The white windmills on the distant mountain ridge turned slowly.
The sun looked down upon Dusk Street, watching over the peaceful and warm remote town.
Its gaze traveled to the church on the outskirts, crawling up the walls to the roof, peeking inside through the windows and the cracks in the door.
Inside the prayer room, meant for confession, the light gradually dimmed to a faint amber.
Time flowed on in tranquility.
At some point, the evening sun had already set behind the mountains, and the curtain of night began to close in. The church in the maple forest was bathed in the gentle and warm light of the stars and moon.
In the clear, water-like night, the cross at the top of the church refracted the light, appearing even more solemn and holy.
Ye Feng emerged from the nun's main prayer hall and let out a sweet milk burp.
"So fragrant."
Old Ye wiped his moist lips. Looking at the maple forest, as bright as day under the starlight, he couldn't help but say:
"Still, without the size difference, it feels like something is missing."
Ye Feng thought seriously, actively searching for a reasonable opportunity to transform into a little shota who was only as tall as Mama Aponia's chest.
That height would be just right. He could reach by standing on his tiptoes, rather than having to bend down or make Mama Aponia sit.
Ye Feng returned to his room. Aponia was still lying limply on one of the wooden pews at the front of the church.
The long, white veil on the nun's head had come undone along with her watery hair, flowing down along the surface of the bench.
One of her shapely legs hung limply down. The high-heeled shoe on her delicate, jade-like foot had fallen off at some point and now lay askew on the ground in a sorry state.
After an unknown amount of time, Aponia finally came back to her senses. A sliver of light returned to her ascetic, world-weary pupils.
The nun gently wiped the sweat from her body and, like a beautiful matron who had been utterly humiliated, slowly and feebly closed the front of her habit.
Then, Aponia sat up straight on the pew, the curve of her full, firm buttocks pressed against the hardwood creating a breathtaking line.
She folded her hands elegantly in her lap.
Her legs were held together demurely, but her left foot was clad only in a white sock while the other wore a black high-heeled shoe. The asymmetrical attire displayed a kind of disheveled beauty that should not appear in a church.
The nun, so improperly dressed, stepped onto the cold floor of the holy church.
A complex and painful holiness flashed in Aponia's eyes.
She couldn't help but look up at the holy statue of the goddess. To have done it here…
Blasphemy.
Irreverence.
In the sacred and solemn church, every word and deed should be bound by rules and restraint.
Aponia stood up, one foot in a high heel, the other in a white sock, and walked to the prayer station before the goddess statue. She knelt piously, her ten fingers intertwined before her chest.
The cold moonlight spilled down from the transparent glass dome, casting a pure halo around the nun, making her shimmer with a dreamlike, chaste light.
"O Lord, I am already a sinner. I do not dare ask for forgiveness. But this is all my fault, my sin. The karmic debt is already forged. If punishment is to be dealt, I am willing to bear it all. I only hope that child, my Little Feng, can grow up healthy and happy, and live a life without worries."
「After this incident, Aponia intentionally or unintentionally distanced herself from Feng.」
「She would always lock herself in the prayer room, confessing her sins to God, praying for Little Feng's happiness.」
「It is said that all things are difficult before they are easy; once you take the first step, the countless steps that follow become simple.」
「But for Aponia, whose mind was as firm as a rock, this was not the case.」
「Once she set her mind on something, it was nearly impossible to turn back.」
「The nun abided by the ascetic rules and disciplines. Though she possessed the gentle, doting love of a benevolent mother, she also had the self-abusing restraint of a disciplined ascetic.」
「No matter how much Feng cried or fussed, Aponia would never cross that line again.」
「The days passed, one after another, in peace.」
「Aponia only wished for Feng to grow up healthy, to watch him marry and have children, to guard him through a happy life. That was Aponia's happiness.」
「But the things one fears most are often what come to pass. Misfortune still befell them.」
「Aponia's Feng, her most beloved Feng, the Feng in whom she had invested everything, contracted a strange illness.」
「Dr. Mobius from the small town's private hospital said it was [Entropinversion], a disease where the body undergoes reverse growth, constantly "regressing" as if time were flowing backward, until it returns to a fetal state, and finally to nothingness. At that point, it would be no different from death.」
「There was currently no cure, not even a way to slow it down.」
「When Aponia learned this news, she was struck as if by lightning, and spent her days washing her face with tears.」
Aponia hid in the prayer room and cried, believing it was all her fault.
It was a punishment from God for her blasphemy.
"In the end, I couldn't change anything."
"I failed to save anyone."
"This is my sin. This is my fate."
The nun knelt in confession before the statue.
A line of clear tears slid down her cheek and dripped onto the floor, scattering like a flower.
"I still… can't do anything…"
Can 'fate' truly not be changed?
All her attempts to resist fate would only entangle herself and others in an even more tragic and unpredictable situation.
"Crying again."
A slightly childish voice came from nearby.
Aponia's heart fluttered in panic. Before she could wipe away the tear tracks at the corners of her eyes, Feng had already walked up to her.
"I already told you, it has nothing to do with Mama Aponia."
Aponia was kneeling in prayer before the statue, and when Ye Feng came before her, he wasn't much taller.
Ye Feng cupped Aponia's face and gently wiped away her tears.
Seeing how well-behaved and sensible her child was, Aponia's eyes welled up with tears again, making her resemble a shattered statue of a goddess.
She gazed at Ye Feng. The child who had once been as tall as her had now become like this.
"It's all my fault. If you hadn't met me back then, but someone else, you would surely be happier now… at the very least, you wouldn't have to suffer such heavy hardship."
"That's not true at all!"
Ye Feng forcefully hugged the kneeling nun.
"Dr. Mobius said so too, this illness is just hereditary. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been abandoned in the maple forest back then. Meeting Mama Aponia is the greatest happiness of my life. No one else would do, it could only be Mama Aponia!"
Hearing her child's declaration-like words, Aponia's heart felt like it was about to break.
"...Little Feng."
Aponia hugged Ye Feng back, clutching him tightly in her embrace as if she were afraid he would disappear at any moment.
The nun's voluptuous, moist body seemed like the gaping maw of an abyss, about to swallow the little boy whole.
Ye Feng enjoyed the suffocating sensation, which was both painful and pleasurable.
Only after Aponia's emotions had slowly calmed did he speak.
"Mama Aponia, I'm hungry."
"Eh?"
The same person, the same place. Aponia had heard the same words before. And committed a sin.
Aponia released Ye Feng, her watery gaze fixed on the little boy before her. As if having made a decision, her hands, which had been tightly folded over her lower abdomen, twisted together.
She glanced at the statue. The stone carving was solemn and dignified, looking down on the mortal world with indifference.
"I will bow my head in confession, but I will never stop moving forward."