Spring passed into autumn.
Fifty-seven years after Qi Zhimu's death, Durand passed away peacefully.
Black Swan, as a daughter—under the name Clarice—saw her mother off, then left her homeland and began traveling the galaxy collecting memories.
From time to time she returned to the bamboo house to rest.
Only on Qi Zhimu's death anniversary did she return without fail—year after year—never forgetting.
…
Two hundred and three years after Qi Zhimu's death, the mechanical doll he left behind began to fail as components aged.
For years, it had repeated a fixed set of tasks:
In season, mound the plum grove. Harvest blossoms. Brew wine. Ship it to Ruan Mei.
Regularly clean Ruan Mei's house. Reinforce the bamboo house with special materials.
And that path—starting at the Mooncross Riverbank and leading straight to Ruan Mei's door—its plants never managed to grow lush.
Yu Qingtu saw it all.
She didn't stop it.
When the doll malfunctioned, she even felt the urge to repair it.
Yet seeing the doll maintain itself, fabricate replacement components, and quietly swap them out… left her with a complicated bitterness.
She felt Qi Zhimu wasn't worth it.
But she also knew she couldn't interfere—she had to let it continue.
Because, in plain terms:
Everything Qi Zhimu did was stacking buffs without realizing it.
Buffs strong enough to pierce a person's heart and make them collapse.
…
Two hundred and seventy-six years after Qi Zhimu's death, the cosmos saw major upheavals.
In recent years, multiple factions of Abundance-raiders clashed repeatedly with the Xianzhou fleets. War flames spread wider and wider.
Many guessed that sooner or later, a battle that shook the universe would erupt.
Worse—perhaps a Xianzhou ship would fall again.
Most didn't favor the Xianzhou. This "new" power was too young.
Even if their Abundance blessing was high-grade, they were still—originally—ordinary humanoids.
Without the strength to guard that miracle, they were simply meat in the eyes of stronger Abundance factions.
Against the Xianzhou Alliance, Abundance peoples like the Wingweavers and the Borisin won more often than not.
The turning point came with the ascension of the Aeon of the Hunt.
After the Aeon of the Hunt, Lan, manifested repeatedly over the Xianzhou, the Abundance factions finally realized:
Attacking the main Xianzhou vessels recklessly might mean paying a price written in blood.
Not long after, the Foxians—also preyed upon by Abundance raiders—and the Vidyadhara—whose homeland could not endure—joined the fleets.
The three formally forged an alliance.
The Hunt became the Xianzhou Alliance's unquestioned orthodox faith, surpassing Preservation.
Lan opened Path power to the entire alliance. Seven powerful, hereditary Emanators arose—praised as the Seven Arbiter-Generals of the Divine Bow.
From that point on, the alliance possessed the strength to confront the Abundance factions head-on, no longer losing most engagements.
Even so, the alliance still couldn't crush them outright.
They lacked deep reserves. They needed time.
Their primary force, the Cloud Knights, were originally just mortals and Foxians who'd received Abundance longevity.
Compared to Abundance peoples who possessed innate special abilities, the gap in combat power was obvious.
And though the Vidyadhara were physically formidable and strong in battle, they could not reproduce.
They were a nonrenewable resource.
Unless survival demanded it, the alliance would never deploy them in massive numbers.
Stellar Calendar 4274. The Cangcheng Xianzhou annihilated a major Abundance army and won a bloody victory.
The reigning Cangcheng General suffered permanent mental trauma and could no longer fight, so they stepped down.
Two years later, that retired General married a Cloud Knights Xiaowei (vanguard captain) from the Luofu Xianzhou who had come to reinforce Cangcheng.
It was said the Xiaowei's name was Qi Chengyou. After the war, he settled in Cangcheng.
With fewer than a hundred elite troops under his command, he held the entrance of a refuge haven through flames of war—saving over a hundred million civilians.
His deeds spread through the alliance. The union of a retired General and an heroic Xiaowei became a story praised for generations.
…
Four hundred and eighty-eight years after Qi Zhimu's death.
In a forgotten corner of the universe—an uninhabited world—an apocalyptic tectonic quake erupted.
When the disaster ended, the rapidly evolved planetary ecosystem—born from external interference—was gone.
The world seemed to have only one place untouched:
Ruan Mei's estate, and the underground laboratory beneath it.
After decades sealed shut, the lab's heavy doors opened.
A woman stepped out—black hair like a waterfall, graceful and gentle in temperament.
The annihilation of the planet's ecosystem did not stir even a ripple in her.
Her long research had once again hit a bottleneck—longer than any before.
To cross into the next stage, something was missing.
For that step, she hadn't left the lab for over thirty years—and still hadn't succeeded.
Returning to the manor, Ruan Mei saw ten jars of plum wine stacked in the designated spot, not yet transferred into the lab.
This year's allotment.
Each jar could last her over a month.
This was also the only "special contact" between teacher and student each year—proof that the relationship had not fully severed.
Ruan Mei instinctively calculated time.
Since Qi Zhimu's graduation day…
"Exactly six hundred years."
She hadn't realized it, but time had already become long.
Her research still wasn't moving.
Perhaps she should go see Ah Mu.
She decided—and then realized the quake had destroyed the signal relay base outside, wiping it clean.
This planet had relied on that base for one-way contact with the outside world.
Now even that was gone.
Fine.
The ground split. Her ship rose from the rift.
Only after she entered space did she remember something else—
Over centuries, she no longer knew where Qi Zhimu was.
She returned, found the shipping address for the plum wine, and finally obtained a destination.
The planet's name felt familiar… as if she'd been there at some node in the past.
When she entered orbit and saw it, memory—stale from years sunk in research—finally stirred.
Long ago, after her parents died in an accident, she had moved their shattered home away by special means.
It was here.
After that, she'd lived here only briefly before leaving to search the galaxy for suitable research samples.
Qi Zhimu's homeworld had been her first sample.
Later she found him, brought him back, lived with him for a few years.
When he recovered, they left together for the next sample planet—an uninhabited world.
In a blur, centuries passed.
And over time, she'd actually forgotten this.
Why would Ah Mu return here?
....
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