Every element has at least one form.

Earth is solid, water is liquid.

But the mysterious aether element isn’t like any common element at all; it has no truly fixed form.

In other words:

aether can be liquid, gas, or even solid, freely shifting between all three states.

If the girl wanted Cai to “live forever,” she had to turn the aether into liquid.

And in the process, she had to bleed herself dry a little—sacrifice a full quarter of her stored aether, or the result would never reach what they wanted.

Cai watched the girl give her sleeve a little shake. Not long after, from the hanging cuff she took out a tiny glass vial.

She tilted the mouth of the bottle downward, and a clump of viscous golden liquid turned into glowing droplets that slowly fell.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The flowing aether touched the ground and pooled into a small “puddle.”

Even without any outside force, the aether kept spinning on its own, like a little whirlpool blooming at the center of a pond.

Cai stared at that piercing gold and couldn’t help knitting her brows. Even so, she still asked:

“How am I supposed to do this?”

“Don’t get nervous. You don’t need to do anything. Just stand right there.”

The girl bent down, turned her cupped hand toward the spinning aether, and gave it a light pat inwards.

The motion looked exactly like she was training a pet.

Only this time, the one obeying her command and about to move… was that pool of liquid.

Like boiling water on a stove, the aether started bubbling—gurgle, gurgle—surging as it changed direction.

In the instant Cai blinked, the aether shot toward her heart like an arrow loosed from its string, whooshing straight at her chest.

After the sound of impact, Cai’s chest wasn’t hurt at all.

But she felt that chill, that damp coolness, slowly seep under her skin and begin to spread.

The liquid seeped through her clothes and into her skin at an incredible speed—it really made you think, “It’s like my skin is drinking the water.”

Cai couldn’t see what was happening inside her, but her body was undergoing a massive change.

The change centered on her heart.

The golden aether entered her, and as it spread and shifted shape, it turned into a mass of mucus that swept downward, wrapping around Cai’s heart.

That heart, originally a vivid red, was gradually covered over by gold.

The aether sank beneath the heart’s surface and melded with it, staining the blood in the nearby vessels with the same golden hue.

Influencing, changing, and in the end, assimilating.

It didn’t take long before the heart pounding “thump, thump” inside Cai was completely transformed into a dazzling gold.

That was the change in appearance. In essence, the very nature of that heart had also been turned upside down.

The aether element’s “perpetual motion” trait meant the heart could work forever. So the blood’s regeneration and the body’s metabolism would never stop.

From today on, that golden heart would beat eternally, sharing the long stretch of years with its owner.

The girl wasn’t the narcissistic type, but she truly felt she’d handled this transaction beautifully.

When she took Cai by the hand and led her back to where they’d started, Wang understood everything from the way their gazes crossed.

“So it’s done… hey, dumb woman, what price did she make you pay?”

“I didn’t lose that much. Please, you really don’t have to worry.”

A sincere question, and a false answer.

Cai wasn’t trying to deceive him on purpose. She was just using a few light words to cover up the truth.

Anyway, isn’t he always calling her a dumb woman?

Keeping something important locked in her heart, refusing to say it out loud—wasn’t that exactly what “acting dumb” looked like?

Some truths become secrets and are destined never to be known by a third person.

“The second trade’s done. What about you, boy? Do you have a third wish you want to make?”

“I… want… no. I don’t have any regrets left.”

At first, Wang really had been about to make a third wish.

He wanted, after he reincarnated, to meet Cai and the others again.

But by the time the words reached the second half, he changed his mind in an instant.

What for?

Compared to demonfolk like Hawky and the others, a human’s lifespan is limited in the end.

Even if he reincarnated smoothly, even if the girl arranged it so he could meet everyone again—then what?

A few decades later, wouldn’t he still be the first one to leave, hair white, body worn out?

And for Cai it was even more obvious.

How could someone who can’t even live a hundred years have the right to stand in front of someone who lives forever?

If he really did that, wouldn’t he just be creating pointless sadness out of thin air?

He had given his strength, and had indirectly pushed the girl he cared about into gaining “eternity.”

With those two big conditions in place, Cai would surely be able to live as freely as she wished.

Even if there was such a thing as a “third wish,” the one about letting that dumb woman find happiness had already been fulfilled just now.

At least, in Wang’s heart full of blessings, it was already fulfilled…

“Sorry. I really don’t have any other requests. Your job’s done.”

Wang waved his hand, shooing the girl off like, you came from wherever, go back there.

