Elena closed her eyes, her voice hoarse.
"…I waited four years until I came of age. Every day I searched the newspapers and listened to the radio, hoping to hear news about Guy and Alex's remains. But eventually, all the channels I had access to stopped reporting on the war."
"…I gave up looking for news. But I never stopped waiting."
Her chest rose and fell slowly. "After I became an adult, I left that town to study, to work, to live my life. But this place never stopped haunting me. When I turned thirty, I saved enough money and came back to this town where the war had taken place."
"It was quite prosperous then. Much of the postwar damage had been repaired. Someone built a large factory here, relying on the rainforest's abundant timber. It attracted many workers."
"But the prosperity didn't last."
Elena glanced back toward the abandoned town.
"The machines ran day and night, transporting wood to the outside world. Soon, the forests were depleted. The trees vanished. The rainforest that once received heavy rainfall gradually turned into a desert."
"…Later, everyone left again. I am the only old woman still guarding these graves." She patted the tombstone she was sitting on and suddenly added, "Oh, did I forget to tell you about this cemetery?"
She rubbed her temples and sighed. "When people grow old, they forget things. During the war, this place was a mass grave for fallen soldiers. After the war, it was sold to a private owner and turned into a commercial cemetery."
"But most of those buried here were unidentified soldiers from the war. The government forbade their relocation, so they remain here. Only those with names were taken away by their families."
"When I returned, I found the owner and told him I wanted to use my own money to build two tombs here—for Alex and Guy. They would be empty graves. No bodies. Just things that belonged to them."
Her eyes turned vacant.
"They quickly replied that Alex could have a grave here, but Guy Davis could not."
"I asked why. They said that because Guy had a record of rebellion, regulations forbade him from being buried in any cemetery in the country."
Elena's voice suddenly turned sharp and hysterical.
"I screamed at those heartless businessmen! I told them—Guy Davis is dead! He has been dead for over ten years! Even God would forgive him after death! It's not your place to judge him anymore!"
"Even a rat with native blood could buy a grave here—so why couldn't an upright and kind man be buried?!"
She gripped the tombstone tightly, eyes blazing through tears.
"I was young then. Stubborn. I refused to accept it. I spent nearly all my money. I sold my clothes and jewelry just to buy Guy a grave from that cemetery owner…"
She smiled proudly through falling tears.
"And I succeeded. The owner agreed to sell it to me in violation of regulations. You see, with enough money, even the sins of those who refuse to let the dead rest can be erased."
"…After the owner left, the cemetery gradually fell into ruin. In retaliation, I changed all the tombstones here to Guy's name. At that moment, it gave me a mischievous kind of satisfaction."
She fell silent for a while.
"…In Alex's grave, I placed things I took from his home. In Guy's grave…" She inhaled deeply. "I couldn't find anything of his. I had refused to keep anything related to him. So I put on the old wedding dress I made for him."
Bai Liu looked at her calmly. "Later, you discovered the wedding dress was gone, didn't you?"
Elena met his gaze. "Yes. There hasn't been a single day these past years when I wasn't tormented by guilt for refusing to make that wedding dress for his marriage to Alex."
"I placed the wedding dress and a letter—one in which I agreed to all his requests—inside Guy's grave."
"But one day the grave was opened. The dress and the letter were gone. In their place was a reply from Guy. It was his handwriting. The ink was still fresh."
Her breathing quickened. "I began to suspect… to suspect…"
Bai Liu asked softly, "You suspected that they weren't truly dead. That they were alive somewhere—but simply didn't want to see you."
Elena was silent for a long time before whispering, "…Yes."
"I began experimenting. Whenever I placed wedding dresses and letters on the grave, sometimes they would disappear the next day. Sometimes it would take much longer. Occasionally, new letters would appear."
"The letters were dated fifty years ago."
She exhaled shakily. "Perhaps these two symbols of repentance—the dresses and the letters—are the only reasons they're willing to come see me."
"So I began writing to them according to the old letters' tone. I kept making wedding dresses, hoping they would come down and take a look at me."
"…I just want to tell Guy and Alex in person: I'm sorry. And may God grant you eternal happiness."
Bai Liu had seen that sentence embroidered on Guy's wedding dress.
Elena lowered her eyelids, breathing with difficulty.
"…I waited for who knows how many years. Made who knows how many dresses. Wrote who knows how many letters. Everyone left this place. But I never stopped waiting for them to come see me."
"…Sometimes, I think I've gone mad." She smiled faintly, her eyes heavy with the wear of time. "From time to time, I see Guy appear in this cemetery—wearing a wedding dress, holding a bouquet. He has the happy, beautiful smile I always wished for him."
"…But when I get closer, I realize he's only a corpse stitched together."
She looked at Bai Liu with cloudy eyes.
"If you are truly Alex and Guy's comrade, please tell them I do not expect forgiveness for my despicable behavior. I only hope to see them once. Even if they never forgive me."
A tear slid down her cheek.
"…I just want them to be happy."
"And not separated until death because of me—the fiancée who should never have existed."
"I will tell them," Bai Liu said as he stood, smiling gently. "The wedding dress you made was very beautiful. It suited Guy perfectly."
Elena froze and slowly raised her head.
"I attended their wedding," Bai Liu continued softly. "Guy liked your dress very much. He was extremely happy when he married Alex, wearing it. He said he was so happy that he would willingly die the next second."
Elena's lips parted. Her expression was fragile and hollow. She forced a faint smile.
"Young man… one flattering lie is enough…"
Bai Liu reached into his pocket and pulled out a silk-like white gauze scarf.
Elena fell silent in disbelief.
"This is the veil from one of your wedding dresses. My friend accidentally pulled it off Guy's head during the ceremony." He handed it to her with a small smile. "I don't lie to comfort people, ma'am."
Elena stared at the veil for a long time before tremblingly reaching out to touch it.
"…The hair caught in it—it's Guy's. This is a dress I made long ago. The stitching here was never fully finished…"
"Are they… happy?" she asked carefully, clutching the veil.
Bai Liu lowered his gaze. "They are living happily in a place beyond your sight."
After Elena handed the final letter to Bai Liu, he and the others bid her farewell and left.
-----------------
Liu Jiayi frowned thoughtfully. "If this is the true world line, and the false world line we experienced is like the relationship between inner and outer worlds—like the Rose Factory—then there should only be one Guy."
"…Or maybe there were many Guys—one for every wedding dress Elena made."
"Could it be a seven-day cycle?" Tang Erda suggested. "The real world continues normally, but the war world repeats every seven days. In each cycle, there's a Guy. He dies, then resets. Alex ends up buried in the cemetery."
Bai Liu shook his head. "There's a contradiction."
"What contradiction?" Tang Erda asked.
"The effect of Alex's potion is to revert things to how they were seven days ago. That isn't a true cycle. It only restores existing entities to their state seven days prior."
"In other words," Liu Jiayi said quickly, "if Guy left the war world and entered the real world, then there wouldn't be a Guy left in the war world."
"But we did see Guy in the war world," she continued. "So that explanation doesn't work."
"And only Guy has multiple living-dead versions. No one else in the war world does."
Liu Jiayi frowned. "Tang Erda's seven-day theory might be directionally correct. But something is wrong, specifically with Guy as an NPC. I don't understand why he's able to cross from the war world into the real world."
"You'd have to ask Alex—the creator of the war world line," Bai Liu said quietly, looking up at the mist forming ahead once more.