"...It’s done."
Wang Xiao exhaled, like a blacksmith finally pulling the blade from the fire.
The girl stood before him, wrapped tight in white bands like a gift soone had forgotten to label. He nodded, oddly satisfied, as if unwrapping her wasn’t the point, wrapping her was.
Splash!
He turned at the sudden noise.
Xue Hanqin was flailing gracelessly, soaked to the bone, standing on a half-rotted wooden plank in water barely ten centiters deep.
"...Um." He blinked at her. "Have you lost your mind?"
Her dark bangs stuck to her forehead, golden U-shaped earrings dripping. The water plastered her clothes to her body until they were practically translucent. She tilted her head, lips curving in a smile far too charming for the ss she looked like. "No."
"??"
A visible question mark might as well have floated above Wang Xiao’s head. "The water doesn’t even reach your ankles. And if you hate dipping your feet so much... why not just fly?"
She ran a hand back through her wet hair, ignoring his logic. "Is it so easy? Then why don’t you cut the chase and bring back the actual soul you’re trying to revive, instead of carving one out of scraps and nearly giving a heart attack?"
"..."
His lips stiffened. Wait... Was she... sulking? Because he pulled off sothing she, Lady Reincarnation, couldn’t?
"I am not jealous," she said flatly, as though reading his eyes and stamping out the thought before it grew. Still, her gaze slid back to the girl he’d just made, pale-skinned, hair silver-gray, body wrapped tight in bandages. Her brows rose at the sudden fullness beneath the cloth.
Wang Xiao ignored her judgntal stare, still admiring his work. "She is Eternity. Once she was Yin Yue, a hell spirit. Now..." His tone sharpened. "...As for your question, I did try to find her soul. Couldn’t, sothing ate it."
With a flick of his finger, he projected the image: a tornado-like abomination swirling in the Graveyard of Gods.
"I can track that," Xue Hanqin said quickly, eyes narrowing as she shut them.
A second later, her face twisted.
"You can’t." Wang Xiao’s reply was flat, already certain.
Her eyes opened, annoyed.
"I’ve tried to replicate her as best as I could," he said, glancing back at the figure wrapped in bandages. "Maybe it’s her. Maybe not. Maybe it’s just Yang Yuhuan in new skin. I don’t know."
He sighed.
The girl twitched, as if hearing fragnts she couldn’t quite grasp. Her slender fingers reached up and tugged at the bandage over her eyes.
The strip peeled away...
A ruby eye blinked into the world, glimring like crystallized blood, whole another covered under her bangs, confused as if an headache, she moved her hand behind her head, half-hidden in her silver-gray hair, as if scratching her head confusion.
Her lips moved and trembled, words fighting their way out of emptiness.
She stared at the two figures before her, two blinks, slow, consecutive, then a tilt of her head, chanical yet strangely graceful.
"..."
Wang Xiao didn’t speak.
Xue Hanqin’s breath halted, caught in her throat as if even exhaling might break the scene.
The girl raised her hands. The movent was stiff, deliberate. Pale fingers stretched open, trembling as she held them up to the starlight. For a mont she studied her own skin, then turned her gaze back to theirs, comparing, asuring, as though trying to understand what similar even ant.
Her mouth opened. A faint rasp, fragile and uneven, spilled out like cracks forming in thin ice.
"...s...a?"
The single word echoed.
Not a question.
Not an answer.
Just raw curiosity, unpolished, unowned.
Like a newborn tasting sound for the first ti.
Xue Hanqin’s lips quivered. Her eyes darted to Wang Xiao. "...She... doesn’t know you?"
Wang Xiao’s lips twitched, a faint smile curved, almost imperceptible. He said nothing. He only stared at the being he had shaped, not with disappointnt, but with the sa curiosity she mirrored back.
Creator and creation, both studying each other as strangers.
He sighed, shoulders dropping. This girl, this "Eternity", would have to learn everything from scratch. How to walk, how to speak, how to even exist. Right now, she didn’t even seem to realize she had power at all.
