Bai Zhou was practically in a daze.
Yet before he could gather his thoughts, amid the Gem Witch's startled cry beside him, another astonishing change shook the wand before his eyes.
"Buzz, buzz, buzz!"
The wand vibrated with a joyful hum.
The imperial decree had been issued; a vassal naturally answered.
The magic runes across the bottom tenth of the wand began writhing and twisting, shifting toward a brand-new form.
Nearby, runes that had yet to be repaired—or had even been ground completely smooth by the passage of time—gradually began emerging and glowing on their own. They grew, they spread, and they linked together.
At this moment, both Bai Zhou and the Gem Witch could clearly feel the surrounding spirituality boiling.
"The wand is reviving!" Bai Zhou said with certainty.
A blazing crimson glow shone brilliantly upon the wand.
At the base of the wand, that one-tenth portion of magic runes transformed dramatically; as their shapes shifted, their coverage spread to encompass two-tenths of the entire shaft.
In other words, the wand was now two-tenths repaired.
And yet...
It had changed enough that both Bai Zhou and the Gem Witch found it somewhat unfamiliar.
The pitch-black, dry-bark-like exterior flaked away in a rustle, revealing a brown wooden shaft at the base, its surface traced by faint, ephemeral golden patterns. The previously restored magic runes flickered in soft crimson light, complementing and reflecting the pale gold tracery.
Right now, the upper eight-tenths of the wand remained a battered, rotten twig, but the lower two-tenths had become a brown wooden wand adorned with interlacing crimson and gold.
The two halves clashed terribly, giving Bai Zhou the impression of a vibrant rose blooming...
Welded right onto a weasel's backside?
The golden patterns were especially eye-catching.
They flowed slowly, breathing like living creatures. With every pulse and flicker, the surrounding air trembled and warped, letting out a barely audible hum.
It was beautiful—so gorgeous it bordered on opulent, and foreign enough that it caught both of them off guard.
"Bai Zhou, what-what-what did you do?!" The Gem Witch was utterly bewildered.
Was this still her battered old wand?
It wasn't that she didn't know Spirit-Name secret treasures concealed their brilliance. It was just that the wand was severely damaged, and furthermore, she currently lacked the qualifications to make it reveal its true form.
The problem was, she also knew what its true form was supposed to look like once fully revived.
From what she knew, it should be a brown staff covered in red markings—the legacy records of her pathway clearly contained illustrations of it!
So what was happening now?
What did that inexplicable cry of "Return" from Bai Zhou even mean?
And what were these ornate golden lines?
It was as though the moment he whispered "Return" at the wand, these golden patterns had spontaneously sprouted from the wood.
It was utterly mysterious.
The Gem Witch looked up and stared intently at Bai Zhou, whose expression was just as dazed, and asked uncertainly:
"Were you just... summoning a lost soul?"
Was he chanting "O soul, return" or something?
"..." Bai Zhou went guiltily silent.
He couldn't answer that question.
He couldn't even make sense of the situation himself.
"And besides..." The Gem Witch lowered her gaze, examining the wand glowing in Bai Zhou's palm with a strange expression. "Right now, it looks like two different wands glued together. It isn't going to stay like this forever, is it?"
She had shared group-order meals plenty of times, but this was her first time seeing a piecemeal wand.
By her understanding, let alone fixing only a fraction, even if Bai Zhou completely restored all the magic runes, shouldn't the wand's resting state remain as it was before?
Treasures concealed their brilliance. Wasn't that incredible greatbow of Bai Zhou's usually disguised as a rotten branch too?
Revealing a treasure's true form was supposed to happen only in the second stage, when she, its master, infused it with spirituality to awaken it and unleash its authentic state, wasn't it?
Yet now?
She, the master, hadn't even channeled any spirituality into it yet. She hadn't even touched it with a single finger...
Why are you so excited?
Why did you enter your second form already?
It was as if she hadn't laid a finger on someone, yet they blushed shyly and told her they were pregnant.
You bastard, what are you expecting?!
At this moment, the Gem Witch's thoughts were an absolute mess.
