Although Wan Han slipped away in the end, the World Tree Maiden was preserved intact, like a glass blossom saved from a wildfire.

“So this is the World Tree Maiden...”

They’d all seen the World Tree’s vastness, a range of trunks climbing for tens of thousands of meters like mountains. Yet the girl before them looked pitifully withered, a sapling in frost. She stood under one and a half meters, white skin mapped with scars, cheeks pale as winter moonlight—more like brittle glass than living flesh, ready to shatter at a touch.

“This is the World Tree’s Maiden? What do we do now?”

“Mm. We start talking to her now... so we can lift everyone’s petrification, like melting rime with spring.”

After a short rest, Dixue had regained some strength. She rose from Yue Liuyi’s side, laced their fingers like two fireflies linking glow, and walked to the World Tree’s child.

“Petrification? You’re saying she turned everyone to stone, like frost on fields?”

“Mm. It should be true, but it wasn’t out of malice. To learn why, I need to recreate the World Tree Maiden’s memories, like calling rain from a dry sky.”

“You can do that?”

“I can, as long as Little Yue cooperates.”

Hand in hand with Yue Liuyi, Dixue came to the green‑haired girl. She bowed as gently as a willow, then set her other palm to the girl’s forehead.

White light and green glow braided together like moonlight through leaves. A scene rose in Yue Liuyi’s eyes like a mirage over desert heat. Her thoughts drifted far away like a leaf on a river, yet her palm still held Dixue’s warm grip like a hearth.

...

What surfaced was a sprawling magical civilization, a city like a jeweled reef.

Gorgeous skyships drifted across the heavens like silver whales, and among the clouds hung bulbous hot‑air balloons like orange moons.

Spired towers pricked the sky like pines, high bridges stretched like rainbows, and carts hauled rich veins of magic ore like glittering riverbeds. It was an age where sorcery blew like a steady wind.

But petroleum and semiconductors were scarce as oases. People built steam engines by the legion to handle daily work, stoking iron hearts with coal.

Smokestacks belched thick soot like storm fronts. The few remaining trees fell like soldiers, cut for skyship bulkheads. Nations dotted the world like islands, and war rolled year after year like thunder.

People died in passing like sparks in wind. Skyships fell like wounded birds. An arms race of magic and metal burned energy like a bonfire, and common lives grew harsher like soil in drought. Scholars warned of scarcity like crows before rain, yet nobles and leaders waved it off like gnats.

“This has nothing to do with me.”

“A low‑carbon pact? Don’t joke. Why should your ‘advanced nation’ tab be paid by us?”

“Shut factories? Laughable. What about the warfront’s munitions?”

“This isn’t waste. It’s research.”

The environment worsened bit by bit like a creeping tide, until the line snapped.

Smog thickened like yellow fog that swallowed the sun for months. Wet lands turned to graveyards of shells and bullets like iron thorns. Birds no longer took wing, and animal bones lay everywhere like bleached driftwood. The biosphere teetered on collapse like ice at thaw. Even the wind—Breeze—woke from a child’s dream, seeking a way to save the planet like a lone crane calling dawn.

No one truly helped her. She chased the good like a moth to light, and what greeted the World Tree Maiden was cold calculation like knives behind silk.

“If we study her energy, we can flee even if the planet dies.”

“What about ordinary people?”

“I don’t care if they live or die.”

The girl was covered in wounds like bark scored by axes. She looked around blankly, and found not one heart that opened like spring. War rumbled on, resources bled away like sand through fingers.

She wanted to tell them conflict is a dead end, strife is a fool’s fire, and only win‑win could call back the rain. But no one listened. Race barriers, historical debts, old hatred—people chased those mirages like heat haze on a road.

How to stop war? How to call back quiet?

The young girl thought, and then she cast that spell—turn all weapons and buildings to stone, like freezing a river to still the flood.

She simply believed if everything turned to stone and everyone cooled down, it would be fine.

However...

They named her the culprit of world‑ending, and the world’s hands joined to hunt her, like wolves in a ring. They sealed her here like a seed pressed under rock, and the world, still at war, rolled toward ruin like a cliff.

...

“So that’s how it was... then she bore no malice when she petrified the Sky Voyager.”

Reframing this planet’s story, Dixue’s voice grew soft as dusk. She had expected tragedy like a storm on the horizon, but the truth was harsher, like hail in spring.

“This feels like my homeland... maybe we’ll end up like that too.”

A sadness swelled first in Yue Liuyi’s chest like a heavy tide; she lowered her head after, shadows pooling like ink. She recalled a saying: when humans believe they are most righteous, they’re often most cruel, like steel without temper. For a nation’s banner, can one do whatever one pleases?

Suddenly, an ethereal voice brushed her ear like wind through bamboo.

“Help me... Why... when I never hurt anyone... does everyone keep hurting me...”

Was it the World Tree’s voice? Yue Liuyi looked up, eyes bright as rain. Except for Dixue, the others seemed unaware of the scene she saw or the voice she heard, as if mist veiled their senses.

“LittleSnow... did you hear the World Tree Maiden’s voice?”

“Eh? I didn’t... You heard it, Little Yue? Ask her what help she needs, quick, like passing water to a parched flower!”

“Mm!”

Yue Liuyi nodded, heart steadying like a candle cupped from wind. She reached toward that voice in her mind, like threading a stream. The girl was right before her, yet their way of speaking flowed along a different current.

“Can I call you Breeze? How can we help you?”

“Good memories... I need good memories...”

The green‑haired girl stared upward, lips trembling like leaves, but no sound came, only silence like snow.

“What are good memories?”

“This place... is dangerous... Only good memories... can touch—undo—the stone...”

