The night was quiet.
A thin breeze passed through the windows of the secluded courtyard where Zhou Fang lived. The lamps burned with a calm, steady flame, as if they too were waiting—waiting for something faint, something inevitable.
Emma stood beside him, fingers intertwined behind her back, her faint glow illuminating the darkness like a quiet star.
Her voice broke the stillness.
"Oh…
Zhou Fang, forget about all those things," she said softly, almost pleading.
There was no noise outside—no servants, no elders, no guests—just the two of them, facing the emptiness left behind after the banquet.
"Today is your birthday."
Emma lowered her head slightly.
"I don't have any gift for you… I'm sorry."
A faint warmth flickered in her eyes—an emotion that did not belong to an artifact sprite, yet stubbornly existed anyway.
She hesitated, then added:
"So—make a wish. I will fulfill it.
Tell me, Zhou Fang… what is your wish?"
Zhou Fang leaned back slightly, expression calm, almost indifferent. His gaze travelled from Emma's glowing hair to the faint trembling of her fingertips.
He looked at her seriously—too seriously.
There was disappointment in that look.
A disappointment sharpened not by emotion, but by clarity.
Emma immediately froze. She understood that gaze. She had seen it before—when Zhou Fang dissected illusions, falsehoods, excuses, and the hollow words of others.
She stepped back half a step unconsciously, her voice thin.
"This time… wish for anything. I will fulfill it.
Of course."
Zhou Fang's lips curved slightly.
Not a smile.
A statement.
A blade-thin acceptance.
"Then answer my question," he said.
"That will be my wish."
Emma's heart—whatever analog of a heart she possessed—tightened.
She felt the same suffocating pressure she felt every time Zhou Fang looked through her rather than at her.
"Again… you ask something I cannot answer."
Her voice trembled.
She hated the tremble.
"I… I also have limitations, Zhou Fang.
Ask for anything else—but not this."
Zhou Fang raised a brow.
His tone became soft—too soft, the softness that Fang Yuan used whenever he exposed someone's lie.
"Didn't you say you're your master's greatest creation?
That nothing is impossible for you?
That you can do anything, Emma?"
Emma's glow dimmed instantly.
A single sentence struck deeper than any sword.
---
Even though she was an artifact sprite, she felt embarrassment—an emotion she should not have, yet repeatedly experienced only around him.
She lifted her head and forced a smile, eyes hopeful once more.
"Just… just give me a wish I can grant."
Zhou Fang looked at her for a long moment.
Then:
"Don't look at me like that.
I have no wish right now.
Forget it."
Emma's expression collapsed like fragile porcelain.
Her light sank, falling dim.
She lowered her head, voice small.
"Oh."
But then—
A spark passed through Zhou Fang's thoughts.
His eyes narrowed, sharpening.
"Alright.
I have another wish."
Emma's head snapped up, full of desperate hope.
"This time you cannot refuse," Zhou Fang warned calmly.
Emma straightened, almost saluting.
"Alright.
Just say it—I will do my best."
Zhou Fang's expression remained unreadable.
"Think again, Emma.
You cannot change your mind later."
Emma clenched her fists.
"Just say it.
I will do my best."
"Very well."
Zhou Fang's voice dropped, deep as the bottom of an abyss.
"When Father told me about the past…
He said that when those Immortal Realm cultivators kidnapped me, Mother came to save me.
But after returning me to Father… she went back to the Immortal Realm—and never came back."
A faint tremor entered his voice—not sadness.
A cold, calculating curiosity.
"So I want to know…
what truly happened there."
He leaned forward, eyes shining with a strange, dangerous calm.
"And I want to see it.
That is my wish.
Emma—now you cannot refuse."
---
Emma froze.
Utterly.
Completely.
The air around her trembled.
Her glow flickered like a weakening star.
The weight of the request pressed on her—a weight heavier than laws, heavier than realms, heavier than the truth she herself was forbidden to reveal.
"I… can tell you," she whispered slowly.
"But… how am I supposed to show you?"
Zhou Fang shrugged lightly.
"I don't know.
That's your problem."
Emma clenched her teeth, exhaling deeply.
"Zhou Fang… listen carefully.
The Immortal Realm is to the Mortal Realm what the Mortal Universe is to a painting."