"Well..." Bai Zhou remained at a loss for words.
He couldn't answer that one either.
"Buzz, buzz, buzz..."
The runes did not spread past two-tenths, nor did they show any sign of continuing to repair themselves.
However, the brown base of the wand vibrated faster and faster. Though the amplitude was small, it oscillated with such rapid intensity that it blurred into afterimages, nearly slipping from Bai Zhou's grip.
The golden lines winding along the base grew brighter and brighter. Surging golden light rolled out like wave after wave of tide, as if something was brewing within.
"Don't you think this wand is getting brighter and brighter?" Bai Zhou observed thoughtfully.
"Hmm?" The Gem Witch arched an eyebrow.
And then.
Under their wide-eyed gaze, several glittering golden sparks abruptly drifted out from the golden runes. They swirled through the air and fluttered down, gently settling on the floor.
Then, the golden sparks began twisting and spinning on the ground, whirling faster and faster as the uncontrollable spirituality around them expanded wildly.
"Wheee-wheee-wheee..."
Strange hissing noises came from the sparks, growing louder by the second.
An ominous premonition struck Bai Zhou and the Gem Witch at the exact same moment.
They turned to look at each other, involuntarily recalling an unpleasant shared memory.
"Not good!"
Bai Zhou reacted.
His eyes snapped wide. Clenching the wand in one hand, he grabbed the Gem Witch with the other and shot backward like an electric shock. Moving so fast he left afterimages, he pulled her away and vanished from the spot in the blink of an eye.
"It's a bomb!"
Bai Zhou bellowed, warning the Gem Witch.
"Get down!"
Before the words had completely left his mouth, Bai Zhou tackled the Gem Witch through the dormitory door with a deafening bang. They broke through the door in the most literal, physical sense; wood splinters exploded outward as a hole large enough for two people blasted through the wood.
The Gem Witch, held in Bai Zhou's protective embrace, happened to have her head sticking out a notch above his due to their awkward positioning.
Right now, she served as Bai Zhou's invincible battering ram, functioning like a siege engine.
"You-you-you... slow down!"
She had only enough time to watch the wooden door rapidly expand in her vision with sheer terror before hurriedly chanting an incantation to cast a cantrip above her head, blasting apart the door in front of them.
What on earth are you shielding?!
She was the Gem Witch, not Iron Head Superman!
Before the swearing witch could throw a punch at Bai Zhou, the two of them had already hit the floor in the hallway outside, with Bai Zhou reaching back to push her head flat against the ground.
At that exact moment—
BOOOOOM!
It blew.
The dormitory blew up.
Blazing flames surged out of the room, a violent explosion rocketing upward as billowing black smoke and fiery red fireballs engulfed the entire dormitory! The floorboards were torn up, the ceiling was blown apart, and chaos reigned everywhere. Bai Zhou, bearing the brunt of the explosive shockwave out in the corridor, snapped his wrist to unfold several miniature rituals, attempting to seal and compress the blast.
While it couldn't stop the explosion from happening, it did effectively contain the blast's radius, at least preventing it from spreading to the neighbors...
Probably.
Screeech—!
An emergency alarm blared instantly, sweeping like a specter across the entire Special Control Bureau base.
Hissing streams of water sprayed from overhead as ceiling fire sprinklers kicked into high gear, waging full-scale war against the raging fire inside the dormitory like a sudden downpour.
In the distance, chaotic footsteps approached.
"Enemy attack!!!"
Amid the shrill wails of the alarm, voices roared and screamed as footsteps rushed back and forth in frantic disarray.
Nearby, neighbors from upstairs and next door dashed out in a panic, gripping pistols and rifles, dark muzzles swinging left and right.
"Where is it?"
"Where's the enemy?!"
It was hard to describe their state of mind. Someone enjoying their day off watching TV upstairs had suddenly had a gaping hole blown through the floor beneath their feet. Next door, someone was trying to figure out how to reheat yesterday's leftover boiled egg in the microwave when their whole body shuddered; the wall behind them abruptly collapsed, followed by several sharp pops from the microwave, leaving them convinced for a moment that they had already died...
