Fu Cai did not speak for a long moment.
The arrogance that once shaped her posture had already faded, but now even her composure wavered. Her gaze remained fixed on Kiaria–not sharp, not cold–only astonished, as if she were looking at something that had quietly overturned centuries of certainty.
"How did you know?" she finally asked.
Her voice was no longer playful.
"It took me three hundred years of living to understand that meaning," Fu Cai said slowly. "Three hundred years of experience… of watching growth and decay… of questioning myself."
She looked at him directly.
"How did you arrive at it so easily?"
Kiaria did not rush to answer.
When he spoke, his tone was calm–not proud, not defensive–only honest.
"Fairy Fu Cai," he said, "your question placed too much weight on the word 'I'."
She stiffened slightly.
"A seed growing into a mature plant is not a single state," Kiaria continued. "It is a process. Its life does not begin at sprouting, nor does it end at falling."
