Child

The night breeze stirred the curtains, carrying with it the faint scent of roses.

Once the blush on her ears had faded slightly, Ophelia turned her head and met his gaze again.

“And now?” she asked.

Klein didn't quite follow. “What?”

“You said earlier that you used to plan on being an inconspicuous baron, spending all your time in the laboratory.” Ophelia looked at him, her tone calm, yet carrying a trace of expectation she hadn't even noticed herself. “Now... what do you want your future life to be like?”

It was a serious question.

Klein set aside his playful mood. He sat up straight, his gaze falling on her left hand, which she always kept hidden in the shadows.

He reached out and took her contaminated left hand in a gentle but firm grip.

Ophelia’s fingers curled instinctively, like a startled animal trying to retreat into its burrow.

But Klein gave her no room to withdraw. The warmth of his palm covered hers steadily—not burning, not forceful, but simply enveloping all her unease.

“More or less the same.”

Klein lightly stroked the slightly rough, ominously black marks on the back of her hand with his thumb, answering decisively. “I'll continue researching alchemy, strive to understand the nature of those things on the west coast as soon as possible, and then cure you.”

His thumb paused on one of the deepest black lines, his touch as light as if he were tracing a precious artifact.

“So that in the future, you can show your hands openly. You won't have to hide them away like you do now.”

Ophelia’s breathing became extremely light and shallow in that moment, as if she were afraid that a slightly heavier breath would shatter this fragile tenderness.

She could feel that when his fingertips brushed over those rough patterns, there wasn't a hint of hesitation or forced care—it was as if that hand had never been different at all.

Her heart skipped a beat.

“Is there anything else?” she pressed, her voice slightly husky. It was so soft it was nearly swallowed by the chirping of insects outside.

“And then?” Klein turned sideways to look directly into her shimmering eyes, his tone light yet incredibly solemn. “To have a child with you.”

The room fell silent instantly.

Even the rustling of the curtains in the night breeze seemed to vanish out of tact; the entire world was reduced to the breathing of two people.

The heat Ophelia had fought so hard to suppress exploded again, spreading from her cheeks all the way down her slender neck, even staining her collarbones with a thin layer of crimson.

She could feel her ears burning—so hot she almost suspected they would emit a wisp of steam if the moonlight touched them.

She abruptly looked away, her right hand unconsciously gripping the fabric of her skirt so hard her knuckles turned white.

Her mind went blank, as if all her calm and reason had been blown to pieces by that sentence.

She opened her mouth, wanting to say something to save her dignity as an imperial knight—but her throat felt blocked, and she couldn't squeeze out a single syllable.

Klein, however, didn't intend to let her off so easily this time.

He leaned closer to her, closing the final distance between them until he could smell the faint scent of roses lingering in her hair after her bath, until his breath almost stirred the stray hairs at her temples.

“Ophelia,” he whispered her name, a hint of playful amusement hidden in his tone. “Tell me, for our future child, should we have a boy or a girl?”

The question was as blunt as a heavy hammer, striking precisely at the Knightess’s last remaining shreds of reserve.

She whipped her head around to glare at him.

However, because she was so embarrassed, the Knightess's supposedly intimidating glare, paired with her flushed face, held no lethality whatsoever. Instead, she looked like a cat that had its tail stepped on—angry and bristling, but with a layer of mist in her eyes that was nothing short of adorable.

She finally managed to find her voice, forcing out a final bit of composure to retort, “Is such a thing even for me to decide?”

The moment the words left her mouth, she regretted them.

Because the implication of that sentence wasn't a rejection at all—it was an acceptance of the premise.

Sure enough, Klein smiled.

“That’s hard to say. After all, the world of magic and alchemy is full of miracles.” He chuckled, his good mood unconcealed. “If it’s a girl, it would be best if she takes after you. Golden hair, golden eyes, beautiful... and it would be even better if her personality is like yours too.”

Ophelia’s brow twitched.

“And if it’s a boy...”