Splash, hiss, splash...
The water raining down soaked Bai Zhou and the witch into drowned rats. The two culprits lay flat on the floor, the hems of their clothes singed black, surrounded by the frantic commotion of the crowd.
"We're done for..." Bai Zhou said quietly. The Gem Witch was completely stiff, her expression entirely numb.
"I really don't think Luo Tunan was wrong to put out a warrant for you. In fact, he set your rank too low. Bai Zhou, you should be an S-rank bomber for the Special Control Bureau!"
At first, the Gem Witch merely muttered under her breath, expressionless.
"You're a genius, Bai Zhou. A genius at making trouble!"
Soon, though, she began speaking through gritted teeth:
"...Is this wand's complete form really tied to explosions? Or did you do something to it?"
Saying this, the Gem Witch looked as if she had seen a ghost. "Why does it feel like my wand is more attuned to you than to me?"
Bai Zhou smiled sheepishly. There was something he didn't dare say...
You think so.
The wand itself probably thinks so too.
Crack, snap, pop...
Fierce flames crackled behind them; an entire dormitory was ruined just like that.
Cleaning up the aftermath of this mess was bound to be quite troublesome. The wand's debut upon its reviving return had certainly made a spectacular scene.
Evidently, it's a restless troublemaker too.
Holding the wand, Bai Zhou slowly sat up from the floor, wiped the water from his face, and lamented inwardly.
As if sensing Bai Zhou's thought, amid the crackle of fire and smoke, the wand gave a faint, faint tremor.
Its golden runes flickered softly.
As if exclaiming:
Thrilling!
That was fucking awesome!
By the time Bai Zhou and the Gem Witch explained everything and settled the aftermath, an hour had already passed. An hour was already thanks to the Special Control Bureau's high efficiency!
In truth, Elder Song of the Special Control Bureau didn't take the matter to heart at all. Toward Bai Zhou, the hero who had just brought immense glory to the Bureau, the elder showed boundless indulgence.
Even if Bai Zhou had lit Elder Song's office on fire like a double-bang firecracker, Elder Song would probably have chuckled and praised him: "What a crisp bang! That blast really had some kick!"
A minor explosion that caused no casualties was nothing at all.
Elder Song even wanted Bai Zhou and the Gem Witch to stay for lunch, but with their minds entirely on the wand, the two had to politely decline the old man's warm invitation.
Moving to the new dormitory assigned to Bai Zhou by the Bureau, in an environment familiar in layout but unfamiliar in detail, Bai Zhou drew out the wand once more.
The wand looked pieced together; its base was undeniably extraordinary, but the upper eight-tenths looked rustic to the core.
This thing thoroughly demonstrated what it meant to start like a tiger and end like a snake... Or rather, calling it a snake was too generous; it was more like the head of a tiger and the tail of a roach.
A cockroach's roach.
"For now, that's as far as I can repair it," Bai Zhou said, looking at the Gem Witch.
"Though you can probably tell, it already possesses genuine power on the level of a Spirit-Name secret treasure."
At this point, Bai Zhou's expression turned quirky. "So what exactly is the background of this wand?"
"If it were fully repaired, what tier of treasure would it be?"
The Gem Witch pondered for a moment, then shook her head. "Honestly, I don't know either."
"You have plenty of treasures yourself, so I'm not worried about you coveting my wand... but I really have no idea how strong it was at its peak." She weighed her words and offered a bold guess: "Still, I reckon... it's not as simple as just a Spirit-Name secret treasure!"
More than just a Spirit-Name secret treasure!
Though he had anticipated as much, hearing this still gave Bai Zhou a jolt.
"Then again," the witch added, "if I knew the details, I wouldn't have been in the dark about how this wand—and the one back in the Reflected Ruin Realm—both explode once they're fixed."
Her gaze drifted faintly toward Bai Zhou. "They were never like this before. Why is it that once they pass through your hands, they..."
Sighing, the Gem Witch finally asked, "So, what's the deal with this wand now?"