He stared at Eternity’s ruby eye, wondering if she’d ever recognize him.
A sigh slipped out. Recognition... escape... freedom?
His mind drifted, sowhere else, another woman was trying to die?
_____
Ti slipped by... backwards.
Earth, the Wang family villa.
Right before the mont, Eveline closed her eyes, arms spread wide, as if embracing the end. For once she looked... free. The tension gone, her face glowed with a strange smile, fragile, beautiful, like soone ready to let go of chains she’d carried her whole life.
"Stupid!"
Splash!
Cold water hit her across the face, followed by a voice.
"Eh?!" Eveline’s lashes snapped open, blinking furiously.
Her eyes darted up. Yue had vaulted past her, water scattering as she landed in front of Zhenxi. She caught the little girl’s hand, shaking her hard, snapping her free from whatever haze Eveline had woven.
The others just stared, confused, at Eveline, at Yue.
"...?" Eveline touched her cheek, fingertips brushing wetness. She turned, nothing above her but a perfect blue sky.
No explosion, no asteroid... Just sky.
"...Have you lost it?"
The voice slapped cold.
Mary stood beside her, silent as death, her dark eyes shining. Eveline hadn’t even felt her approach.
A shiver rippled down her spine. ’Since when... did this woman scare ?’ The thought was bitter, unwelco, but worse than that was the question hamring her skull.
’What just happened?’
Because she knew what she’d felt, sothing barreling toward her, unstoppable, like the sky itself had leapt to crush her... and then, nothing.
Nothing but a splash of water.
"..."
"..."
The awkward clash had killed the pool party before it even started.
Up above, from the window of his villa, Wang Xiao gazed down at the courtyard. Eveline’s face was drawn, deflated, the expression of soone who thought she’d finally escaped, only to be yanked back into chains.
"Not so soon..."
A quiet chuckle rolled from his throat. He shook his head, amused.
Behind him, fabric strained and snapped.
"Ah, Dad!" Yanyan’s voice pitched with frustration. "They... they really got bigger!"
He turned slightly, eyebrow raised. She stood in front of the mirror, dark hair loose around her pale smooth shoulders, flushed cheeks glowing as she tried to stuff her swollen chest into a dark blouse that clearly wasn’t designed for it. Pale skin spilled out of the gap, the buttons straining as her smooth hands pressed her breasts down, sighing in defeat.
Her eyes narrowed, accusatory. "You... you made them bigger on purpose, didn’t you?"
Wang Xiao blinked innocently. "It’s not your body, the clothes shrank. Hanqin’s prank."
Silly woman, she didn’t even bother to stay, just vanished back to the Netherworld. Sothing about being hunted, about needing to strike before being cornered. Guerrilla warfare in the underworld? Whatever ga she was playing, he wasn’t losing sleep over it.
Not his problem... Yet.
His eyes slid back to Yanyan.
Her body was freshly reconstructed, waist tighter, smoother than before, and the sight of her squirming, chest nearly spilling free, only made his smile widen.
"Though," he drawled, leaning back against the wall, "if you keep bouncing like that, I might start taking credit."
Yanyan’s face burned red, her hands fumbled at the buttons, the swell of her breasts nearly bursting free. "This is too tight!"
"You look better without clothes anyway," Wang Xiao said casually, as if he were comnting on the weather.
He chuckled, pushing off the wall and brushing past her, "Leave them like that. Looks good on you. Besides..." His gaze drifted deliberately down her straining chest, "...I don’t mind if they break."
Yanyan’s heart skipped, whether in anger or heat, she didn’t even know.
Wang Xiao ignored her fluster, his mind already drifting to other matters. Yin Yue. Or rather, the girl he had made , not Yin Yue, not anyone he knew, just sothing new.
The experint was a failure. Yet the result... promising.
A creation tied to him, bound by soul, controllable. Maybe not the spirit he wanted, but a fighter he could train.
A ssenger for him?
Or a weapon?
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