Xīng Hé emerged from her room freshly showered.
Water had washed away the grime of training, the sweat of exertion, the evidence of hours spent failing. Her skin glowed again—that luminous quality evolution had granted her.
She moved through the manor's corridors with purpose.
Her legs carried her faster than usual. Not running—not quite—but close. The anticipation built with each step, each turn, each hallway that brought her closer to the dining room.
She reached the door and stopped.
Her hand hovered over the handle.
Two months.
She'd been unconscious for two months. Hongyu had come to see her again and again, and Xīng Hé hadn't been there. Hadn't been able to receive her. Hadn't even known she was trying.
What would she say?
She pushed the hesitation aside and opened the door.
---
Qin Hongyu heard the door open.
She turned toward the sound—and froze.
Xīng Hé stood in the doorway.
She was beautiful.
Not just pretty. Not just attractive. Beautiful—the kind that stopped your breath, that made you forget what you were thinking, that reminded you how far the gap between mortal and divine truly stretched.
The evolution had changed her. Refined her. Taken features that had already been pleasant and sharpened them into something approaching perfection. Her skin was clearer. Her hair—snow white now, Hongyu noticed with distant surprise—caught the light and scattered it like spun crystal.
The more you evolve, the more beautiful you become.
The thought surfaced from somewhere distant. All divine existences are beautiful. The saying was true. She'd seen evidence of it in every evolved being she'd encountered.
But that wasn't the main concern right now.
Hongyu moved.
Her legs carried her across the room faster than any mortal could manage—the enhanced speed of a Resonance-stage existence, still new enough to feel strange. She closed the distance in an instant, launched herself forward, and collided with Xīng Hé in a desperate embrace.
Her arms wrapped around her friend's neck.
Her face buried itself against Xīng Hé's shoulder.
And the tears came.
---
The past two months had been hell.
Hongyu had known the training would be difficult. They'd been drafted for war. Taken from their families. Forced into a system that existed to produce soldiers. She'd expected hardship.
She hadn't expected this.
The training wasn't instruction. It was brutalization.
They woke before dawn to instructors who screamed in their faces. They ran until their legs gave out, then ran more when beatings made them stand again. They fought each other with weapons that left wounds too severe for their new regeneration to handle—cuts that went to bone, breaks that left limbs hanging wrong, damage that required the assigned healer to mend before they could continue.
And then they did it again.
Every day.
For two months.
The instructors spoke of honor. Of duty. Of upholding justice and taking responsibility. Of bringing glory to themselves and their families through service to something greater.
But the words rang hollow against the reality of blood and pain and the constant, grinding exhaustion that never quite went away.
Bodies healed.
That was the mercy of evolution—even at Resonance stage, minor injuries closed on their own. The healer assigned to their group handled everything worse. Cuts sealed. Bones knit. Flesh regenerated.
Their skin was spotless.
Not a scar remained.
But minds didn't heal the same way.
The psychological damage stayed. The fear that lived in your chest when you heard an instructor approaching. The flinch that came automatically when someone moved too fast in your direction. The nightmares that played training scenarios over and over, forcing you to relive failures and pain and the taste of your own blood.
Hongyu had tried to see Xīng Hé.
Again and again. Every chance she got, every moment she could steal from the brutal schedule, she'd made her way to this manor. Requested entry. Begged, eventually.
They'd refused.
Every time.
The lady wasn't available. The lady was recovering. The lady couldn't receive visitors.
But Hongyu had seen enough to know the truth.
Xīng Hé was living better than them.
This manor. These servants. This private space, separate from the barracks where the rest of them were housed. Whatever was happening with Xīng Hé, it wasn't the same grinding hell that consumed everyone else.
And that meant something.
If anyone could find a way out—if anyone had the position, the resources, the potential to change their circumstances—it was Xīng Hé.
If it's her, Hongyu thought, going home might be possible.
---
Xīng Hé held her.
"How are you doing?" she asked.
The question broke something.
Hongyu had been holding it together. Barely. Keeping the tears at bay through sheer force of will, through the necessity of functioning, through the understanding that falling apart wouldn't help anyone.
But now she was here.
Now she was safe—or as close to safe as anything in this place could be.
Now she could finally let go.
The crying came in waves. Great, heaving sobs that shook her whole body. Tears that soaked into Xīng Hé's shoulder and wouldn't stop, no matter how hard she tried to control them.
She couldn't answer. Couldn't form words around the sounds escaping her throat.
"They said—" she managed, gasping between sobs, "they said we're training for war. To uphold justice. Take responsibility. Bring honor to ourselves and our families."
The words came out broken. Fractured.
"I miss mom."
Her grip on Xīng Hé tightened.
"I miss aunt." Xīng Hé's mother. The woman who had treated Hongyu like a second daughter at every festival, every gathering, every childhood memory worth keeping. "I want to go home."
The sobs grew louder.
"They won't let us go. They say—they say we're a disgrace. Cowardly. Unworthy of being divine existences."
Unworthy.
The word had carved itself into Hongyu's mind. She felt it now, even as she wept in her friend's arms. The voice that whispered she was pathetic. That she should be stronger. That wanting her family made her less.
She couldn't stop crying.
---
Xīng Hé held her tighter.
"You're fine, dear." The words came out soft. Steady. Completely at odds with the turmoil churning inside her. "It's okay now."
It was all she could manage.
Because the truth—
The truth would destroy her.
Xīng Hé knew things Hongyu didn't. Understood the mathematics of divine existence, the timelines of evolution, the terrible reality of what they'd been drafted into.
They wouldn't see their families again.
Not really. Not in any way that mattered.
By the time they were powerful enough to earn privileges—if they ever did—their parents would be dead. Their siblings would be old, then dead. Generations would pass. The people they loved would become names in family records, faces in fading portraits, memories that grew dimmer with each passing century.
Hongyu might not even see her next generation.
Might not live long enough to have one.
How could Xīng Hé say that?
How could she look at her friend—broken, weeping, clinging to hope like a drowning person clings to driftwood—and tell her the truth?
She couldn't.
"We're going home soon."
The words came out before she could stop them.
"I'm going to take us home."
A promise.
A promise she wasn't sure she could keep.
But looking at Hongyu—feeling the tremors wracking her friend's body, hearing the desperate sobs muffled against her shoulder, understanding exactly how close to shattering she was—Xīng Hé couldn't offer anything else.
I'll find a way, she told herself. I have to find a way.
She held Hongyu tighter and guided her away from the dining room, toward the bedrooms instead.
Neither of them had any appetite tonight.
---
End of Chapter 29
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