"And what was that explosion just now about?"
"Hmm..." Bai Zhou thought for a moment and pulled a cracked, chill-radiating crystal ball from his robes.
"What are you doing?" the Gem Witch asked.
"Appraise it, and won't we know everything?" Bai Zhou said.
Hearing this, the Gem Witch's eyes widened in pleasant surprise. "You know Appraisal?!"
In the mystical world, Spirit-Name secret treasures and Extraordinary weapons were not like the items Bai Zhou obtained through Last Words, which connected to his mind and instantly let him know how to use them.
Whether it was the purple-gold saber, Light and Shadow Harmony, or the Heavenly Thunder Bow, Bai Zhou had to figure out how to use them step by step.
Yet exploring the use of weapons and tools was a hazardous process; cases of weapons backfiring on their wielders were common throughout the mystical world.
In such circumstances, Appraisal—the exclusive art of diviners and ritualists—was an in-demand divine skill in the mystical world. It was a specialized technique combining divination and ritual, with a steep threshold that required knowledge in both disciplines.
Moreover, depending on the grade of the appraised object, the required level of Appraisal grew progressively higher, and advanced Appraisal was even harder to learn.
Only after confirming that Bai Zhou had become an initiated ritualist did Crow teach him an Appraisal technique she had mastered.
As an initiated ritualist possessing the Celestial Pivot, equipped with Crow's Appraisal technique, Bai Zhou was theoretically capable of appraising ordinary Spirit-Name secret treasures.
Theoretically.
"This is my first time using Appraisal, so I might be a little rusty," Bai Zhou said as he began inspecting the wand.
With his left hand cradling the wand, he held the crystal ball in his right and circled it slowly above the staff several times.
"Dust shall not return to dust, earth shall not return to earth."
"Trace the source against the flow; let the past speak."
"Cross beyond the cinders, let truth be revealed—"
Bai Zhou chanted softly in an ancient, drawn-out cadence, as if reciting a lost prayer.
"—Verum Patefac!"
The shaft of the wand trembled gently.
If a weapon resisted, Appraisal had a high chance of failure.
Thus, some people even employed various tricks before casting Appraisal to build rapport and resonance with the item.
Yet now...
The instant Bai Zhou's incantation concluded, the wand almost impatiently laid itself bare before him.
Lines of ancient red script welled up inside the crystal ball one after another. Though archaic and hard to decipher, Bai Zhou understood their meaning naturally the moment they entered his vision.
[Fire is the midwife of civilization, and its gravedigger.]
[Across the long history of civilization, mankind has learned only two things—to use fire for warmth, and to use fire for destruction.]
[The wand named for fire invites you to dance with it.]
[—On the brink of destruction.]
Bai Zhou read aloud what he gleaned from the crystal ball:
[Yet remember...]
[Each time you wave this wand, you shall listen to the wish made by every spark that bursts from it.]
[They say to you:]
[Master, let me blow up once more!]
After listening, the Gem Witch was silent for a while.
She looked at the crystal ball pulsing with light and squirming with red characters in the room, then at Bai Zhou, whose face was illuminated by its glow as he recited the text with complete gravity.
"...You know that looks pretty creepy, right?" the Gem Witch deadpanned. "And the content is even creepier."
"So, Great Poet, care to translate that into plain English? What does all that actually mean?"
Bai Zhou was also digesting the information.
As the light on the crystal ball flickered, Bai Zhou received various fragmented impressions that helped him make sense of the words.
Then, his expression turned rather peculiar.
"First off, it really has returned to the rank of a Spirit-Name secret treasure, roughly just past the threshold—if it had recovered any further, I wouldn't have been able to appraise it."
"Though, of course, I couldn't have repaired it to that level anyway."
Weighing his words, Bai Zhou explained slowly:
"Second, this wand is very... marvelous."
He nodded, emphasizing, "Yes, marvelous."
"Marvelous?" The Gem Witch was baffled, wondering why he chose such a delicate word.
"No matter how much spirituality you channel into it, or what secret technique or ritual you cast with it..."
