, but she worried that her presence would bring trouble to the entire Xia Family, and she couldn't bear to leave behind the sweet memories of this island. From the day the Windmill was formed in the Pacific Ocean, she had lived in fear, afraid that this place where she and her husband had lived briefly but considered their eternal home would be destroyed by the whirlwind.
Until she returned and saw the beach in Crescent Bay still shimmering with the golden light of the sun and silver of the night, saw the small, doorless wooden houses floating like boats at high tide, saw the exquisitely crafted stone houses on the hillside and the clusters of blooming purple flowers in front of them, she finally believed what Situ had once said:
My lover's home will never be swallowed by the tide.
She finally understood what Situ had been striving for all his life—he bore the mission of protecting a larger home from a greater disaster. She understood why Situ named his daughter Alice, because this was the fairytale wonderland he had created for her, and that little wooden house was perhaps the entrance to that dream.
Xia Xiaoxiao walked through the flower bushes onto the beach, gently following the soft curves left by the sea, leaving her footprints in the sand. She circled around again, starting from the beginning, and her footprints increased from two rows to four. Looking back at her masterpiece, it seemed as if one person's path had become two people's. She saw Situ standing at the other end of the beach, watching her and laughing at her foolishness. She laughed, contentedly returning to the stone house, and sat down on a black stone of unknown composition, watching night fall and the brilliant stars rise.
Many years ago, on a night like this, she leaned on his shoulder and watched the stars with him, comparing who knew more stars. Xia Xiaoxiao could name as many stars as Situ and knew the location of every star in the Milky Way, but Situ knew even more. He could even describe the stars that were invisible through a telescope and the planets that orbited them, as if his spaceship had once docked there.
She knew he wasn't the type to make things up; he wouldn't fabricate things to please her. What he said must be something he knew. She believed those planets truly existed, regardless of how he knew.
When she searched the whole world without finding a trace of him, she did not despair, but decided to return here to wait. This was the nest of love, and the place of hope. She believed that he was somewhere watching her, fighting hard to protect their home, the home of lovers, which would never be swallowed by the tide.
The next day, Xia Xiaoxiao once again walked through the flower bushes, onto the beach, and strolled along the coastline. This time, she didn't deliberately leave footprints, but let the seawater wash over her ankles. It wasn't until dusk that she returned to the stone house, sat on a rock, and waited for the sunset and the starlight to descend.
The third day, the fourth day, the fifth day... she repeated this process every day, repeating the memories in her mind, repeating gazing at the starry sky.
Many years later, when Situ traveled through the Heart of Ten Suns and saw the silver beach on the distant Earth amidst the flames of the supernova explosion, with seashells scattered on the ground and purple flowers covering the mountains, Xia Xiaoxiao sat in front of the stone house, gazing at the starry sky. Her body and her beliefs had long since turned into hard reefs, enduring the ebb and flow of the tides and the erosion of wind and rain.
As the setting sun shone on Xia Xiaoxiao's still-petrified body, Xia Chujue was growing up like a sunflower in the Xia Family manor in Wuzhong. She displayed a maturity and composure far beyond her years, and her intelligence surpassed that of ordinary people. More importantly, she possessed a spiritual quality that ordinary people did not have, and she could foresee certain events and make very reasonable responses.
Xia Wenyuan often lamented that it was difficult to find a suitable successor among his descendants. It was not that they lacked the talent to do business or expand the family business, but rather that they lacked a long-term vision and a broad mind. Ability and luck can bring a business to its peak, but they are not enough to ensure the long-term prosperity of a family business. Only vision and a broad mind can take a person further.
As the signs of aging became increasingly apparent on him, Xia Wenyuan fell into despair and prepared to divide the family fortune, until he saw new hope in his granddaughter. He began to cultivate a new successor for the family, preparing a separate chair for Xia Chujue at family meetings when she was eight years old, and having Xia Bozhou and Xia Zhongwan take her to various important events in Huanyu and Changzhou.
The rest of the family did not object, because the head of the family only controlled the family property and would not seize the shares and dividends that were rightfully theirs. But everyone was worried about the little girl's growing needs and the time Xia Wenyuan could sustain her, including Xia Wenyuan himself.
But Xia Chujue did not disappoint. At the age of fifteen, she was already well-versed in all the family's affairs and demonstrated a strong sense of control. The power of her speech at the family meeting was disproportionate to her small stature. Her words were forceful, resounding, and even penetrated people's hearts, leaving a solid imprint in the minds of the attendees, thus ensuring efficient execution.
However, Xia Wenyuan felt a sense of unease. Power is most likely to corrupt a person's heart, like mold growing in a dark corner or cockroaches hiding in a crevices. By the time you see it, it means that there is much more corruption in more hidden places that is beyond redemption.
He warned her not to get carried away and not to let worldly things taint her pure heart, although these things were already inevitable from the moment he decided to let her take over the family business.
The little girl said very firmly, "I have no interest in money!"
She presented all the assets her father had left her as proof. These assets were scattered around the world, including real estate, gold, antiques, and shares in many well-known companies. The accountants and Tushu hired by Xia Wenyuan worked for three whole months to basically clarify these assets. Their sheer size far exceeded expectations, which was indeed enough to prove that she had no interest in money, or at least that the Xia Family's assets were not enough to fuel her desire for power.
When Xia Chujue was eighteen, Xia Wenyuan finally handed over the reins of the family to her with peace of mind and passed away peacefully. He was exactly one hundred years old that year.
In the same year, Mei Yiqiu unexpectedly and secretly transferred all the businesses under the Third Space and Mei Laboratory to Bi Shenghua, who then merged them with a portion of the businesses that originally belonged to Xia Chujue Bi Shenghua which she was managing, and handed them over to Xia Chujue.
A few years later, Xia Chujue went to North America again to begin integrating the assets left by the Wolf Family. By then, Old Wolf had already passed away. Quiwyn Wolf and Huang Liang went north together, following the trail of the White Wolf King, from Alaska all the way to the vast ice fields around the Queen Elizabeth Islands, in search of the Holy Land and the legendary Soul of Ice and Spirit of Ice.
More than half a century after humanity suffered annihilation and civilization regressed like a receding tide, Xia Chujue used her wealth and abilities to rebuild the new world order, becoming the world's hope and de facto ruler. She received cheers and adoration from the people; wherever she went, crowds surged. Yet, at that time, her favorite places were the Mulberry Garden of Wuzhong, the highlands of Giza, the mines of Vera, and the Arctic ice fields. There, she found tranquility, her spirit reaching towards the infinite distance, touching the stars in the night sky.
In the final moments of her life, she finally returned to the island where she had spent her childhood. There, the beaches were like silver, and the moonlight was like water. Seashells covered the ground, and purple flowers bloomed all over the mountains. The little wooden house without a door still stood in the water, but she hadn't been inside for so long that she couldn't remember what the man she had met with looked like, only the mission he had deeply imprinted in her consciousness.
She walked across the beach, through the flowerbeds, and saw the stone statue, eroded beyond recognition by wind and rain.
The stone statue gazes at the sky, where stars twinkle.
She knelt down before the stone statue, tears streaming down her face.