Ruan Mei paid no mind to her friend's mockery. Her voice remained calm and even.
"I won't."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. Because A-Kan would never want me to do that."
At the very instant before she could have "resurrected" her parents, she had destroyed every last fragment of the data. Completely. Irrevocably.
A-Kan had been right. A new life should never begin that way.
What she pursued now was something far greater: the recreation of life's original miracle itself, and the breaking of the universe's existing constants. Not the hollow imitation of electronic pets that Yu Qingtu had once spoken of, nor the false life A-Kan had once condemned.
Yu Qingtu held her gaze for a long time. Only after finding no trace of deceit did she finally look away.
Black Swan spoke softly.
"What do you mean by the normal method?"
"It's simple," Yu Qingtu replied. She lifted the wine glass from the table, took an elegant sip, and continued. "I have already instructed the IPC executives to watch for anyone in the universe named Tomomu Kanzaki. Every single one of them. I want every piece of information collected."
"Of course, the little guy might not carry the same name in his next life. Still, this is better than wandering blindly like a headless fly."
She glanced toward Ruan Mei with a faint, knowing smile.
"This method is a little difficult for someone like you, Ruan Mei—someone who dislikes public exposure and prefers a life of quiet seclusion."
Then she turned the conversation toward the woman whose expression remained as cold as frost.
"Ms. Jingliu, what about you?"
Jingliu was silent for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was expressionless.
"I will leave the Xianzhou. I will use the skills my master taught me to hunt down every Abomination of Abundance that stands in my path."
"As long as Master hears that there is such a madwoman roaming free, he will recognize me."
Ruan Mei remained noncommittal.
"How can you be certain A-Kan will take the initiative to acknowledge you? Don't forget—he never sought any of us out in his second life."
He had not even mentioned them.
It was difficult not to wonder whether he had already forgotten every experience of his previous life and severed every remaining bond.
"I do not trust myself," Jingliu answered. "I simply trust Master."
As she spoke, a faint sense of superiority entered the look she gave Ruan Mei and the others.
"I am different from you. You spent only a few years—or at most a few decades—with him in his previous life."
"But I—"
Jingliu raised one index finger. Her head tilted slightly.
"It was a full one thousand and seventy-nine years. Nearly one thousand and eighty."
"Ms. Black Swan, Ms. Yu Qingtu… I will admit that in his previous life, Master treated the two of you differently than he treated her."
She glanced at Ruan Mei, her tone matter-of-fact.
"But to claim that a few years or decades of companionship is enough for Master to engrave you into his heart so deeply that he can never forget you for eternity… if I may be blunt—"
"You are imagining far more than what actually existed."
"The feelings Master held for me remained hidden for a thousand years. He kept them under constant restraint until the day he died. There was only one brief loss of control, and even that was fueled by wine."
"Therefore, I do not believe any of you can be compared to me."
Black Swan did not grow angry. She merely shrugged with a helpless air.
"What an undeserved calamity. I don't deny that I've looked forward to the day I might reunite with Mr. Kanzaki, hoping he would be willing to continue the unfinished thread of fate between us."
"But that does not mean I take anything for granted. If Mr. Kanzaki's feelings for me have faded, I will simply cultivate them anew."
"I was able to enter his heart once before. Naturally, I have confidence for the future."
"The young girl named Clarice—the one he once treated with such tenderness—has not changed in over a thousand years."
"What changed was merely Black Swan."
"No matter how Mr. Kanzaki's life shifts with each reincarnation, I believe the true core of him has never changed, regardless of identity or position."
Yu Qingtu glanced sideways at Black Swan.
If Kanzaki no longer cared for Black Swan, what did that have to do with Clarice? Was that the implication?
She certainly knew how to speak.
In that case, Yu Qingtu could just as easily claim that the genius sister who had once appreciated the little guy had never changed either.
She kept those thoughts to herself.
None of the others present had lived more than three thousand years.
She, however, had walked through hundreds of Amber Eras. She had drunk more wine than they had eaten meals.
In order to brew a fine wine with romantic effects, she had once studied human emotion in depth.
That particular emotion was known as the "White Moonlight" effect.
Though she did not like to admit it, the first person to leave a deep and lasting imprint on Kanzaki's heart had been the teacher he had eventually stopped waiting for.
—Ruan Mei.
This woman might prove the most difficult mountain of all to cross.
Given the little guy's bone-deep affection for his teacher, combined with the transformation Ruan Mei had undergone, she had almost become the perfect teacher he had once longed for.
She had recognized her own heart. She had learned respect. She had realized that she loved him.
If Ruan Mei found Kanzaki and opened her arms to him, there remained a chance he might refuse… but that chance was lower than it was for anyone else present.
What Jingliu had said was true in its own way. Yet she had overlooked a fundamental instinct of human emotion.
The one who cannot be obtained remains in a constant state of agitation. The one who is already favored grows secure and unafraid.
Even geniuses were rarely exceptions to this rule.
Ruan Mei was living proof. So was she herself.
As for Black Swan and Jingliu?
One was the case of a love that had arrived too late, when the other had already grown old.
The other was the case of feelings that had grown tangled beyond reconciliation, until both love and hatred had worn each other down.
In essence there was little difference. Both were stories of unrequited longing and lingering obsession. As she had noted before, she herself belonged to the same category.
Only Ruan Mei stood in the opposite position. It was Kanzaki who had once loved her without ever attaining her.
That was why Yu Qingtu did not look down on Ruan Mei. A genius might look down on most things in the universe, yet that did not mean one could abandon reverence and humility toward the unknown.
No matter how deeply one researched human emotion, the answer to a certain question never changed:
The free human heart can never be fully guessed or seen through.
Ruan Mei paid no attention to Yu Qingtu's silent contemplation. She deliberately ignored Black Swan's words. Only Jingliu's final statement continued to echo in her mind.
"…You said the feelings A-Kan held for you remained hidden for a thousand years, with only one brief loss of control fueled by wine. What happened?"
When she asked the question, her expression had grown slightly dark.
Clearly she was recalling memories that had not been pleasant at the time, yet had become the most precious after they were lost.
Back then—during those two years—she herself had drunk Plum Blossom Wine aged for more than three years and had once grown intimately close with A-Kan…
The moment those words left Ruan Mei's mouth, Jingliu nearly failed to suppress the urge to draw her sword.
After fixing Ruan Mei with a cold glare, she forcibly pushed aside every image related to her master's previous life and turned abruptly toward Black Swan.
"Since Ms. Ruan Mei wishes to know… Ms. Black Swan, could I trouble you to manifest a certain memory from my mind?"
Black Swan narrowed her eyes. For a moment she remained silent. Then a mysterious light flickered in the depths of her gaze.
"Happy to be of service."
The scene unfolded.
Kanzaki's eyes were bloodshot. Driven by a desire that erupted like a volcano, he burst into Jingliu's private space.
Everyone present witnessed the entire sequence.
Except for Black Swan, who had already prepared herself, both Yu Qingtu and Ruan Mei wore expressions that turned distinctly unpleasant—each in her own way.
Ruan Mei's face in particular was overcast by a heavy, unmistakable shadow.
A strange and oppressive atmosphere settled over the room.
If any outsider had been present, they would have felt the tension in the air—the sense that blood might spill at any moment between the four women.