Bai Zhou's voice turned solemn.
"Whatever comes out of this wand will always end up as an explosion—even if you intended to cast a healing technique."
"Furthermore, it seems the more spirituality you inject and the higher the tier of the secret technique, the greater the explosion's power."
His eyelid twitching twice, Bai Zhou solemnly held out the wand, gesturing for the Gem Witch to take it back.
"Here, your wand!"
"No..." The Gem Witch wanted to shake her head.
"So..." she asked hesitantly, "this is basically a wand that can only explode?"
"Yes," Bai Zhou nodded in confirmation. "Before it was repaired, using it was roughly equivalent to igniting saltpeter and charcoal to produce flame."
"Now that it's partially restored, it's been upgraded to gunpowder."
"Touch it off, and it blows."
After a moment's thought, Bai Zhou added, "And even if you don't touch it off, it might still blow."
"..." The Gem Witch felt like cursing.
Who in the world needs a wand that only explodes? What was the person who forged this thing thinking?
Did useless magicians who could only blow things up actually exist in this world?
Looking at the wand in Bai Zhou's hands, then recalling the dormitory burning furiously in the blast, a shiver ran through her. She felt like this wand was nothing more than an oversized hand grenade.
"...Can I still get a refund?" The Gem Witch blinked. "I suddenly feel like this isn't as good as my old wand. Maybe not repairing it wouldn't have been a big deal after all..."
"Life doesn't offer do-overs, just as this explosion-only wand cannot cast time-reversal magic," Bai Zhou replied.
"What I mean is—"
"Too late."
He handed the wand back to her.
"Here's your rocket launcher. Hope that makes you feel better."
The wand trembled lightly in Bai Zhou's hand, its golden runes flashing once.
When the Gem Witch's slender fingers took hold of it, the wand's hum grew even more pronounced.
It seemed almost...
Reluctant?
"Is it reluctant to leave you?" The Gem Witch furrowed her brows, a suspicious look on her face.
"Just your imagination," Bai Zhou answered placidly. "It's only a wand; don't overthink it."
In truth, the wand had likely been empowered by Bai Zhou's "imperial decree."
Without that decree, the repaired tenth would not have expanded to two-tenths, and the initial tenth he repaired might not even have held up...
Yet a wand that could only explode was still an explosion wand at heart; Bai Zhou's command had not changed that fundamental nature.
At most, the decree from Bai Zhou—the heir of Rome—had turned the wand from a street busker into a court performer.
The golden patterns clearly stemmed from Bai Zhou's decree, genuinely serving to awaken and strengthen the wand. But the specific nuances and functions would require the Gem Witch's own experimentation to uncover.
At the very least, Bai Zhou was certain it wasn't a bad thing.
Could it be that, as the last Emperor of Rome, I can influence antiquities hailing from Rome?
After seeing off the conflicted Gem Witch, Bai Zhou turned this question over in his mind in his new dormitory.
Yet this would require time and verification, since in the present world, Bai Zhou had hardly any opportunities to encounter Roman antiques.
Time flowed, and Bai Zhou's leisurely yet eventful day rolled into evening.
The person most likely to help him come into contact with Roman relics made her appearance.
Having just finished dinner, Bai Zhou was taking a stroll outside the dormitory building.
Outside the new quarters lay an artificial lake. Air currents rippled across the water's surface, turning into a gentle breeze that brushed toward the shore.
The mild wind ruffled Bai Zhou's hair. Squinting, he enjoyed a rare moment of an empty mind, simply strolling along the water's edge.
Lap, lap...
Ripples gently broke the surface, and soft splashing reached Bai Zhou's ears, as though fish were leaping merrily from the depths.
Bai Zhou turned to look.
There, across the dim expanse of the lake, in the distant center of the water, a figure was walking upon the surface.
The figure stood with hands behind her back, her snow-white, bare feet treading calmly on the water, walking toward Bai Zhou on the shore step by step from the middle of the lake. Her pale purple hair fluttered lightly in the evening wind; with every step, her toes touched the surface, sending out faint, delicate ripples. A familiar yet distant silhouette moved thus across the dimly lit lake, cloaked from head to toe in a hazy light like moonlight.