Klein intentionally dragged out the last word, keeping her in suspense.

“What about a boy?”

The words had already escaped her before Ophelia realized she had been led by the nose again.

The man was doing this on purpose. She bit her lower lip, annoyed yet unable to stop herself from wanting to hear the rest.

“If it’s a boy, he definitely has to take after you,” Klein said righteously, even letting out a mock-serious sigh, his face wearing a pained expression of ‘for the sake of the family’s future, I have no choice but to sacrifice my own genes.’ “After all, I’m just a ‘decent-looking’ rural baron, quite ordinary. To ensure the next generation’s looks win at the starting line, we’ll have to rely on the Empire’s famous Knightess to strongly improve the bloodline.”

He picked up her previous evaluation of him being “decent-looking” and used it as a weapon for self-deprecation, wielding it with practiced ease and zero hesitation.

Ophelia was moved to laughter by his shameless, twisted logic.

A soft laugh escaped her nose, like a stifled giggle she couldn't hold back.

“Nonsense,” she chided lightly, the reproach in her tone sweeter than honey.

But she didn't pull back her left hand from his grasp.

Nor did she argue against the topic of children.

The moonlight was like water, quietly pooling over their overlapping hands.

The black markings and the clean lines of his palm intertwined, creating a strange harmony under the silver-white glow.

It was as if the outline of the future was hidden in the gaps between their interlaced fingers, being sketched out clearly, bit by bit.

...

The same moonlight felt much colder when it shone on the imperial capital thousands of miles away.

The sprawling palace complexes were layered upon one another, their grand domes sketching solemn silhouettes against the night sky.

In the deepest part of this city of power, in a corner where all the glory and clamor could not reach, was an inconspicuous wooden door.

Behind the door was a world of its own.

The cramped room was packed to the brim with all sorts of strange and eccentric things.

Magic ore stones of various sizes and cuts were scattered on the floor, emitting a soft, warm glow like fallen stars, illuminating the room in patches of light and shadow.

In a corner, an ancient-looking crucible bubbled, releasing mysterious purple fumes, with tiny sparks occasionally bursting as bubbles popped.

The air was thick with the scent of at least seven conflicting elemental auras, mixed together to smell like a chaotic stew of an apothecary and a blacksmith shop.

In the center of the room, a slender figure wrapped in a large black robe squatted on the floor.

The hood of the black robe was pulled very low, hiding almost her entire face, leaving only a glimpse of a chin so fair it was nearly transparent.

She held a half-length, sharply sharpened charcoal pencil, drawing and writing on a massive piece of parchment that covered the entire floor.

The parchment was densely packed with formulas and runes. The logic behind the arrangement of those symbols was eerie and profound; part of it looked like traditional advanced alchemical deduction, while another part completely transcended existing theoretical frameworks—as if using the language of this world to describe a law that did not yet belong to it.

If any Archmage of the Empire saw this parchment, they would likely feel their scalp go numb before sinking into a deep suspicion that they had lived their decades in vain.

“Achoo—!”

Without warning, the black-robed girl let out an earth-shattering sneeze.

Her entire body lurched forward, and her hood nearly flew off. Her hand shook, and the precision charcoal pencil drew a startling black line right through the middle of the deduction formula she was about to complete.

That black line was like a scar, cutting right through the third layer of the core formula's nested structure, neatly announcing that several hours of hard work were now wasted.

She remained in her squatting position, frozen in place.

The gaze beneath her hood stared fixedly at that black line, unmoving.

Half a minute passed.

“...”

Another half minute passed.

“Strange fluctuations.”

She finally spoke. Her voice was cold and flat, without a single ripple, like a stone resting at the bottom of a frozen lake in winter. But the words she spoke carried a somewhat mismatched dorkiness.

She rubbed her nose, which was itchy from the sneeze, her hood swaying slightly with the movement.

“Intensity is low, but the resonance frequency is abnormal... unquantifiable, unlocatable, unrepeatable,” she muttered to herself, as if reporting experimental data to the air. “Excluding the possibility of environmental interference and elemental tides... high probability of bloodline resonance.”

