Su Mei tried to fix it.
She was the Creator of the current epoch. She had the power of Creation.
She returned to the center of the universe. She gathered the fundamental particles of
reality—Time, Soul, Matter, Memory.
"If I cannot find his soul," she reasoned, her eyes burning with a terrifying intensity, "I will
recreate it. I remember him perfectly. I have every data point."
She wove a spell of unimaginable complexity. She carved a pocket dimension out of the
timeline.
She rebuilt Cloud Sparrow City.
It was perfect. The smell of fried dough. The muddy streets. The annoying neighbors. She
recreated them all from her memories, breathing life into them with her divine Qi.
And in the center, she rebuilt the Golden Phoenix Pavilion.
And she rebuilt Li Wei.
She poured her own golden blood—his blood—into the construct. She gave him his memories,
his personality, his laugh.
Su Mei suppressed her own power. She sealed her memories of the last thousand years. She
transformed herself back into the nineteen-year-old girl.
She walked into the shop.
"Li Wei?" she called out, her heart hammering.
The man behind the counter turned around. He looked exactly like him. He smiled.
"Mei'er! You're back early," he said. "Did you get the silk?"
Su Mei burst into tears. She ran to him and hugged him. He felt warm. He smelled like ink and
tea.
"I missed you," she sobbed into his chest. "I had a terrible nightmare."
"It's okay," the construct soothed her, patting her hair. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."
For a month, it was paradise. They lived the life they should have had. They sold mirrors. They
cooked dinner. They argued about the price of turnips.
But slowly, the cracks appeared.
One night, Su Mei couldn't sleep. She sat up in bed.
"Li Wei," she whispered.
"Yes, Mei'er?" he answered instantly, opening his eyes.
"Do you think... do you think I should cultivate?" she asked, testing him.
The construct smiled. " Whatever makes you happy, Mei'er. I support you."
"Even if it means I become a monster?"
"I will love you even if you are a monster," he recited perfectly.
Su Mei frowned. "What if I kill you?"
"Then I will die happy," he said without hesitation.
Su Mei pulled away. "No."
"What's wrong?"
"You are too perfect," Su Mei whispered. "The real Li Wei... he would have been scared. He
would have argued. He would have told me to stop being an idiot."
She looked into his eyes. They were Li Wei's eyes, but there was no light behind them. There "I am Li Wei," the construct insisted. "I love you, Su Mei."
"Stop it!" Su Mei screamed.
Her control slipped. Her Emperor-level aura leaked out.
The room froze. The construct of Li Wei froze mid-sentence.
Su Mei stood in the bedroom of her false heaven. She looked at the frozen doll.
"The real Li Wei is dead," she said, the illusion shattering. "He died on a rock in the void. And I
killed him."
She walked to the window. She looked at the fake city she had built.
"Delete," she commanded.
The city dissolved into particles of light. The shop dissolved. The Li Wei construct dissolved,
smiling until his face vanished.
Su Mei stood alone in the emptiness of space.
She had tried to cheat the cost. But the cost was absolute.
She realized then that true love isn't just memory. It's the spark of another independent soul—a
soul she had extinguished.
"I cannot go back," she said. "And I cannot create a new way."
She summoned her Stellar Ice Throne. She sat down in the middle of the nothingness.
"Then I will simply wait," she decided. "The universe will end one day. Maybe at the end of time,
I will find him in the darkness."
She closed her eyes. She slowed her heart rate to one beat per millennium.
She entered the long sleep of the eternal.