She seemed to glow.
Like a nymph of the lake approaching a fortunate chosen one on the shore.
It's her... Bai Zhou grew guarded.
It was Her Highness from the Western Federation!
Now, the princess was no longer clad in heavy gold-and-red armor. Barefoot upon the cool, deep lake, she wore only a simple white dress loosely cinched at the waist with a blue sash.
Her hair fell loosely over her shoulders, a few pale purple strands blown against her cheek by the breeze, making her dark eyes appear all the more deep and serene.
"I have come as promised, young savior," she said softly, standing on the twilight water and looking at the youth just a short distance away on the bank.
The fitted white dress accentuated her graceful curves, yet her aura was sacred and tranquil, stifling any profane thought before it could arise.
"Regrettably, the moon cannot be seen from this base," she said, shaking her head. "Otherwise, the atmosphere would have been far more fitting for our meeting."
Her words made her seem even more like a lake sprite bathing in moonbeams. She looked like she should be gazing up at the moon from the lake's center, singing dreamy melodies that would stop passing woodcutters in their tracks and lull them into reverie, unaware that their axes had fallen into the water...
And then the woodcutter who lost his axe would dream an impractical daydream: though his axe was gone, the lake fairy gifted him golden and silver ones instead.
Bai Zhou studied her for a moment, his eyes pausing for half a second on the purple-haired maiden's bare feet before shifting away.
"May I ask a question?"
"Of course. There is nothing you cannot ask," the purple-haired maiden replied, the corner of her lips curving in a faint smile.
Bai Zhou asked sincerely, "You can fly—why walk on water?"
"..." The purple-haired maiden's smile vanished.
She went deadpan, clearly having no desire to answer that question.
And she had just said there was nothing he couldn't ask...
Muttering inward complaints, Bai Zhou also reflected on whether he had been tactless.
Knowing that provoking her was not a smart move, Bai Zhou hurriedly offered some insincere praise:
"Well, actually, it's pretty neat."
After thinking it over, he gave a thumbs-up. "At least it saves on boat fare. Very impressive."
"Still, you should wash your feet when you get back," Bai Zhou kindly reminded her. "Artificial lakes aren't necessarily clean. Just a moment ago, I saw someone toss spicy gluten sticks in there to feed the fish."
"...?"
The purple-haired maiden's eyes widened slightly. While her posture seemed unchanged, with a soft splash, her body lifted two inches above the water, her dripping wet bare feet hovering securely in midair.
Every single toe curled uneasily in the air. A flustered blush involuntarily crept onto her seemingly stoic face, and her chest heaved noticeably faster.
"...Thank you."
After a quiet moment, she spoke, eyeing Bai Zhou with a strange, complicated expression.
"You truly are an interesting person."
Bai Zhou blinked. "A lot of people say that."
"What I mean is likely different from what they meant." The purple-haired maiden shook her head, speaking in slightly accented Eastern Federation Mandarin: "An old proverb in the Eastern Federation says, 'In chasing wealth, bluebottles scramble for blood; in pursuing fame, white ants swarm into holes'... The world's worries and pursuits boil down to four things: fame, merit, fortune, and standing. Very few people are exempt."
She continued, "At your age, to bear the weight of the title 'Savior of Tinghai' with such ease, you ought to have been a scheming, prematurely hardened careerist, or an ambitious, high-spirited young prodigy. And yet..."
She paused here, resuming only after a brief silence:
"This is the first time I have met someone as... unique as you."
With ease... was I?
Bai Zhou blinked twice.
"For instance, regardless of your past, with your achievements you could have partnered with a financial conglomerate or used them as leverage to enter an official agency, rising straight through the ranks to become an influential figure standing atop the clouds."
"Having finally turned your life around, all of this should have been yours for the taking."
She asked, "Yet you seem... not to care about any of it?"
As she spoke, she tilted her head, letting a strand of purple hair slide from her temple and sway near her brow.