She was silent for a second before reaching a conclusion.

“Dad must be saying something nonsense again.”

There was no response from the surroundings.

Only the bubbling of the potion in the crucible served as faithful background noise, with occasional sparks casting flickering shadows on the walls.

She slowly stood up.

Her movements were as sluggish as a cat that had just woken up—first her knees straightened, then her waist, then her shoulders, and finally her head—the whole process took at least five seconds. She stretched, brushed off the charcoal and ore dust clinging to her robe, and resignedly bent over to peel the ruined parchment from the floor, crumpling it into a ball and tossing it behind her without looking.

The ball of paper traced a precise parabola across half the room, landing steadily in a wastebasket in the corner that was already piled high with paper.

The basket wobbled but didn't tip over.

“Seventy-third time,” she recorded the number of failures tonelessly, her voice as calm as if she were reporting the weather.

She turned around, her gaze sweeping over several notebooks spread out on the desk.

The cover of the top one was frayed from use, and in the bottom right corner, a line of small words was written in extremely neat handwriting—but it wasn't her handwriting. It was another style, more elegant and casual, with a hint of unrestrained flair.

Her gaze lingered on that line for a moment, then moved away.

“Whatever.” She shook her head and tossed the charcoal pencil back onto the desk, where it rolled half a turn before stopping. “I can make up the progress tomorrow. It’s time to go back.”

She raised her hand, her slender fingers undoing the hidden clasp at her collar.

The heavy black robe, freed from its constraint, slid slowly from her slender shoulders, piling at her feet like melting night. Beneath the robe was a simple white long dress, making her appear as cold and pure as snow.

The warm glow of the magic ore stones dispelled the last shadow cast by the hood, clearly illuminating her full face.

It was an incredibly exquisite face.

Her skin was as white as porcelain, and the lines of her features were soft yet sharp, like a masterpiece completed by a god in an excellent mood.

However, the slight upward tilt of her eyes and her tightly pursed thin lips added a touch of inviolable, sharp heroism to that refinement—like an ice rose blooming in solitude on a high mountain, so beautiful that one wouldn't dare approach lightly.

Her long hair poured out from the hood, flowing with a brilliant luster under the glow of the ore stones.

It was golden.

Like molten sunlight.

She slowly raised her eyes.

Her pupils lit up in the dim light—brilliant, bright, as if molten gold had been poured into an amber mold.

They were identical to Ophelia’s eyes.

But if one looked closely, the slope of her brow and the curve of her nose held a faint trace of something else—gentler, more resilient, like a determination that had its edges polished.

That trace came from another person.

The girl bent down to pick up the black robe, folding it unhurriedly and placing it neatly on the edge of the desk. Every fold was meticulous, as if she were completing a ritual only she understood.

Having finished this, she let out a long breath.

Then she walked toward the wooden door.

Her hand rested on the rough door panel.

The door did not push open.

Instead, it dissipated on its own.

The door panel dissolved and vanished like a drop of ink in water, revealing the scene behind it.

There was no palace corridor, no night in the imperial capital, nothing belonging to this world.

Only a bottomless, brilliant long path paved with countless star fragments.

The galaxy stretched out beneath her feet toward infinity. Every star was like a sleeping door, and one of them was glowing—tenderly, faintly, yet incredibly persistently flashing toward her.

That was the direction she needed to return to.

The starlight shattered, and the long path was silent.

Her figure disappeared completely into the brilliance.

And in the rural manor thousands of miles away, Klein shivered for no reason and subconsciously tightened his grip on Ophelia’s hand.

“What is it?” Ophelia looked at him, tilting her head.

“Nothing.” He rubbed the back of his neck and laughed for some reason. “I suddenly felt... like someone was calling me.”

The moonlight still shone quietly on the roses on the windowsill.

The dew condensed on the petals reflected tiny glints of light, looking very much like a distant, endless galaxy.