Sonia turned her spatial ring and took out a lustrous white music card. Yaxiu had a vague impression of it—it seemed to be an item featured in Daidalos's classic drama *Actually, I Mind*, though that had been an urban light comedy from a decade ago.
Pinching both edges of the card, she kneaded them gently until they expanded into a pair of earphones. She hooked one over Yaxiu's ear and the other over her own, then pressed a button on the card and selected a song using its LCD screen. Surprisingly, it was a multimedia player that combined storage, charging, and music playback all in one.
Daidalos's youthful singing voice, carrying a faint Starry accent, drifted melodiously from the earphones, a touch of helpless indulgence woven through its plaintive melancholy:
*"I love you even with your hundred flaws,
No one can ever compare to you.
Yet you haven't learned to appreciate me...
I've done so much for you, devoted to only one.
I wonder if I owed you in a past life...
Yet I haven't learned how to understand you.
For you, I mend my ways and swallow every grievance;
Loving you so deeply, my pride willingly bends low..."*
It was the theme song of *Actually, I Mind*. Originally a male-female duet, this track was Daidalos's special solo edition. Sonia hummed along softly as she listened. Her voice was ethereal and brimming with vibrant energy, not at all matching the melancholic tone of the song; she sounded more like an innocent little girl singing along simply because she liked the melody.
Come to think of it, a child's world truly was simple. They sang whatever sounded pleasant, loved whatever color looked pretty, and when it hurt or felt unbearable, they pulled a long face and let the whole world know they were unhappy. Growing up, however, meant not only losing your favorite color, but also being unable to say directly when you were down. All you could do was loop sorrowful love songs in the dead of night, quietly telling the world in roundabout ways that today, both life and you were hurting a little.
Still humming, Sonia stood up and stepped onto the edge of the cliff. As a demigod sorcerer, even if she took a direct fall, not a scratch would come to her—instead, the mountain would be violently cratered with human-shaped indentations. Yet for some reason, Yaxiu felt nervous and caught hold of her slender, well-defined fingers.
"Do you think this thing is a bit outdated?" Sonia asked with a smile.
Yaxiu thought about it and nodded. The miracle bracelet carried by every ordinary citizen of the Stars was already a multimedia device that integrated all common features. It could play music, stream shows, was waterproof, portable, and practically impossible to lose. By comparison, this music card seemed rather redundant.
"It was a sudden fashion trend ten years ago. The guild producing the music cards even poured a fortune into sponsoring one of Daidalos's dramas just to sweep the craze across the whole country," Sonia explained. "Back then, I saw Daidalos on the light screen leaning against a window, the city neons and the starlight in the night sky illuminating her downcast face. She took out her music card, unhooked the earphones, and listened to songs only she could hear... What young girl could resist that? Consumerism hit me right in the heart."
"Looking back, the guild making those music cards was really good at seizing market opportunities. Back then, miracle bracelets hadn't invented 'directional audio' yet. Whenever anyone watched a video in public, it played aloud through the speaker, so plenty of people hated such noisy environments. A product like the music card, which offered privacy, romance, and distinctiveness, naturally attracted a massive audience. Besides, Daidalos was the idol most beloved by the youth. Even her hairstyles and outfits sparked nationwide crazes, to say nothing of merchandise from her dramas that was both fashionable and oozing personality."
"In my memory, all kinds of music cards remained popular for about a year or two. It wasn't until miracle bracelets were equipped with directional audio—where, although there was still a bit of sound leakage, normal use no longer caused a disturbance—that music cards quickly vanished from the market."
Holding the lustrous white card between her fingers, a faint, tender warmth surfaced on her face. "I rarely asked my mother for anything... I don't know if you've seen *Fate Guardian Night*. That drama started a whole wave back then, spawning countless shows centered on 'omnipotent yet mischievous wish-granting machines.' While watching it, I wondered: was there a wish-granting machine that wasn't omnipotent, yet would try its best to fulfill your wishes?"
"A sorcerer's miracle?" That was Yaxiu's first reaction.
Sonia smiled, shaking her head as she turned the card in her hand. "Or maybe a mother."
"That year, she had almost saved enough money to buy a new piece of farm machinery. But I couldn't resist wanting a music card. I wanted to distinguish myself from my peers, who were wasting their lives like pigs... Mother actually bought it for me, even though it meant delaying the farm machine by an entire year, and meant I had to work the fields for another year. A trendy little trinket from Jialesi was a dream a small-town girl could reach only by stretching on her tiptoes."
"In truth, the popular brands from Jialesi weren't distributed to our backwater town at all. While not strictly counterfeit, what my mother bought was just a shoddy imitation made by a minor guild. Listen to it—isn't the sound quality even worse than a miracle bracelet?" Sonia said. "But back then, I didn't care. I listened to it when I got tired from studying, and I listened to it before going to sleep. Back then, not a single kid my age in the entire town had one except me. Walking down the street with those earphones on, I felt like the wind was at my heels. That tiny bit of vanity brought me happiness for a very long time."
"Even now, I still think buying this music card was worth it... Although I always thought I was special, until I passed the university exams and left my hometown, how was I any different from anyone else? I just needed that little bit of vanity to satisfy myself."
Yaxiu's heart stirred. He suddenly realized this was the first time Sonia had voluntarily brought up her youth to him. Not that she owed him any confessions—Yaxiu had never spoken much of his own youth either—but he knew she had always harbored a sense of shame deep down... During her most sensitive and vain adolescence, she had lived in the direst material scarcity, like a butterfly in a cocoon forced to bear the appearance of a caterpillar... Who would willingly talk about a past when they were just a caterpillar?
Her reluctance to introduce Yaxiu to her mother stemmed from a similar reason.
Now, Sonia could speak of that past with composure, even dissecting those once terrifying, monstrous emotions like a surgeon wielding a scalpel, because she had grown powerful enough that no one dared ridicule her past. Instead, people would only marvel at how such an exquisite butterfly could emerge from such an ordinary, mundane cocoon.
"Yaxiu."
Holding the music card between her fingers, the sunlight after the rain illuminated her face, making those ruby eyes shine brighter than ever before.
"My life was originally as thin as a single card," she said. "It was you who took it with you to write so many tales of adventure, turning it into a splendid sorcerer manual."
Yaxiu seemed about to protest, but Sonia pressed a finger against his lips and shook her head. Sitting gracefully beside him, she took three hair ties from her pocket. "Help me tie my hair."
Chapter 1216