[Remaining lifespan: 11 hours 01 minutes 37 seconds]
"…Happy birthday in advance…"
On the bamboo steps, Clarisse offered Qi Zhimu a beautifully wrapped gift box.
She should have been smiling—but her mouth wouldn't lift, as if something pressed it down.
When she forced a smile, her lips only drooped helplessly.
"Don't worry. I know when I'll die. No need for 'in advance.'"
"…You're a liar, Mr. Qi. I'm afraid you'll lie to me again."
"You little thing—at least give this almost one-hundred-and-seventy-five-year-old some trust."
Qi Zhimu laughed, took the gift with both hands, and looked at her for permission.
After she gave the tiniest nod, he opened it on the spot.
Inside were a sachet scented with plum blossoms, a scarf, and a hand-knit sweater.
Qi Zhimu's gaze paused for a beat, his expression softening further.
"…Thank you for the birthday gifts, Clarisse. I really like them."
So that was what she'd been doing lately—preparing for today.
Life was fickle.
Regrets were fate's specialty. Feelings were often a blessing one couldn't afford.
Qi Zhimu knew he couldn't make her promises.
He couldn't.
Because he was going to die of old age.
"Try it—see if it fits…" Clarisse said quietly.
Qi Zhimu didn't hesitate. He took off his outer coat and pulled the sweater on.
It fit perfectly.
He put his coat back on and was about to speak when Clarisse stepped closer, gently wrapped the scarf around him, and hung the sachet at his waist.
She was very close. He could smell the faint fragrance in her hair.
"It's so cold. Good thing you made such thoughtful gifts."
"Liar. Your body stopped feeling temperature changes long ago…"
"Yes. It stopped long ago. But, girl…"
Meeting her eyes, Qi Zhimu took her hand and pressed it over his chest. His voice was gentle.
"This heart that hasn't stopped beating yet… feels very warm right now."
Clarisse stared at those deep brown eyes—the same softness that had once made her sink helplessly, unchanged until now.
But facing it directly, she could only swallow down her sob.
"On this planet, the starry sky is always the clearest and most beautiful these few days each year. Look up."
"Are you going to say people become stars when they die…"
"People don't become stars. That's just something humans say to place their feelings somewhere. Look over there—"
Clarisse lifted her head, following where he pointed.
The stars scattered like crushed diamonds across the sky, quietly shimmering in deep night.
Along the edges of the stardust, pale blue and green bled outward into a still river of light—no meteor streaks, no sudden dimming.
Quiet. Peaceful. Beautiful.
Clarisse watched, entranced.
In her memory, she had never lifted her head like this—never simply watched the night sky in silence.
She hadn't known it could be so beautiful.
"Isn't it gorgeous?"
"…Yeah. It's beautiful." She nodded without thinking.
If Mr. Qi weren't about to die, sitting like this in front of the bamboo house, watching stars together… how romantic it would have been.
"Mr. Qi… can I lean on your shoulder for a while?"
"Of course."
She rested against him, greedily breathing in his scent—his presence.
They gazed at the sky. A long time passed without a word.
"Mr. Qi… tell me your story. From childhood to now. Ordinary, thrilling, unlucky, happy—anything you're willing to share, I want to hear it…"
She wanted to remember more of him.
If she could, she wanted to engrave his entire life—perhaps even all his memories.
Other than her mother, she had only Mr. Qi.
And soon, he would leave her completely.
He would leave nothing behind—except memories.
Her mother was right. Aside from memories, they had nothing.
"My story…"
Qi Zhimu's voice turned faintly distant as his mind returned to the past.
They said that when people neared death, their life flashed before their eyes.
He wasn't at the moment yet—and still, he saw so much.
"Since I can remember, my hometown was nothing but war. People lived like drifting guests, uprooted and scattered…"
"No one knew what fate waited in the next breath."
"My parents might've died early. Or maybe they lived a little longer. I don't know."
"I was captured as emergency rations. When the starving can't find food… their own kind becomes food."
"In the end times, there is no right or wrong—only the many faces of human nature."
"I was locked in cages with children, and with people who couldn't fight back. It lasted about ten days."
"During that time, some of the 'rations' caught multiple deadly bio-viruses—and by misfortune became fortunate. They were thrown away, no longer needing to fear being eaten."
"As for how long they lived afterward… no one had the right to hope. One day at a time…"
Clarisse's already heavy heart tightened further, suffocated.
Now she understood why Mr. Qi revered his teacher so deeply.
To pull someone from bottomless darkness—sometimes the reason really is that simple.
Far away, in a place no one visited, a manor stood alone.
Ruan Mei set down her observation lens and lifted her cool, pale face toward the ceiling.
Even buried deep underground in the laboratory, she could faintly hear thunder—proof of how violent the storm above was.
She glanced at the failed specimen on the table and, out of habit, ordered her "A-Mu" to clean it up.
But when she saw that familiar, expressionless face, words someone had said before leaving echoed in her mind.
An unusual irritation stirred, rare in her.
Ruan Mei didn't believe it was influenced by those words. After a brief thought, she attributed it to stalled research progress.
"…I'll go out for a walk."
She took the elevator up. The moment the heavy door opened, a bolt of lightning tore the black sky apart.
Rain poured like a waterfall.
Ruan Mei stopped.
She had never seen such heavy rain.
No… she had.
Countless memory fragments flashed, then fixed on a scene from over a hundred years ago.
The first day she met A-Mu had been just like this.
She'd stood at the edge of a pit with an oil-paper umbrella, looking down at the small figure curled amid rotting corpses, her gaze indifferent.
She remembered that child's eyes—
Numb. Hollow.
When those eyes noticed her, a faint glimmer appeared—so slight it felt like a mistake.
Before the light went out, it trembled—forming something she'd never seen before, very faint, very light…
Relief. And worry.
Yes—worry.
Not worry for himself as he died, but worry that she might catch the deadly virus like him.
He had accepted his own fate, yet he didn't want another to suffer as he had.
Thunder shook the world. Raindrops fell as if determined to swallow everything.
"Do you want to live?"
Her voice was soft, nearly swallowed by the storm.
And yet the child's gray lips moved, forming a soundless syllable.
"…Yes…"
So she let A-Mu live.
She hadn't expected time to pass so fast—nearly one hundred and sixty-nine years in a blink.
And now, oddly, she felt the faint urge to see him again, to speak of old times.
The thought lasted only seconds before she snuffed it out.
A-Mu had left her tutelage over a hundred years ago. Where was he now…?
He seemed never to have told her.
Forget it. Her research was nowhere near a point where she could stop. There was no need to contact him.
With his mind, even if he couldn't rival the famous scholars of the cosmos, guiding a normal world's biological technology should be effortless.
What she taught him was enough to cure all mortal diseases—along with many methods to extend life by at least eight hundred years.
He had said he wanted to live.
Only a century or so had passed. There was no reason for her to worry yet.
"I'll take a bath. Then I'll continue my research."
Ruan Mei walked steadily toward the hot springs.
....
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