Mother Doesn't Want You Two Anymore

Garlic roast braised rabbit, one Credit each.

Unfortunately, Bai Heng wasn't strong enough, so he could only save half a rabbit.

"Master Jingliu, aren't you really going to have a bite?"

"No."

"It smells amazing."

"No."

"Then how about some for Dabao and Erbao?"

"They won't eat either... Why are they called Dabao and Erbao?" Jingliu looked at Bai Heng.

"It rolls off the tongue."

Bai Heng pointed at the slightly larger Fire-lick Rabbit and said:

"This one's the older sister, so she's Dabao. The other is the younger sister, so she's Erbao. It sounds nice and rolls right off the tongue."

"So tacky." Jingliu said bluntly:

"Tacky is fine as long as it's easy to remember. Besides, I'm sure they like these names too." Bai Heng looked at the two Fire-lick Rabbits and said:

"Right, Dabao, Erbao?"

Apparently intimidated by the packet of garlic roast braised rabbit in Bai Heng's hand, the two Fire-lick Rabbits nodded briskly.

"See?" Bai Heng said with a smile.

Looking at Bai Heng's unserious demeanor, then at the sensible expressions on Dabao and Erbao in her arms, Jingliu somehow recalled a few memories from the past. The corner of her lips faintly curved upward.

Bai Heng caught that subtle change. After a brief pause, he asked:

"Master Jingliu, did you just smile?"

"No."

"You're lying."

Jingliu turned her head away to avoid Bai Heng's gaze, then took a few quick steps forward, walking ahead of him.

Looking at her slender back, Bai Heng unconsciously smiled as well, then followed in Jingliu's footsteps.

Time flew by in the blink of an eye.

The two passed through many realms and, before they knew it, arrived at Starskiff Haven, where countless starskiffs took off and landed.

It was sunset then. Dusk stained the horizon orange, like golden egg yolk slowly spreading out.

At the edge of the docks, Bai Heng found a passing Xianzhou native to take a commemorative photo for them. Though Bai Heng felt Dabao and Erbao were a little unnecessary, Jingliu insisted on holding them. Once they stood together, Jingliu kept staring at the camera, doing her best to force out a smile. Bai Heng admired that hilariously fake smile for quite a while before saying:

"Look at me."

"What?"

Jingliu raised her head and met Bai Heng's eyes.

The passerby taking their photo was perceptive enough to capture that moment.

In the picture, Jingliu looked into Bai Heng's eyes, her long lashes fluttering gently like butterfly wings. Sunlight slipped through the gaps between the starskiffs and fell across her delicate profile.

Though her pretty face remained as cold and distant as ice and snow, even the passerby could see that her eyes were filled entirely with the boy before her.

After the photo was handed to them, Bai Heng glanced at it and gave his verdict:

"Damn, how'd you make me look ugly too? When I go to the photo studio to print it later, I'll have the owner touch it up."

Jingliu leaned against the railing behind her, looking at the photo on her phone in silence for a long while.

The warm currents of Starskiff Haven brushed against her face, mixed with the bustling chatter from the docks. The smell of starskiff culture fluid still lingered in the air. In her arms, the two Fire-lick Rabbits occasionally licked her arms. It tickled, but it was warm.

She... seemed to truly like this feeling. She began wondering where he would take her to eat later, what they would buy, how they would drink together after nightfall and watch the moon wax and wane. As if living on like this was what she had waited and hoped for over seven hundred years...

But... as those emotions surged into her mind, a stabbing pain pierced her chest like steel needles.

Vaguely, she heard several calls.

"Master Jingliu?"

"Master... Jingliu..."

"Master... what's wrong?"

She clutched her forehead and shook her head in agony. The two Fire-lick Rabbits in her arms felt the biting cold and trembled uneasily.

In a daze, Jingliu's vision cleared for an instant.

She shoved the two Fire-lick Rabbits into Bai Heng's arms, then ran into the distance.

Leaving only Bai Heng, frozen where he stood, and the two bewildered Fire-lick Rabbits behind.

Everything had happened too suddenly. Bai Heng stood there blankly, holding the two rabbits in his arms.

After a long while, he murmured softly:

"Mother... doesn't want you two anymore."

Night fell.

The moon hung above the treetops.

Unfortunately, tonight's moon was but a crescent.

The depths of the Prison of Confinement, Ten-Lords Commission of the "Luofu."

Blood stained Jingliu's cold lips as her delicate hands tightly gripped the Tanhua Sword before her.

Her silver hair danced amid the biting cold, while layers of ice burst apart the special blue stone bricks in the Prison of Confinement.

Sharp ice pillars rose from the ground in layer after layer, as though carved by blades, as chaotic as Jingliu's thoughts at that moment.

She gritted her teeth, her body trembling uncontrollably.

The scene of her personally killing Bai Heng that day surfaced in her mind again and again. Hatred, slaughter, every negative emotion was like countless invisible hands choking her throat.

Falling into mara... this was her destiny. But she hoped that day would come later, even if only a little later.

The lifespan of a short-lived species was no more than a hundred years. She wanted to marry him and accompany him through those hundred years.

But those voices rang through her mind again and again, bewitching her heart, while everything connected to him gradually blurred away.

The reason she had always kept her eyes covered was to avoid seeing the Xianzhou, being reminded of the past by familiar sights, and falling into memory.

She knew she shouldn't have removed this black veil, nor should she have accompanied him in revisiting this old land of the "Luofu."

Yet she still couldn't stop herself from wanting to look at him, from wanting to remember all that had happened before—so that before she completely forgot herself, she could still remember him.

Even if the price was this...