Wish

"Rose, I don't know if you've started to suspect our 'role-playing games,' but I'm going to show you the proof right now." With a wave of Yaxiu's right hand, his newly condensed silver virtual wings lit up. In just a single day, his silver virtual wings were almost completely condensed. Hell's secret poison was truly dependable—if you lacked virtual wings, it genuinely replenished them in no time. The instant the silver virtual wings appeared, the mysterious chains quietly descended as well, mangling and snapping them. Yaxiu let out a muffled groan and slumped over the desk. Rose and Feili immediately moved to stand, but he waved a hand to signal he was fine. "The destruction of Canaan City, the casualties from the Golden Rain Cataclysm, and the wings I just showed you..." Yaxiu said seriously. "Rose, you should understand by now that we aren't joking." At the same time, Yaxiu felt a small twinge of disappointment. Deep down, he had always suspected Rose was someone with a hidden identity. After all, Heath was an undercover agent sent by the Four Pillar Gods, and Rose had stayed by his side all along. Her personality was also strangely detached from worldly ways, making her seem like an outsider who had tried and failed to blend into this world. Yet in the Country of All Stars, anyone bearing the mysterious chains was guaranteed to be an ordinary person—she couldn't possibly be a demon, much less a sorcerer. Which meant Rose was simply an eccentric who couldn't fit into society. Rose lowered her head in thought, then suddenly asked, "So you really don't need the wheelchair?" "Really!" Yaxiu promptly jumped up and did a somersault from one side of the study to the other. "Though I haven't fully recovered yet, it doesn't hinder my mobility in the slightest!" Rose cupped her teacup with both hands and gave a gentle nod. "Mm, then I believe you." Yaxiu sat back in the wheelchair. "Canaan City and the Golden Rain Cataclysm were only the beginning. Next, something on an even grander scale will occur... It might not necessarily be a disaster, but once the Angel Hunt concludes, this world will likely come to an end. "I kept this hidden before, partly because I didn't know how to tell you, but even more so out of my own selfishness. Feili, I need your help, but if I told you the truth, you might very well refuse to assist me, so I didn't dare say it." Feili turned a bit pale. She asked softly, "Then why are you telling us now?" Indeed, why say it? If he had kept quiet, nothing would have changed. Feili would continue staying here happily instead of waiting for the end in dread. Even if just for her sake, he should have kept the truth hidden. A tragedy that cannot be changed by speaking of it is nothing more than prolonged torture for those who know. It was like a bottle of black poison in the desert—if you didn't know, you could at least drink it as cola. "Because I care about you. My selfishness now includes you, and I began to feel ashamed to face you," Yaxiu said with a self-deprecating chuckle. "But more likely, it's because I don't want you to hate me." Feili shook her head. "How could we hate you?" "Hate me for not speaking up sooner, hate me for not saving you, hate me for being powerless." Yaxiu looked down at the grain of the wooden desk. "I'm always like this. In trying not to make others hate me, I end up hurting them instead..." Suddenly feeling his head being patted, Yaxiu looked up to see Rose leaning across the desk, patting his head. "I forgive you," Rose said. The corner of her mouth twitched slightly, as if attempting a smile, but she gave up in the end. "Me too," Feili said softly. "I actually thought you wouldn't tell us." Yaxiu was taken aback. "You guessed?" "I had a feeling." Staring at the pen holder on the desk, she said softly, "I just feel that if we work hard, maybe we can change this ending, just like the protagonists in stories." For a moment, Yaxiu didn't know what to say. The Country of All Stars was a shadow world created by the Divine Lord of Stars, and its sole reason for existing was to imprison the Prime Angel. Once the Prime Angel died, this dedicated cage would naturally lose its purpose. What reason would the Divine Lord of Stars have to keep maintaining it? The Country of All Stars wouldn't be destroyed; it would merely return to what it originally was. Even if they could defeat the Divine Lord of Stars, it would be meaningless—just as you could rob someone of their money, but could never force them to keep running a loss-making business. This wasn't a matter of defeating an evil boss to save the world; it was about getting the Creator to keep sustaining a false starry sky. But how could they possibly convince the Divine Lord of Stars to preserve the Country of All Stars? And there was an even more critical question: should the Country of All Stars really exist at all? Was it more tragic for shadows to live as human beings, or for shadows to die as human beings? "Now that you've told us this," Rose asked suddenly, "what do you want us to do?" "If you have any unfulfilled wishes, I will do everything I can to help you achieve them," Yaxiu said. "If everything truly cannot be undone, I want you to at least realize your wishes." Rose nodded. "Most of my wishes have already been fulfilled, but there's one I planned to pursue two years from now. If the world is truly ending, it seems I'll