She spoke and then closed her eyes like a flower at dusk. Wan Han had drained her too much; consciousness slipped like sand.

“LittleSnow, Breeze says to find good memories. Only then can we undo the petrification, like sunlight breaking frost!”

“Got it! Breeze is exhausted too! Let’s rest... Everyone, head back and rest! Little Yue and I will work out how to break the stone. Thank you all for today’s rescue—like rain in a drought.”

“Honestly, useless Dixue never lets us relax,” someone griped, words light as wind.

“If you need us, anytime,” another chimed in, steady as a rock.

“Pack your gear, don’t leave anything,” a third called, like a bell at dusk.

They returned in triumph, like a tide coming home with the moon.

...

Steam rolled and curled like low clouds, and warmth stroked the skin like sunlight on water.

Nothing beats a bath after a great battle; it’s bliss, like sinking into summer rain.

Yue Liuyi lay in the pool, feeling waves loosen her hair like unspooled silk. Her blue strands swayed in the water like ribbons of kelp.

More beautiful still were Dixue and Breeze. The silver‑haired girl propped Breeze half‑reclined by the edge, carefully cleaning grime from her like dew washing dust from leaves.

For convenience, Dixue wore something like a swimsuit, light as ripples. Otherwise, Yue Liuyi couldn’t lounge so freely, floating like a lily.

“Little Yue, pass me the towel. I want to wipe Breeze’s hair~”

“Here’s the towel!”

Breeze had regained sight and hearing like dawn returning, but she still couldn’t move. To help her heal, Dixue bathed her first, gentle as spring rain.

(Thank you...)

The ethereal voice sounded in Yue Liuyi’s ear like a flute in fog. Only she could hear it—the green‑haired girl stared at Dixue, wanting to thank her, but her lips wouldn’t open, her meaning caught like a bird in a net.

“Little Yue, did Breeze say something?”

“Mm... she said, thank you.”

“You’re welcome!”

The silver‑haired girl smiled at Breeze, warm as firelight, and cleaned her hair more carefully, like combing starlight from branches.

The water’s warmth felt familiar, a déjà vu like a scent on wind. Yue Liuyi realized that the first time she met Dixue, she too had soaked in water like this.

“LittleSnow, what is this water? It feels wonderful, like sunlight on a winter back.”

“Water infused with an Angel Feather. It heals like morning dew.”

“A—Angel Feather! That’s so expensive, like gold leaf!”

“It’s fine. I still have plenty,” Dixue said, casual as a breeze.

“Ugh...”

Embarrassment pricked first like a nettle. Yue Liuyi swallowed after, a dry click like a pebble. An Angel Feather cost over ten thousand apiece. She’d thought the pay from Dongfang Chen meant Dixue valued her; turns out this stuff barely meant anything to Dixue, like stones in a river.

Floating in the pool, Yue Liuyi’s thoughts circled back to Breeze’s words, like swallows over a pond. What counted as good memories? She had asked earlier; Breeze stayed silent, like a seed not yet sprouting—was it ignorance, or reluctance?

“LittleSnow, what do you think good memories are?”

“For Breeze, good memories should be sunlight, rain, soil, watering and tending—green things growing, like spring returning.”

“Huh!? Is that okay? She’s a girl!”

“Heh, that’s what makes her happy. What’s beautiful differs for each heart, like different flowers. I think the ‘good memories’ Breeze wants are those beautiful to everyone, like a shared sunrise.”

“Beautiful to everyone?”

“Yeah. If we can do that, the Sky Voyager’s petrification should lift, like ice breaking at thaw.”

...

After a while, the bath ended like a cloud thinning.

They dried the water from Breeze’s skin, pearled like dew. Yue Liuyi found herself staring without meaning to, eyes lingering like moths.

After a good soak, Breeze’s aura looked much better, like fresh shoots. Her skin gleamed with a watery sheen, smooth as jade. Black cracks still veined her like lines on icy porcelain, but they were no longer shocking; they looked like tattooed branches, oddly charming, like ink on snow.

Her hair was vivid green, the color of midsummer leaves, and up close it smelled of forest after rain. Only her chest looked a touch plain—small, just a slight rise, like a hillock—ill‑matched to a thousand‑year age.

Wait—shame prickled first like heat in the face—why am I staring at a girl’s chest? That’s not proper!

Catching her gaze, the silver‑haired girl smiled, light as dawn. “Breeze is only around a thousand. For the World Tree, that’s very young. In human years, about ten.”

“Oh... so that’s it.”

“Mm. So Breeze is still a child. After all she’s endured, it’s too pitiful,” Dixue said, drying her hair with eyes soft as moonlight.

“Um, Little Yue~ how about we claim Breeze as our child?” she added, voice playful as windbells.

“We can... No—LittleSnow, what are you even saying!”

Yue Liuyi almost slipped, heart tripping like a startled deer. Dixue’s proposal leaped ahead like a fish—several steps at once. “She’s the World Tree Maiden! Can we really care for her? And having a child—doesn’t that sound weird?”

“Then call it adopting a little sister. Handing her to strangers would be too cruel, like tossing a chick from the nest.”

(Hug...)

The ethereal voice brushed Yue Liuyi’s mind again like soft moss.

Her heart softened first like wax near a flame; she looked after, at this fragile girl. She couldn’t bear to leave her in this abandoned world, nor to pass her off to others like a parcel.

“Then it’s settled! Breeze, from today on, you’re our child,” Dixue declared, bright as a skylark. “This is Sister Yue. Call me Sister Dixue!”

“Don’t decide that so rashly!”

(Sister... Yue... Sister Dixue!)

The soft voice chimed again in Yue Liuyi’s head like a bell in mist, sweetly out of step with her protest.