"Shengsheng... this past month—have you been acting with me?" Qingyu Mengyin lifted her head like a blade parting mist and asked.

"Yeah," Qingsheng Tangxue hesitated, then spoke, her voice a pebble dropped into a still pond. "You kept making me remember things better left buried."

"Do those things really mean nothing to you?" Dreamsound's expression clouded like a sky before rain.

"Not important." Tangxue's eyes were steady as winter ice under moonlight.

Is a thousand years alone in a forest important? The thought rose like smoke through pines, thin and cold.

Those memories did one thing: they showed me I’m a dangerous monster, like a wildfire that doesn’t know it’s devouring the mountain.

"So that’s how it is..." Dreamsound’s chin dipped, her energy ebbing like a retreating tide.

Is this dummy spinning strange thoughts again? The sigh pressed at Tangxue’s chest like a caged bird beating wings.

She wanted to sigh, but she swallowed it like a stone, took a sip of juice, and let its chill smooth the air like dew on leaves.

"Of course. You tell those headache stories every night. After your bedtime tales, I wake at midnight like a bird startled by thunder, pain twisting my head."

"I'm sorry..." Her apology drifted like mist over water.

"Honestly, the more I swallow it, the madder I get. Old hag Dream, you used my amnesia to take advantage of me in every way. You even slept on me every night—do you know how heavy you are?" Her words snapped like dry twigs underfoot.

"I'm not heavy at all!" Qingyu Mengyin slapped both hands on the table, and the wood trembled like a pond hit by a tossed stone.

"Push a little harder and the table’s going to cave in like wet clay."

"This... no, I..." A blush climbed her cheeks like dawn spilling over a ridge.

"All you do is eat and sleep—doesn’t that sound like some animal in hibernation? Because of your gluttony and laziness, I haven’t practiced swordplay for almost a month—my blade’s gathering rust like an old gate."

"That’s because you, Little Shengsheng, cling to me every day! You’re the heavy one. When I carry you, my knees lock up like cart wheels stuck in mud."

"I cling to your back to catch up on sleep!" Tangxue declared, her righteousness ringing like a bell. "If not for your ‘ghost’ stories wrenching me awake at midnight, I wouldn’t nap in daylight like a cat in sun!"

"Bah! I didn’t tell them at first! And they weren’t ghost stories! I... I spent ages making them up..." Dreamsound’s voice thinned like smoke in wind.

"The last few days were to replenish an unknown element, okay? If I don’t get enough, I can’t sleep, like a lantern without oil."

"What element?" Her question hung like a leaf about to fall.

"...Idiot element." The pause was a snowflake melting on the tongue.

"You called me an idiot again!" Dreamsound shot to her feet, and a snowy curve on her chest swayed like a wave’s white crest; Tangxue flinched and glanced aside like a deer dodging sunlight.

"Because you are..."

"I’m an idiot—aren’t you? Idiot Shengsheng, you think I don’t know you like me? You plan to make me cry, then run so I won’t chase you, like a fox bolting into fog?"

"I’m telling you, Qingsheng Tangxue, today no matter what I will—"

"You think I don’t know you know I like you?!" Tangxue sprang up like a spark leaping from a brazier and grabbed Qingyu Mengyin’s collar. With their height gap, she had to tip her chin up like a flower seeking sun to see Dreamsound’s stunned face.

"I like an idiot—so what?! I like doing what I want—so what?! I don’t want anyone around me getting hurt—so what?!" Her words struck like waves in a storm, one after another.

Dreamsound looked at the girl gnashing her teeth, helpless as a sailor under sudden rain.

"Why is it allowed for you but not for me? Shengsheng, you always decide on your own, never weigh others’ feelings. Have you thought what I’d do if you were gone? I’d be left like a boat without a shore."

Please, stop crying... I can’t handle girls’ tears, like a man lost in a downpour without an umbrella. If you cry more... I’ll end up crying too, like a cloud too heavy to hold its rain.

"You don’t understand anything..." The whisper was a reed bent by wind.

Dreamsound lifted her hand and cupped the crying girl’s cheek, gentle as palm-leaf shade, angling her gaze to meet her own like stars aligning.

"If you don’t say it, how would I know? Shengsheng, you haven’t told Mom anything till now... Or is Mom just an outsider in your eyes, like a lamp seen through paper?"

"It’s not that! I just... don’t want you to know I’m a monster..." The word fell like a stone into a deep lake.

"Monster?" Dreamsound laughed, dismissive as a flicked petal. "Aren’t I a ‘monster’ too? Who spread that ‘Grudge Wraith of the Nether Sea’ nonsense? I was mad back then like a kettle at boil."

"..."

"Dream... old hag, I’m actually the culprit weakening this world, like rot in the roots of a great tree..."

"Mm, and then? So what... Wait, Little Shengsheng, you can’t call Mom old! Mom’s not old at all, like spring that keeps looping back!"

Tangxue ignored Dreamsound’s bristling like a cat with its fur up. "This past month, I remembered a lot, even the pieces I’d lost. Remember the Heavenly Palace above the far north? I probably... came down from there, like a shard of sky."

She gave a helpless, bitter smile, thin as winter sunlight. "I only remember shattering a barrier and falling from the heavens. I hit the forest, and because of me, that forest turned into what it is—draped in snow like a white shroud."

"Outside the realm, there’s a ward. I’ve seen it many times: a sheet of ice that never melts, like a frozen sea under a dead moon."

"It’s that ice that keeps this world apart from the outside, like a wall of glass between two lakes."

"Oh." Qingyu Mengyin peeled a banana with lazy fingers and popped it into her mouth, the sweet scent curling like summer breeze.

"??? Dream... you’re not surprised?"

"What’s there to be surprised about? Even if this world exploded like a firework, what’s that to me? I don’t feel any fondness for the will of this world, like a stranger’s gaze across a market."

"...Fine, then I’ll keep going. I’ve lost control many times. The worst, I erased an entire mountain range near the forest, turned it into silence like a grave of stone. It’s still dead there."

"Mm-hmm, and?" Her calm was a still lake face.

"If I stay here, sooner or later I’ll lose it and destroy everything, like a storm that forgets where to stop!" Tangxue’s voice shook like a bowstring.

"I don’t mind~" Dreamsound leaned her forehead to Tangxue’s, soft as willow branches touching. "If that day comes, it’ll be beautiful, won’t it? Because Shengsheng will be beside me, like a lantern in the dark."

Just like before.

"Pfft... Then I’ll chalk that up to Mom’s idiocy, like a cloud too fluffy for rain. An idiot can’t even picture a scene like that~"

"There you go again, calling me an idiot... All that etiquette I taught you, wasted like pearls in sand!"

But inside, my answer’s been set like ink drying on paper. Edgar the Vampire who hurt Mom Linyue Yao, the bishop of the Flower of the Other Shore who wanted my sister dead, and that little bastard Jiuqi—I’ll take them down, one by one, like cutting knots along a frayed rope.

And there’s the matter of raising my mind’s strength, like tempering steel in a cold stream.

"Mom, there’s another reason I’m heading out. I need to find a way to raise my mental strength, like adding wind to a falcon’s wings."

"So Little Shengsheng’s used to calling me Mom now?" Qingyu Mengyin smiled without smiling, her eyes curved like crescents. "Or are you saying it on purpose for my ears, like bait tossed to a fish?"

"...I’m not acting. I’ve been saying it for a while. I don’t want to change it yet, like keeping a warm coat on."

"Mhm, I get it, I get it. Textbook tsundere, like a hedgehog with a ribbon. I did finish compulsory education, you know."