have to prepare for it ahead of time." "What wish?" Yaxiu's eyes lit up. "Can I help?" Rose looked at him. "You can." "Great. What is your wish?" "To get pregnant," Rose said. "I am deeply interested in gestating and raising life. Raising a life is probably out of the question due to lack of time, but gestating one might still be doable." Yaxiu and Feili instantly froze. After a moment of silence, Yaxiu said with great difficulty, "I'm sorry, I can't help you with that." Rose took on an understanding expression. "Is it because of your waist injury—" "No!" Yaxiu immediately interrupted. "I promised Sword Princess that except for my first kiss, all my other firsts belong to her. I'm sorry." Feili asked curiously, "Why except your first kiss?" "Because my first kiss was already gone before she made that demand," Yaxiu said. "So, Rose, I can't help you." "I don't quite understand." Rose was a bit confused. "I only need some of your reproductive cells. What does that have to do with your first time?" If Weixi had said such a thing, Yaxiu could be entirely certain she was teasing him. But coming from Rose, he genuinely wasn't sure if she truly didn't know. Feili hastily pulled Rose aside and used hand gestures to explain things to her, returning with the blush still lingering on her cheeks. Rose said calmly, "In vitro technology is very advanced nowadays. We don't need any physical contact to accomplish it—" "Sorry, I still can't accept that!" Yaxiu flatly refused. Rose didn't press the matter. She stood up and said, "Then I'll just have to ask Mr. Igola and Mr. Harvey..." "Wait!" Feili hastily held her back. "Do you know how long a pregnancy takes?" "Counted from the first day of the last menstrual period, a total of 40 weeks, or 280 days." "Yaxiu, roughly when will the end of the world arrive?" "Six months at the latest, most likely three months." Assuming the Prime Angel had four wings, that left only the Rainbow Wing and the Colorless Wing. Even if there were intervals between them, the Divine Lord of Stars would surely want to resolve things as swiftly as possible and would never drag it out. Two to three months was the estimate they had reached after discussion. "Which means you won't make it in time, Rose!" Feili said. "You'd better give up on this wish!" Rose thought about it and nodded. "If there isn't enough time, then indeed, there's no point." Yaxiu and Feili breathed a sigh of relief. They never imagined there would come a day when they would feel relieved that the apocalypse was arriving soon. "Time to cook," Rose said, checking the time. "If there's nothing else, I'll head out first." "Rose, you still want to continue being my assistant?" Yaxiu asked in surprise. "Your life might end in a few months. Don't you plan to take some time off and enjoy life? If you need money, you can just take it straight from my account." Rose turned to look at him. "I am enjoying life. Work, entertainment, rest—I haven't neglected any of them." "But you could resign, indulge in entertainment and rest, and stop working altogether." "A life without work wouldn't be enjoying life, would it?" Rose looked puzzled. "Isn't a person's value found in the value of their labor? Labor created humanity, created society, and created civilization. Giving up labor is equivalent to giving up exporting one's value to society. How could that possibly count as enjoying life?" Yaxiu blinked. Honestly, there was nothing technically wrong with what she said, but weren't those grand platitudes people used to spur themselves to work? With the opportunity to become a freeloader laid right before her, someone would actually insist on working for reasons like that? In an instant, Rose's image grew impossibly towering and radiant before Yaxiu and Feili, making these two ordinary slackers shrink in shame. Rose walked over to the study door. For some reason, she knocked on the door first, waited a few seconds, and then pushed it open to leave. Inside the study, only Yaxiu and Feili remained, and the atmosphere grew slightly awkward. "I'm sorry. Rose has been trying hard to find your biological father, but there's still no word," Yaxiu took the initiative to break the silence. "Although we won't give up, don't get your hopes too high. After all, records from over a decade ago are hard to trace, not to mention the destruction the Golden Rain Cataclysm caused in Jiashi..." "I understand," the blonde girl nodded. "Besides that, do you have any other wishes?" Yaxiu paused. "Whatever it is, I'll do everything I can to help you achieve it. Even if you want to stop participating in the Angel Hunt from now on, that's completely fine. In the end, dragging you into this war was my and Weixi's fault to begin with." Feili lowered her eyes to the desk, and Yaxiu didn't disturb her. He was already prepared for Feili to leave; perhaps deep down, that was the very outcome he hoped for. The affairs of sorcerers shouldn't involve innocents. He, Igola, Harvey, and Weixi could die for their love, their friends, or their ambitions, but what reason did Feili have to risk her life for them? Selfishly creating this world, selfishly turning it into a prison, selfishly treating it as a battlefield, selfishly using its people as tools... Sorcerers truly were a sinful species. "Can it really be any wish?" Feili lifted her head, her bright eyes staring straight at Yaxiu. "Anything at all?"