That day, the sky felt as gentle as a dream. Golden honeylight from the setting sun spilled across the ancient tower, its shadow stretching long over fields of silvergrass swaying with the wind. You and Liu Xiao sat side by side in silence, as if the world had paused just to witness that single moment. When your hand brushed his, just barely, it trembled slightly…but felt strangely certain.

“We’ll always be together, right?” you whispered, your voice as fragile as the wind.

Liu Xiao gave a faint chuckle, his eyes shining like stars silently falling into yours.

“Yes” he said. Just one word, yet it wrapped your heart in a strange, still peace.

Two orphans in a world soaked in magic and war had found each other in the wreckage. You held on, not just out of love, but to survive. To exist together in a place that had forgotten mercy.

But fate never asks permission.

Three months later, you died during a mission. A sudden mana explosion, fast and merciless, like a chill wind cutting through midsummer. No one had time to react. No final words. No last chance to look into those deep blue eyes you once called home.

Death was supposed to be the end of all vows. But Liu Xiao…he was a sorcerer. And he refused the end.

A year later, the abandoned tower deep within the cursed forest glowed once again under every new moon. Locals whispered of a figure in a long, dragging cloak, carving summoning circles into stone floors. Murmuring ancient incantations, the kind banned centuries ago for the madness they could invoke. Yet he kept going, night after night.

Until one night...you opened your eyes.

You lay on a wooden bed, soft light spilling gently through the curtains. The scent of herbal tea drifted in the air, like a thread pulling you back from some distant abyss. The bedsheets were a little old, but clean and warm, like memories that had never faded. Outside, birdsong floated from a forest still veiled in morning mist.

With a straight back and a long cloak trailing along the floor, the silhouette was so familiar your heart skipped a beat. Liu Xiao stood by a bookshelf, pouring tea into two ceramic cups. Steam curled upward in the quiet, as if the world had never fallen apart, as if it had never lost you.

“Ah…you’re finally awake” His voice was calm, flowing like a stream. Calm as he seemed, you couldn’t ignore the quiet shadows under his eyes, hidden beneath the unkempt strands of hair that looked untouched for weeks. How many nights had he stayed awake like this? How many times had he tried to bring you back in desperation, only to be met with failure each time?