“I see…”

Even with that “enthusiastic farewell,” the girl didn’t show a shred of anger.

Appearing when a deal began, leaving when it ended—that was the story of her life.

If there was anything different this time, it was the bow she gave Wang before leaving, and that simple, brief blessing:

“Boy, when you start your new life, I really hope there won’t be any need for a third deal between us.”

In a happy, fulfilled life, there’s no need for a girl like her—the girl called the “Scales of Loss and Gain”—to ever show up.

Which meant:

For someone living happily, wishes and prices are both unnecessary.

This life hadn’t turned out happy, but she was still sincerely wishing him well, praying that in the next, she’d never have a chance to meet the boy again.

Her figure flickered as she hopped away, agilely turning her back. After a few quick movements, she was already far from this place.

Wang didn’t think she was in the way, but he still believed, deep down:

Two people alone was better than three squeezed together.

“There won’t be many chances to just sit and look at you, dumb woman. Come over here, let me see you more clearly.”

Cai couldn’t find a reason to refuse. Her heart wanted to go anyway.

Wang sat on the hard ground. Cai sat down facing him and slowly scooted closer.

She’d barely covered half the distance when that big hand on the other side couldn’t wait any longer and grabbed for her.

Her body lost balance and Wang yanked her straight into his arms. That roughness happened to match her personality just right.

Right then, his thoughts were churning. He had to salvage a little pride.

He’d meant to give Cai two gifts, but the girl had told him it wasn’t enough to cover the cost. In the end, this “eternity” gift had been something Cai bought with her own hands.

How was that okay? Didn’t that make the one making the promise look completely untrustworthy?

If he couldn’t untie this knot, he’d never be able to look Cai in the eye again for the rest of his life.

How could he make it up to her?

He had no money, no fancy words, no clever ideas.

So after racking his brain, Wang pushed himself halfway up, locked his lips onto the soft ones right in front of him, and “covered” them in one sudden move.

Cai was terrible at guarding against surprise attacks. In almost a split second, her first kiss was taken by force.

One tall, one small, the two figures refused to part, clinging closer than they ever had before.

After that storm-like intensity, the blood rushing to Cai’s cheeks turned her face bright red, and even her brain couldn’t string a full sentence together.

“Too much… you… you really can’t do that!”

Anyone could tell just by looking at her:

she was angry and demanding an explanation.

Wang just burst out laughing. He propped up his right hand, stretched his fingers forward.

He suddenly hooked his index finger and flicked it against his thumb, then—

Bonk.

He gave her forehead a playful knock and grinned.

“For the sake of this being the first time I ever called your name, forgive me, okay? Cai.”

In the girl’s eyes, the boy’s smile bloomed out of nowhere. He held that expression as he toppled forward.

“Sorry. This is the last—”

Tap.

The boy collapsed gently into her arms, leaning against her warmth, his face as peaceful as if he’d just fallen asleep.

“The last what? Please, finish what you were saying.”

The girl reached out and patted his shoulder. She felt a tremor—but the truth was:

the one trembling wasn’t him. It was her.

“What’s wrong with you? Say something, I’m begging you, keep talking!”

She stopped patting.

She convinced herself she was just being too rough, that she’d annoyed him and that’s why he wasn’t answering.

“Do you accept my apology? I’ll wear those weird clothes again, I promise. Next time I cook I won’t add so many spices either…”

She stopped patting his shoulder and started shaking him carefully instead, just like those days she’d go wake him up every morning.

“I’ll do anything, anything at all, so… so… u-ugh, please don’t be sneaky, don’t… don’t leave me here all alone!”

Her grief-stricken sobbing echoed through that open space for a long, long time.

His consciousness, falling into darkness, seemed to carry his soul into a bottomless abyss the moment his eyes closed.

There was no exit around him, no sense of direction. Souls drifting here had no destination. They could only keep moving forward.

The only thing in this place was a familiar, nostalgic feeling, like he’d returned to where his life had first begun.

Somewhere in that haze, the soul dimly heard something.

Maybe the distance was too great; the sound was faint, broken, barely there.

But somehow, as those fragmentary sounds echoed in the dark, the soul felt soothed.

A final moment of contentment.

The next second, a powerful force jerked the soul forward, and his consciousness was swallowed by a sudden burst of white light…

When feelings are just taking root, it’s easy to meet and hard to part.

The ragged beast-hide clothes lifted off the ground, riding the wind. After rising to their highest point, they inevitably fell still.

The wind picked up. The half-kneeling figure and this whole stretch of sky and earth blurred together.