She observed Bai Zhou in silence.
You think I didn't want to...?
Bai Zhou grumbled inwardly.
Wasn't it because he and the authorities were wary of each other, and because he harbored too many secrets to ever truly join them?
Though if asked whether he regretted it, he genuinely didn't.
"Turning one's life around..."
"To turn your life around simply means to stand up on your own feet. As long as you can do that, isn't that enough?"
"I've already achieved that," Bai Zhou replied.
"No rule on Blue Star says that making it in life requires riding on someone else's head, does it?"
"As for big shots and great figures..." Bai Zhou shook his head. "I have no interest in controlling other people's lives, because I know what it feels like to be controlled—and because everything I've fought for has been so that no one else can control mine."
Hearing this, the purple-haired maiden went quiet for a moment, then burst into soft laughter.
"Saying such things in Tinghai is fine enough."
"Back in Fog Capital, you wouldn't dare say that lightly."
"It seems you truly aren't suited for a frigid place like Fog Capital."
With that, she composed her expression and continued solemnly:
"Getting down to business: I am here to help you complete the movement technique for Thousand-Blade Vortex Slash."
"However, before that, I just came from Elder Song of your bureau... Knowing I was coming to see you, he asked me to bring you a letter."
"A letter?" Bai Zhou's expression froze.
Who would write him a letter?
Before he could figure it out, the purple-haired maiden handed over a kraft-paper envelope.
"Who is it from?"
Puzzled, Bai Zhou took the envelope into his hands.
The kraft envelope had been crudely sealed with a dab of glue. In the center ran a line of crooked characters, beside several small blots of dark blue fountain pen ink. As for the line itself, it was exceedingly brief—only five characters, without punctuation.
[To Brother Zhou]
In the lower-right corner was the sign-off—the sender Bai Zhou cared most about:
[—Your Uncle Xiang.]
[No. 27 Human Care Sanatorium]
"Uncle Xiang?"
Bai Zhou stared at the handwriting, stunned for several seconds.
A name that was all too familiar yet felt as if it belonged to a past life threw Bai Zhou's memories into disarray; the scene before him seemed to wind back through a blur into days gone by.
Brother Zhou?
Only the elders in Wancheng who had watched him grow up would call him that.
Uncle Xiang?
Need one even ask? Bai Zhou knew only one Uncle Xiang: the chubby owner of the corner grocery store who had watched him grow up, from whom he had bought countless bags of Four-Flavor Instant Noodles and Jade-in-Jade ham sausages.
On the day the sky collapsed over Wancheng, Uncle Xiang had stood shoulder to shoulder with him, bearing witness to the arrival of the apocalypse.
"Could it really be..." Bai Zhou's pupils constricted.
And then, the purple-haired maiden—who only moments ago had marveled that Bai Zhou always met every circumstance with unexpected calm—saw his hands trembling ever so slightly.
Rustle...
A few leaves broke free from the lakeside trees, drifting in spirals toward the distant center of the lake.
The water's surface trembled gently, and ripples spread, circling wider and wider.
Whoosh...
The wind picked up.
It blew from the far side of the lake, brushing past the purple-haired maiden suspended in midair, caressing Bai Zhou's cheek on the shore.
On this night, a maiden who had walked out from the lake, stepping through the evening breeze and falling leaves, had brought news of an old friend.
An old friend from Wancheng.
With a crisp tear!
Bai Zhou couldn't describe how he felt, or perhaps even he couldn't untangle the whirl of emotions surging within him.
Yet in truth, his mind went completely blank. He simply couldn't wait to tear open the envelope and see what was written inside—what Uncle Xiang had to say.
With a soft rustle, he carefully unfolded the two folded sheets of stationery inside.
Yet the very first sentence that met his eyes filled Bai Zhou with bewilderment.
"What does this mean..." Bai Zhou knitted his brow.
On the crumpled, yellowed paper, Uncle Xiang had written in crooked fountain pen script:
[Bai Zhou,]
[Do you want to join our daydream?]
Chapter 234