Tang Xin looked around, only to turn back and find the little girl silently standing where she was, watching her.
"I'm talking about you."
"You can see me?" Tang Xin pointed at herself.
The little girl did not answer her. Pulling a long face, she turned and ran off at a sprint. Tang Xin snapped out of it and chased after her. The two of them passed through a long corridor, where sunlight streamed in through small windows, dust motes dancing in the air as the light slanted into a garden.
Tang Xin watched her younger self stand on her tiptoes, trying her best to reach a watering can on a flower stand. After several attempts and a few hops, Tang Xin let out a soft chuckle. She stepped forward, picked up the watering can, and handed it to the little girl.
As she touched those thin, frail little hands, Tang Xin's gaze wavered slightly as memories flooded back. Most children in the orphanage were malnourished, but she had often refused to eat out of spite. Over time, she had become so small and thin that she looked out of place among the children who were starting to hit their growth spurts.
"Why don't you react when they call you Sevia?"
The little girl took the watering can from her, but seemingly out of spite, she didn't even give her a look. She crouched her tiny body down in front of a small patch of earth where a cluster of irises was growing and began to water them.
Tang Xin was initially puzzled, then came a moment of realization. Until she met Xu Xiaoyou, and before she left the Starry Art Academy, she had always been very resistant to others calling her Sevia. In the ancient Winter tongue, this name meant the Flower of Winter. More than a rejection of the Winter family, she was rejecting that woman who was always draped in the scent of rouge and dressed in disarray.
When exactly did she stop being resistant to this name?
Or rather, when did she start actively accepting this name....
"Why didn't you react?"
Faced with the questioning of her younger self, Tang Xin was momentarily speechless, not knowing how to answer without hurting her.
However, looking at that stubborn little face, the tension in Tang Xin's brow softened slightly. Perhaps her younger self was stronger than she thought.
"Xiao Xin, can I call you that?" Tang Xin asked softly.
The little girl nodded.
"Because I have things that I absolutely must do. I can't achieve anything with just my own strength alone."
"So, have you achieved them now?" Xiao Xin asked.
Recalling the last sight she saw—the thousands of souls floating on the giant musical score, the screams and wails of the people, the performance that ended in tragedy, and the dark, silent gaze of the golden-haired girl—she couldn't help but give a bitter smile.
Xiao Xin saw the girl's embarrassment and followed up, "What things are so important that you have to do them?"
"To wake up more people before an even greater tragedy arrives? But they clearly have nothing to do with you," Xiao Xin said. "Why bother saving people who have nothing to do with you?"
"Because I don't want to see so many people suffer through such a disaster."
"If you don't want to see it, just leave this place," Xiao Xin furrowed her brows.
"There are some things that won't stop happening just because you don't want to see them." Tang Xin lowered her eyes and crouched down beside Xiao Xin, reaching out to help her gather the soil around the small cluster of irises.
"Even if I flee to the farthest reaches of the world, it doesn't mean the suffering here will stop. Because I know the snow here still falls endlessly, and the way people struggle in the mire will still appear before my eyes....."
"But what do those people have to do with you!" Xiao Xin loudly interrupted Tang Xin's words, her stubborn little face tense, looking as if she were angry. "Why do you care about them?"
"It's not about caring," Tang Xin tried to explain, "it's that I cannot endure it......"
"When I grow up, my sympathy won't be so overflowing!"
Xiao Xin seemed determined to vent all her suppressed emotions, shouting many accusations at Tang Xin. Her thin, small body erupted with a strength that didn't seem to belong to her as she suddenly stepped forward and pushed Tang Xin over into the flower bed.
"I won't forgive myself for being like this!"
Tang Xin sat in the flower bed, the soil staining her white dress. Watching Xiao Xin's shoulders tremble uncontrollably with bloodshot eyes before she ran far away, the heavy gloom in her chest refused to dissipate.
Tang Xin stood up, shaking the dirt from her fingers, feeling helpless about her soiled white dress.
She hadn't expected herself to be so stubborn as a child that she wouldn't even forgive her grown-up self.
At the same time, the other's questioning also condensed into a block of ice in her heart, manifesting itself.
Why did she feel the same pain when she saw the people of the world suffering?
To the point where she couldn't bear it and desperately desired to stand up and change the status quo?
With this question in mind, she walked in the direction Xiao Xin had left, arriving before a door in the corner of the garden and pushing it open.
After seeing the layout of the room clearly, a circle of moisture welled up in Tang Xin's eyes.
She saw a woman sitting calmly in a chair under the flickering candlelight, knitting sweaters for the children in preparation for winter. Meanwhile, her younger self was hugging the woman, burying her small face in the woman's waist without saying a word.
She didn't ask about her confusion, nor did she vent her grievances.
"Dean Aerylia," Tang Xin called out the woman's name with a raspy voice.
The woman sitting in the rocking chair looked up toward the door as if sensing something, but she saw only emptiness. The wind and snow outside whistled, blowing open the doors and windows. The cold wind and snowflakes rushed recklessly into the small room.
Aerylia chuckled twice, her rough palm stroking little Xiao Xin's dirty face in her arms as she patted her back.
"Little Sevia, what do you want to do in the future?" Aerylia asked.
"I want to stand on a stage and sing so that everyone can hear me," Xiao Xin said. "I want to become a star like Marilynn."
"Little Sevia, why do you want everyone to hear your songs?" Aerylia guided a needle and thread through the sweater, a soft, warm light blurring the upper edge of her reading glasses.
"Because..." Xiao Xin fell silent, looking back at the blue-haired figure by the door.
Because she wanted everyone to hear beautiful singing, to make unhappy people feel better.
This simple answer had sprouted in her heart long ago. It wasn't strange at all that it would grow into a giant tree later.
Xiao Xin didn't want to forgive the girl so easily. After the girl walked over, she stood up and continued to run far away.
Tang Xin walked to the woman's rocking chair, her lips tightly pursed as she called the woman's name, "Dean Aerylia?"
The wind blew gently, causing a few strands of blue hair to drift onto the old woman's shoulder. She slowly raised her head, and Tang Xin saw that her weathered face was full of wrinkles, looking so unfamiliar that she almost didn't recognize her.
She hadn't used any of those cheap skincare products.
After growing up, she had never seen the woman appear before the children looking like this.
It turned out she had already grown old.
The tracks of the past and reality overlapped at this moment. The old woman's eyes were filled with tears, and her grey hair slid down.
Those eyes, shimmering with points of light, gazed deeply into hers.
A thousand words melted into a single sentence as Aerylia said with a smile, "In the blink of an eye, it turns out little Sevia has already grown so big."
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