[At two years old, you grew up healthy and strong.]
[At three years old, perhaps due to your exceptional talent, you could already move normally and had almost complete language, cognitive, and learning functions.]
[At four years old, you began to receive some basic education.]
[At five years old, after getting your parents' permission, you could go out to play alone. For your first outing, you chose to go to the woods outside of town.]
[Please choose—]
[One: Just wander around at home; no matter how towering a tree, it cannot withstand wind and rain in its sapling stage.]
[Two: Of course, you should take advantage of your cutest age to build good relationships with the uncles and aunts in town. Wander around the town thoroughly.]
[Three: If you're going, go further, to the ash forest outside the town. I hear it's very beautiful there.]
—Does this even need a choice?
The options presented offered no deep descriptions and were unrelated to any Valkyrie.
Jiang Cheng's choice was made without even a trace of hesitation.
As a seasoned Honkai player, he knew exactly where Aili Xiya first appeared.
Falling into the forest, accompanied by the light of stars and moon.
If he could be there for the girl's first sight, even without the so-called, possibly false, imprinting effect, the value of being childhood sweethearts would certainly be extraordinary, at least not just a small regret from childhood.
Anyway, even if she wasn't there, it wouldn't be a big problem.
He was still very young now, with plenty of time to wait. Since this system was a cultivation plan, it was naturally impossible to wait until he was seventy or eighty to meet Aili Xiya. What would he cultivate then? A daughter?
The young man unhesitatingly extended his fingertip, his mind and body making the choice simultaneously.
[Is there any other choice?]
[As a little man, you naturally have to choose the most difficult one.]
[And in fairy tales, forests are always accompanied by elves. Such a dense and lush forest must have many, many elves, right?]
Jiang Cheng stepped onto the damp, soft earth; the overly dense forest made even rainless days feel as fresh as if it had just rained.
Even though the journey wasn't far, the physical exertion of walking in the forest was still not something a five-year-old child could easily handle.
Outside the town wasn't a so-called woodland artificially laid out for aesthetic purposes, but a forest formed by countless unknown trees, a world laid out by thousands of branches, a vibrant and lush kingdom.
Even exploring it as an adult would be tiring.
Jiang Cheng, however, was unwilling to leave just like that. He hacked through thorns, stepped over mud and sand, and used his small strength to bend aside branches that always grew in annoying places.
Children are always persistent about some inexplicable things.
He listened to the 'rustling' sound of fallen dead leaves being trampled, breathing in the fresh air from the woodland.
Countless branches intertwined to form a lush, green kingdom, like beams supporting the heavens and the earth.
It was as if he had arrived in a paradise from a nursery rhyme.
In the Elysium that belonged only to dreams, he welcomed the fragrance of nature.
He felt the softness of the soil with his feet, listened to the music of nature, breathed in the sweetness from the dew, and experienced the rebirth of the forest.
Finally, he saw the tallest ash tree, but his vision was blocked by the fluttering leaves.
Jiang Cheng waved his small hand, blocking the falling leaves. The next moment, a gentle breeze surged, as if his hands were parting the clouds, and a clear world appeared before his eyes.
Countless streams were like traces left by a falling starry sky, the waves shattering the shape of light, scattering specks of silver stars, which were dyed into a faint, indigo blue.
In the dense forest, gentle sunlight fell through the gaps where the branches intersected, and at the intersection of light and darkness, a pink girl lay there, her eyes tightly closed and not yet awake, the human and nature extraordinarily harmonious.
Fallen flowers swirled up, and the girl's hair, as if soaked in the fragrance of hundreds of flowers for many years, was gently caressed by the breeze accompanied by falling petals, adorning her delicate and flawless face with a pink as pure and beautiful as hair.
It was as if she had become Alice, who had passed through the rabbit hole and arrived in Wonderland.
It was as if he had stepped into a kingdom belonging to a fairy tale.
The understanding of beauty, from this moment on, awakened the earliest impression in his life from his heart.
Unknowingly, Jiang Cheng had already walked towards that world, his black shoes gently stepping over the green fallen leaves that were dyed extraordinarily beautiful by the halo of light.
"Creak—"
Suddenly, an inopportune noise came.
Jiang Cheng's daze and intoxication were interrupted, and he gently raised his head, accurately finding the source of the noise during the most perfect period of his life.
At the top of that tree, which seemed to only exist in fairy tale fantasies, there was a precarious branch, with only a few insignificant fibers left at the connection, as if it would fall in the next second.
Under this branch, which could fall at any time and cause harm...
—It was Aili Xiya.
"Whoosh~"
As the breeze swept past, the last straw that broke the camel's back was in place, and a dry tearing sound came, and the branch that had reached its limit fell straight down.
"Swish—"
The downward-hanging branch made a small sound as it cut through the air.
Insignificant, the naturally broken branch was to the natural world like the hair that falls off the human body every day. Everything was natural and unremarkable.
It's just... if it hit that girl's face, it would probably hurt a lot, right?
She would probably cry.
She definitely would.
Jiang Cheng subconsciously closed his eyes gently, unable to bear to see this heartbreaking scene, but his body moved forward more honestly.
It was just that when the whistling wind brushed past his hair, the sound of falling did not come for a long time. Instead, a fragrance seemed to surge into his nose with the breeze.
It was too sweet, as cloying as natural honey, causing people to fall into a kingdom of flowers.
After a while, he couldn't hear any strangeness or cries of pain.
Jiang Cheng opened his eyes, and the fallen branch had already been caught by him. The peaceful girl under the tree seemed to have woken up at this moment, opening her clear, pure, pink and blue decorated big eyes, staring straight at him.
The whole world seemed to stagnate for it, and the flow of time stopped in the eye contact between the ink-colored pupils and the turquoise, sea-blue eyes.
Until Jiang Cheng gently stretched out his right hand, making a self-introduction as if possessed.
"Hello."
"My name is Jiang Cheng."
"Do you want to come with me?"
Jiang Cheng's slightly raised corners of the mouth, gentle smile, and outstretched right hand, inviting her, were reflected in the blue, magnificent starry eyes.
—At this moment, time flowed again... estranged dawn, slanting spring breeze, green forest, flowers roll by the wind.
And most importantly, the flawless girl... jpg
There is an illustration here, which can be viewed after the version is updated