Su Ling'er tried again and again.
Over and over.
She had the little insect hide inside a tree trunk.
Or on the rafters of a building.
She even had it crawl into the mouth of a wild beast.
But every time, she failed.
Finally, she gave up the struggle. She collapsed onto the straw, staring at the hole in the roof.
The sun had set. The last rays of twilight squeezed through the cracks in the window, dyeing the dilapidated thatched hut the color of blood.
That light was just like the state of her heart—utterly still, with nothing but dying embers left.
A patch of light appeared on the ground beside her.
Within it, a few motes of dust danced and spun in silence before settling once more...
The pot of Sorrow Flowers she had brought back, however, had quietly bloomed with a tiny, ethereal blue light.
The settling dust reflected her hopes, burned to ash time and again;
The ethereal blue blossom shared in her current sorrow.
But why?