Zhou Fang frowned slightly.
"Say it clearly."
Emma took a long breath.
Her tone shifted—not childish, not emotional.
But ancient.
Vast.
"In the Mortal Realm, you know there exist cosmos, great cosmos, universes, higher universes, and above-universes.
All of these together form the Mortal Realm."
Zhou Fang nodded faintly.
Emma continued.
"Inside a universe, everything exists.
And there—time and space already exist at their highest point."
"Meaning?"
Emma raised one finger.
"Meaning—normal time and space do not operate there.
The universe is uncountably infinite, stretching into uncountably infinite dimensions."
Her eyes dimmed.
"And dimensions are not numbers.
They are infinities arranged in order."
She whispered:
"ℵ₀D, ℵ₁D, ℵ₂D, ℵ₃D… endlessly upward."
Zhou Fang's eyes deepened.
Emma continued:
"Beings who stand above such time and space can travel the universe's past and future."
Her voice hardened.
"But from the higher universes upward…
that is no longer possible."
Zhou Fang frowned.
Emma pointed upward.
"In those higher realms, time and space become more abstract, more fundamental.
They cannot be described by logic.
Or by non-logic."
Her next words were like a paradox dripping through the mind.
"There is no time and no space.
Yet there is time and space.
But this time and space cannot be called time and space.
And yet they still are."
Zhou Fang remained silent.
Emma pressed on.
"Even beings who surpass time and space themselves…
are bound by the time and space of those realms.
They cannot travel past or future.
Forget about changing events."
Her glow dimmed further.
"This is illogical.
But it is truth."
A quiet beat.
"And all of this only describes the Mortal Realm."
Zhou Fang exhaled softly.
Emma whispered the final dagger:
"Now imagine…
the Immortal Realm."
Silence.
Zhou Fang slowly leaned back.
Then:
"…It's too difficult."
He looked at Emma, gaze razor-sharp.
"But I know you.
And judging by your expression…
you are one of the few who can do it—without causality."
Emma stiffened.
Zhou Fang continued, voice turning cold and perceptive:
"Am I right?
Don't lie to me.
Your face already answered."
Emma almost choked.
She hated how transparent she was before him.
She hated how easily he cut through her defenses.
She hated how powerless she felt in the face of his quiet determination.
"If you don't want to do it," Zhou Fang said, "then say it plainly.
Don't use excuses."
Emma trembled.
In the end…
She always lost.
Always.
"…Fine."
Her voice was defeated, soft.
"Let's go to the past.
I never win against you."
She lifted her hand.
A faint ripple spread through the courtyard, the space bending silently like a sheet of glass touched by an unseen finger.
A portal materialized—no light, no sound, just an absence, a crack where reality quietly stepped aside.
Zhou Fang watched it, eyes calm.
Emma swallowed.
"Zhou Fang… once we enter, you must understand something."
Zhou Fang did not look at her.
"Speak."
Emma lowered her gaze.
"…The past we will see—
is not necessarily the past that happened."
Zhou Fang glanced at her sharply.
Emma whispered:
"Some things…
have already been rewritten."
Zhou Fang's pupils contracted.
A faint, dangerous smile tugged at his lips.
"Then the one who rewrote it…"
Emma turned her face away.
"…I can't say."
Zhou Fang laughed softly.
Not warm.
Not happy.
A laugh soaked with subtle meaning.
"Fine.
Let's go see what cannot be seen."
He stepped toward the portal.
Emma followed behind him—glow trembling, expression conflicted.
Before stepping through, Zhou Fang paused.
His voice low, philosophical, carrying a quiet yet cutting determination:
"Whether the past was rewritten or not…
truth leaves traces.
Even if buried by higher laws…
even if erased by a hand far above existence…
it leaves a shadow."
He curled his fingers slightly.
"And shadows…
can always be followed."
Emma shivered.
For a moment…
She felt something indescribable behind Zhou Fang's presence.
As if—
Someone else
was overlapping with him for a faint heartbeat.
Someone older.
Colder.
Silent.
Watching.
Emma dared not speak.
Zhou Fang stepped into the portal.
The world twisted.
Light vanished.
Sound collapsed.
Emma followed—because she had no other choice.
The portal closed behind them.