It seems like Christmas is approaching. Snowflakes are drifting outside the window, and when I leaned out for a closer look, the world outside was so beautiful. Although it's still the same small and quiet street with people hurrying by.
Ao Chi fell asleep contentedly, his snores loud enough to wake the dead.
I tucked him in and walked quietly towards the door.
"Hey..."
I heard Ao Chi suddenly say behind me; he was clearly talking in his sleep.
I stopped in my tracks.
"The best is actually always by your side, but you don't see it."
This mindless sleep talk... I laughed.
Idiot, I've seen it a long time ago — that's what I said in my heart.
Anyway, as soon as I stepped out of the room, I saw three large furballs wrestling with each other, fighting over a bag of cod filets. A round, dumpling-like ginkgo nut was bouncing around beside them, watching the fun.
White, Cangtong Kai; black, Xuan; gold, Kevin…
During this time, I've basically become accustomed to this kind of scene.
All of them have recovered from their injuries, but they need to recultivate for some time before they can return to their human forms, so they're all simply staying in the store for now and refusing to leave. Kevin is the most unfortunate one because, in his current state, he's smaller than the two cat demons and will take at least a year and a half to fully recover.
He is the one who deserves all of our gratitude the most.
Even I didn't know that the ancestors of the Golden Lions were all beings that lived on the Sun, veritable Children of the Sun. Even after their descendants moved to Earth, they still retained the ability to summon sunlight.
Kevin exhausted himself half to death, and Ah-Liao used the innate vitality of ginkgo nuts to protect him the entire time as he broke through the layer upon layer of obstacles in the Shadow Land, and attracted the life-saving sunlight. This completely shattered Ao Shuo's "ideal" and turned his Shadow Land into a burst bubble.
I still remember Ao Shuo's desperate howl at the moment when that hellhole disappeared, and I also seem to have heard Mu crying...
Sunshine, something so ordinary in daily life, saved us at that time. No, it saved the whole world.
As people and demons living in this world, we really should cherish this most beautiful light and not let it disappear ever again because of any human-made mistakes.
Those three guys are having a great time fighting, and their presence makes me feel like Unceasing is a zoo.
However, it's good to be lively and bustling.
Walking to the backyard, Gu Wuming, with a shovel in his hand, is arguing with a newly planted locust tree. Jiu Jie is sitting on a chair beside them, and instead of intervening, he is happily listening while drinking red wine. He's also holding a gossip magazine, and Ku Yue is perched on the magazine, reading it attentively.
"Let me go! I'm not staying here! You ba*tards!" The voice of the locust tree sounds like an angry girl.
You're not seeing things, that locust tree is Mu.
When the Shadow Land collapsed, Ao Shuo, along with his "ideal" that he failed to achieve, were burned into a few wisps of black smoke by the incoming sunlight. He was a ghost in the first place, averse to sunlight. Even after becoming the god Anubis, the power of this exiled death god itself could only see the night, never daring to confront the Sun. What the Shadow Land itself feared the most was also the Sun. The road that Ao Shuo embarked on was quite literally "to wither in the light of day[1]."
If a person's ideal turns into a distorted obsession, it's a very frightful thing.
And when someone always wants to focus their gaze on the so-called highest and farthest, they end up unable to see even the closest things.
If Ao Shuo could see it, his ending wouldn't be like this.
If this world was truly garbage to him, then what of Ao Chi's brotherly affection and Mu's unwavering devotion to him?
What can a person who can't even see the precious things around them see of their distant "ideal"?
Regarding Ao Shuo, I can only say that he was a tragic madman.
But what's even more tragic is that someone still can't forget this madman.
Mu, who did countless things for him, committed countless mistakes on his behalf, and even willingly sacrificed her own spirit to support his Shadow Land, still cannot accept the fact that Ao Shuo has disappeared. She still blames me for everything.
After the Shadow Land faded away, I found her barely alive at the foot of Mount Fulong. Too much of her spirit had been absorbed; not to mention maintaining her human form, even staying alive was difficult.
I sealed her into her real body. Only this way could she have a chance at life. If she cultivates quietly for a few hundred years, she should be able to return to the beautiful girl she was before.
She curses me all the time. I let her vent.
However, I asked Gu Wuming to move her real body from Mount Fulong to Unceasing's backyard.
To avoid damaging the roots of this stubborn locust tree, Gu Wuming carefully dug with a shovel for an entire day.
"Shaluo, you're still so hypocritical! I am the one who wants to take your life, yet you want to save me! Let me out! Even if my soul scatters, I don't care! I hate being alive! I hate living so lonely!"
The branches and leaves of the locust tree trembled violently, and every falling leaf is Mu's despair.
"You don't really understand the definition of loneliness." I smiled as I stood in front of her, lifting a water kettle to water her. The water in the kettle isn't ordinary tap water; it's spirit dew collected by Ku Yue for me, "Bringing you to my side indeed stems from selfish thoughts, because occasionally, I want to talk to someone about my past - those feelings of loneliness, despair, and my mood when the most important person left. You know, I'm quite chatty, and these guys around me may not be willing to listen to me prattle. So, I will tell you my stories from time to time. Anyway, you have no hands or feet, and you can't run away, hahaha."
"Once I regain my freedom, I'll still kill you!" Mu's anger remained unabated.
"Then you better recuperate properly. Otherwise, you still won't win against me." I made a funny face at her and added, "Just be yourself. True love isn't about subverting yourself to the other person; it's about seeing the most genuine aspects of each other in each other's eyes."
Mu fell silent for a while, snorted, and stopped paying attention to me.
This girl's quite similar to me.
I wonder if a hundred years will be enough for me to "guide her onto the right path"?
Given that we're both from the same race and fellow villagers, it's worth a shot.
And it's quite amusing having a tree in the backyard that curses at people.
This result is the best.
I smile to myself.
[1] 見光死: to wither in the light of day. Figuratively, the bubble bursts as the reality becomes apparent; slang(of an online relationship): "to be killed by the cold, harsh light of reality when the two meet in real life."
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