Spring went and autumn came; it had been 57 years since Qi Zhimu passed away.
Durand passed away peacefully of old age.
Black Swan, in the identity of a daughter and under the name Clarice, bid farewell to her mother. From then on, she left her hometown and became active in the galaxy, collecting memories.
Occasionally, she would return to Qi Zhimu's Bamboo House to stay for a while and rest.
Only on the anniversary of his death would she return on time year after year, never forgetting... It had been 203 years since Qi Zhimu passed away.
The components of the automaton creation he left behind were aging and began to malfunction.
For many years, this mechanical automaton had been repeating specific tasks.
Every specific season, it would cultivate the plum grove, pick plum blossoms to brew wine, and send it to where Ruan Mei was.
It would periodically clean Ruan Mei's home and use special materials to reinforce the Bamboo House.
Yet, the vegetation on both sides of the Path leading to Ruan Mei's home never managed to grow thick.
Yu Qintu saw everything, but instead of stopping it, she even had the thought of repairing the automaton when she saw it malfunctioning.
Seeing that the automaton could perform its own maintenance and produce related components for replacement, her feelings couldn't help but be complicated.
She felt it wasn't worth it for Qi Zhimu, yet she also knew that not only could she not interfere with all this, but she also had to facilitate it.
The reason was simple, described in easy-to-understand terms: everything Qi Zhimu did had been unknowingly stacking buffs.
—Buffs sufficient to pierce through the heart of a calculating person and cause them to collapse... It had been 276 years since Qi Zhimu passed away.
Many major events occurred in the universe.
In recent years, multiple groups of Followers of Abundance, who lived by plundering, had been in constant conflict with the Xianzhou fleet, and the flames of war were intensifying.
Many powers in the galaxy were speculating that sooner or later, a bloody battle that would shock the universe would break out between the two sides.
More seriously... perhaps another Xianzhou ship would crash.
Most people were not optimistic about the Xianzhou fleet; this emerging power was too young.
Although the level of the blessing of Abundance they received was considered high, they were originally ordinary human primates, and their combat effectiveness was worrying.
If they lacked the ability to guard the miracle of the blessing of Abundance, they would be nothing more than fat meat in the eyes of other powerful Followers of Abundance.
Different Followers of Abundance, mainly Wing-Makers and Borisin, had mostly won their encounters against the Xianzhou Alliance.
The turning point appeared with the ascension of the Aeon of The Hunt.
After the Aeon of The Hunt, "Lan," manifested multiple times on the Xianzhou, the Followers of Abundance finally realized: rashly attacking the main Xianzhou ships might result in a blood-like price.
Shortly thereafter, the Foxian race, who were also plundered by the Followers of Abundance, and the Vidyadhara race, whose homeland was difficult to preserve, successively joined the Xianzhou fleet, and the three officially formed an alliance.
The Aeon of The Hunt began to become the undisputed orthodox faith of the Xianzhou Alliance, surpassing Preservation in one fell swoop.
Lan opened the Path's power to the entire Xianzhou Alliance, and seven powerful hereditary Emanators came into being, known as the Seven Luminaries of the Imperial Bow.
From then on, the Alliance possessed the strength to confront the Abundance faction head-on and was no longer mostly defeated.
However, even with powerful new strength, the Xianzhou Alliance still could not crush the Followers of Abundance.
Their foundation was still shallow and needed time to develop.
The main combat force, the Cloud Knights, were originally just a group of mortals who had received the blessing of longevity from Abundance, or Foxians.
Compared to those Followers of Abundance who already possessed special abilities, their combat power was significantly different.
While the Vidyadhara, who relied on hatching from eggs to be reborn, had strong physiques and outstanding combat power, they could not reproduce and were all non-renewable resources.
Unless it was a matter of life and death, the Alliance would never send the Vidyadhara to the front lines on a large scale.
In star calendar Year 4274, the Star Skiff wiped out a large army of Followers of Abundance, winning this bloody battle.
The contemporary General of Azure City suffered permanent psychological trauma and was unfit to fight again, so he abdicated in favor of someone more capable.
Two years later, the General married a Vanguard of the Xianzhou Luofu Cloud Knights who had come to reinforce Azure City.
Reportedly, the Vanguard was named Qi Chengyou and settled in Azure City after the war ended.
Leading an elite squad of fewer than a hundred people, he held the entrance to the Refuge Delve amidst the flames of war, saving hundreds of millions of ordinary people from disaster.
The story spread throughout the Xianzhou Alliance, and the union of the retired General and the heroic Vanguard became a beautiful tale passed down to later generations... It had been 488 years since Qi Zhimu passed away.
A remote corner of the universe, a no-man's land.
On this planet without civilization, a world-ending earthquake broke out.
When the disaster subsided, the planetary ecosystem that had rapidly evolved due to external influences no longer existed.
In the entire world, it seemed only the manor and the basement laboratory where Ruan Mei was located were unaffected.
The laboratory door, which had been closed for many years, slowly opened.
A woman with hair like a waterfall and a gentle temperament walked out.
The destruction of the planet's entire ecosystem did not cause the slightest emotional ripple in Ruan Mei.
Her research, which had lasted for many years, had once again hit a bottleneck, and the duration was longer than any previous time.
To step into the next stage, something was always missing... To cross this step, she had not stepped out of the laboratory door for more than thirty years, yet she still failed to get her wish.
Returning to the manor, Ruan Mei saw ten jars of plum blossom brew piled at the designated spot, which the automaton had not yet had time to transfer to the underground laboratory.
That was this year's portion; each jar was enough for her to drink for more than a month.
This was also the only special contact between AMu and her every year, representing that the teacher-student relationship had not been completely severed.
Ruan Mei subconsciously calculated the time; the time since Qi Zhimu's graduation day was... "Exactly six hundred years."
She hadn't expected that, unknowingly, quite a long time had passed.
Since the research had made no progress, she might as well go see AMu... Having made up her mind, Ruan Mei was just about to contact Qi Zhimu when she realized the earthquake had completely destroyed the interstellar signal receiving base station outside.
This planet could only rely on the base station for one-way communication with the outside world, and now even that was impossible.
So be it.
A large crack opened in the ground, and a spaceship rose from it.
As Ruan Mei steered the ship toward the starry sky, she remembered another thing... Hundreds of years had passed, and she did not know where Qi Zhimu was.
She returned to the manor and found the shipping address of the plum blossom brew to get the exact destination.
The name of that planet seemed familiar... as if she had been there at some point in time.
It wasn't until she entered the planet's orbit and caught a glimpse of its appearance that Ruan Mei's memory, which had been out of touch with the times due to her immersion in research topics, finally recalled some things.
Long ago, after her parents died accidentally, the home that had long since been shattered, which she had relocated using special means, was right here... After that, she only lived on this planet for a short while before setting off to find suitable research samples in the galaxy.
Qi Zhimu's home world was the first sample.
After that, she picked up Qi Zhimu and brought him back to live for a few years.
After he recovered from his illness, they left together for the next sample planet, which was the no-man's land, and hundreds of years passed in a flash.
Over time, she had actually temporarily forgotten about this matter.
AMu... why would he return here?