Chapter Forty-Eight: The End of the Road

Sweat slicked Lilith’s skin like summer rain on stone; she hadn’t expected this cliff-edge choice when she came seeking the Grim Reaper.

One shore held sixteen years of life, the harbor the Little White Dragon first ached for when she fell into this world.

But the road had thinned her old memories to mist. Classmates’ names drifted like fallen leaves. Promises faded like chalk in rain. Earth’s rules scattered like sand in wind.

The other shore was her new sky. The old king waited like a patient oak, ready to grant her a vast tract of land.

She’d passed her Feather-Dragon phase; in Dragon Territory, she should already have her own little nest, a warm nook under a white moon.

She’d even tucked away a little of Nidhogg’s magic like fireflies in a jar, plotting a grand surprise for the Black Dragon.

There would be no surprise now. She had to choose at a forked path, roots tugging one way, wings the other.

“Didn’t Star Canvas say my body in that world was already dead by electrocution?” the Little White Dragon asked, teeth gritted like frost on a blade.

She still remembered the hollow ache when she learned she couldn’t go home—yet now she craved that ending like a final lullaby.

“That’s true,” the Grim Reaper said, voice calm as night water. “But I can still send you back. You won’t be Fan Yu again.”

“Your family will know you are Fan Yu. They’ll understand,” the Grim Reaper added, words laid out like lanterns on a river.

Lilith fell into silence, eyes downcast like a closed lily at dusk.

At the start, she’d wanted home like a migratory bird wants spring. She’d been a teen, tossed into a strange sky.

She clung to a middle-school Hero dream like a paper banner in wind, and she joyfully went to slay the Demon King.

Back then, this land held no deep roots for her. She’d finished her quest here and readied herself to return to the city in her chest.

But the long road stitched her to this soil. This continent’s magic sparked like dawn fire, and love waited for her like lights in windows.

She remembered towns like beads on a string, faces like portraits in rain, promises like tied red threads, dreams helped into bloom.

And the lives she ended, iron on her tongue, their silence like stones in a riverbed.

She realized she couldn’t unspool herself from this earth. She wasn’t Fan Yu on Earth anymore.

She was the kingdom’s White Holy Maiden, the Hero who battled Demons, the Little White Dragon of Dragon Territory.

She belonged to this land like a tree to its grove.

And yet how could she abandon the first sky? How cut a living root with a dull knife?

She was Huaxia at heart, a leaf longing to return to its root; her family still lived under Earth’s clouds.

To burn the bridge back felt like breaking the moon with a breath; she couldn’t do it.

A sudden ember of resentment flared toward the Nameless One. If she’d known from the start there was no way back, it would have hurt cleaner.

Knowing a dream can’t be reached and choosing to let go of it are two different winters.

“Do I have to choose now?” Lilith asked, head lowered like a wilting flower, her voice trembling like a plucked string.

“Yes. Choose now,” said the Grim Reaper, smile folded away like a closed fan. “Don’t run from it into daydreams.”

“Throwing it behind you is unfair to your past family, your present kin, and to yourself,” she said, words straight as a spear.

“The sooner you choose, the sooner I can mop up the mess,” the Nameless One sighed, like wind through an empty temple. “Sending you back isn’t a snap of fingers.”

“But…” Lilith’s voice frayed like wet paper. “I really can’t choose…”

“When Star Canvas said I’d died there, I let go. Why give me hope, then force me to crush it with my own hands?”

“Just say I can never go back!” Her voice rose, tears pooling like glass beads and sliding down her sculpted face.

“I can’t choose… I miss Mom. I want her potato stew, steam curling like clouds.”

“And Dad’s rib soup, ladled over the rice I just steamed, the scent blooming like flowers.”

“I want to play games; I’ve got so many still unopened, blinking like silent stars on my shelf.”

“My friends too. We promised to go to college together, to celebrate after gaokao, summer like a festival fire.”

“But I don’t want to leave here. I promised the old king I’d return.”

“Nidhogg and I vowed to build a nest in Dragon Territory, our own warm cave under a white sky.”

“This land still has roads I haven’t walked. Magic still has doors I haven’t opened. Star Canvas holds more secrets than the stars.”

“Why make me draw a line in stone?”

Her words thinned out. She slid from the chair like a leaf dropping, duck-sat on the floor and hugged herself tight like a curled fern.

Her arms shook around her head, sobs leaking like cold drizzle, broken and faint.

