S833I6

Your only duty is to witness.

That is all you are, that is all you will ever be capable of. You know this better than anyone else.

... Hong Lu, your smile has changed not once. Then or now.

But we have come to know that your smile is more than a shell.

I know that it is the same smile that brought me to the past, the same smile that I thought resembled Brother Young-ji's.

Thus... I know your distant yet true heart, Hong Lu.

There was aught you had felt from us, was there not?

Solitude. Steadfast. Lingering. So bitter, yet... so intolerably exhausted...

Loneliness. Regret. Anticipation. The castle of ice was so lonely and cold, despite your smile...

Conflict. Anguish. Courage. But there was a desperate resolve to overcome it all nonetheless...

Longing. Melancholy. Warmth. The wings unfurled were so blinding, so brilliant...

Passion. Adventure. Ferocity. The journey, finally in search of a destination, found liberation...

Futility. Determination. Love. The declaration was beautiful, though to whom I could not know...

Exhilaration. Tragedy. Excitement. I learned how beautiful and incandescent the light of a continuing dream could be.

But I also know that they're just fleeting things, destined to be lost to time.

As all things return to dust, so will these emotions, no matter how hotly they once burned.

I'm not like the rest of you.

I don't want to change anything. I don't want to achieve anything, either.

So I just watch... with a smile, a perpetual smile.

<You don't have to want to achieve anything.>

<But as long as you're on this bus with the rest of us, things will keep happening, both good and bad.>

<Something's probably going to blow Heathcliff's fuse again.>

<You'll see the Sinners, your friends, get killed again.>

<We'll fail again, too. The kind of failure that leaves us with nothing. The kind of failure that leaves us stagnant.>

<But...>

<Among those inevitabilities, think about the other things that are sure to happen.>

<You're going to miss the days you went out kiting.

And when Don Quixote starts to regale us with yet another one of her tales of adventure, you're going to join in to indulge her.>

<You know for sure that you'll be listening to Rodya heap praises about her favorite food whenever we get the chance to try them.>

<You're going to suddenly realize that the scenery past the bus windows have changed, and that they've become beautiful for once.>

<You're going to feel your heart swell for no reason, when you listen to the Sinners laugh and giggle behind you.>

<You know how I know this?>

<Because I'm talking about myself here.>

<These moments in time… they're what I use to fill the void my memories left behind.>

... How can you... and everyone... bring yourselves to care about anything, knowing that it always has an end?

<One end... or, at least what we thought would be the end...>

<... was always just the starting line for something new.>

<Each finish line was just another arbitrary mark, another step in our journey, right?>

<And it's those little steps that... keep us going.>

<And hey, Hong Lu... you're not stagnating. You're changing, too.>

<Tell me. Why did you decide to go with Jia Qiu's plan?>

It wasn't about the war, the Golden Bough, or... Daguanyuan.

The first thing that came to mind was...

was...

... that I wanted Xichun to genuinely smile again.

<Yeah, and that's... how your heart's been changing.>

<In ways you hadn't seen.>

I thought I'd already let these fragments of my heart float away from me.

After all, all of existence is but a passing dream, destined to return to emptiness…

Before your onboarding, you may present a name or an alias of your choosing that others should address you by.

Will you use your name, Jia Baoyu?

Um...

No.

Hong Lu. I want to be Hong Lu.

But now, I realize that they've been buried here all along.

They weren't lost... I'd only forgotten about them. That's why I felt like my heart was trapped.

<I can keep turning the clock for you, I can keep walking side-by-side with you to the end of the line...>

<But at the end of the day... only you can save yourself.>

Oh, I thought the kite had floated away, never to be found again.

But it was still here.

Every meeting is a promise of a goodbye…

And the loveliness of fresh blossoms only sharpens the pain of wilting.

But...

<But the world you witness will always be beautiful.>

<Because you are a kind person, Hong Lu. Kinder than anyone else.>

<So, your world must be painted in the fairest color of jade.>

... if those petals refuse to surrender and live on in the brief moments they are given,

despite knowing that they will eventually scatter to the winds…

<Then, show them the petals you've gathered.>