The crying grew, a tide against a cliff. She shoved her face into her arms, and her sobs became a heart-splitting keening.

The Nameless One walked over without a word, knelt, and gathered her shaking body, patting her back like calming a frightened infant.

Lilith clutched the Grim Reaper’s clothes like a lifeline. She buried herself in that dark fabric and wailed like winter wind.

The Little Dragon’s cries softened, ebbing with each gentle pat, like waves settling after a storm.

No one knew how long it took. Her crying finally stopped, silence like fresh snow.

The Nameless One held her a breath longer, inhaled her scent like jasmine at night, then let her go.

“Done crying?” the Nameless One asked, a small smile like dawn.

“Mm.” Lilith’s eyes were red like maple leaves. A tiny hiccup popped, coloring her face to match.

“Have you thought it through?” asked the Grim Reaper, voice steady like a river.

“Mm.” Lilith nodded. “I’ll stay. I won’t go back.”

“You sure? No second chances down this road,” the Grim Reaper asked again, caution like a hand on a shoulder.

“I’m sure. But… please tell my family. Tell them I’m living well in another world.”

“Don’t let them keep worrying,” said the Little White Dragon, hope thin as silk.

“Alright. Any other requests?” the Grim Reaper asked, like counting stars.

“No. Don’t ask more. I’m afraid I’ll regret,” Lilith said, covering her ears, head shaking like a rattle drum.

“Still not deep enough in life’s waters,” the Grim Reaper murmured, rubbing her hair like grass in wind. “Crying isn’t insight.”

“I know the dead don’t return. Even if you send me back, I’ve died once there.”

“My family already dipped into that deep grief; even if I appear again, the stain won’t wash away.”

“And if I choose to go back, I choose to die here,” she said, head lowered like twilight. “I made my first family suffer.”

“I can’t let Nidhogg and Tartarus carry that weight as well,” she added, guilt heavy as iron.

“See? Clear as the moon,” the Nameless One said, relieved, smile warm as firelight. “Good, good—worthy of half my blood.”

“Even knowing all this, I still crave old warmth,” Lilith said, voice low like embers. She slipped out from under the comforting hand.

“Before I regret, send me back,” she said. “If I linger, I’ll waver.”

“Fine, fine, you’re a handful,” the Grim Reaper grumbled playfully, then snapped her fingers like flint.

The Little White Dragon reappeared in Bosaklie’s imperial palace, air smelling of polished stone and moonlight.

“Drop by and see this lonely old god sometime,” the Nameless One’s voice trailed like wind. “Saving my waist from Icarus rests on you, my dear Lilith.”

“Hey!” Lilith flushed, the complaint bright as peony red. “What are you even saying?!”

“Ah.” She sat up, finding herself already tucked into bed, White Dragon nightgown on, a small quilt warm as a sunbeam.

Only Nidhogg’s silhouette waited nearby, dark as a pine at night.

“Awake?” the Black Dragon came over, tapped her nose, and smiled like dawn on ice. “I sent you to wake Litt.”

“Litt woke first, and you kept snoring like a little pig. So cute,” she teased, voice soft as velvet.

Lilith, rare in her quiet, didn’t retort. She sat up and hugged Nidhogg’s waist, burying her head in that steady chest like a bird in a nest.

“What’s wrong?” Nidhogg asked, sensing her mood like weather.

“Want to cry,” Lilith mumbled, words thick as fog.

“Did someone bully you?” Nidhogg’s tone stayed calm, a lake in moonlight.

“Want to go home,” Lilith said, heavy as rain.

“Then after we leave Bosaklie, we’ll stay in Dragon Territory for a while,” Nidhogg murmured, arms warm as blankets.

“When you’re ready, we’ll come back out. Alright?”

“Mm,” Lilith hummed, a small note like a flute.

“Nidhogg.” The Little White Dragon lifted her head, resolve bright as a brand. Her face set like carved jade.

“Besides infusing magic into an egg, dragons can inject magic directly into a partner’s body to conceive, right?”

“Yes,” Nidhogg said, feeling her arms wrapped around like silk vines. “What do you want to do?”

“I’ll ask Star Canvas how to make sure the child has a soul,” Lilith said, eyes lowered, thoughts gathering like storm clouds.

She tugged Nidhogg’s hand to a spot just above her navel, half rising like a crescent moon, and bit Nidhogg’s ear, breath warm as summer.

“Give me one more reason right here,” Lilith whispered, exhale like fire on glass.

“Teach me the meaning of life.”