The girl stood at the steps in a snow-white outfit. When the wind lifted the hem of her clothes, the dark skirt beneath reflected the sunlight of Jinzhou, like a white crane skimming over an ink pool, its trailing feathers drifting with the breeze.
A pale blue ribbon loosely tied her crane-white hair, while stray strands fell over her shoulders, as if blending into half a shoulder of moonlight.
Yet those crimson eyes burned like fire, adding a faint flush to her frost-like face. The light across the entire street seemed to dim by a few degrees because of her.
Noticing the boy standing there in a daze, Sanhua raised her hand to tuck the loose strands behind her ear. Though she remained cold as ever, the corner of her eyes curved upward just slightly.
"How is it?"
It wasn't strange for Zane to be stunned. Who wouldn't be moved seeing Sanhua like this?
"Very beautiful."
Hearing his evaluation, Sanhua, who rarely showed any expression, actually let the corner of her lips lift slightly, like clear skies after sudden snowfall.
Doctor's mask had replaced the beret she usually wore. Masked, holding a cold blade, chanting incantations, driving away plague and evil, banishing all corruption.
Under Zane's bright, positive, and "healthy" suggestions, Sanhua's beautiful back was held by nothing more than a single thin string. If needed, all it would take was a light flick to snap that string…
But Zane looked her up and down, left and right, feeling like something was missing. After examining her dozens of times, he finally found the problem.
"How could Sanhua not have that?"
Sanhua looked at him in confusion, stepping closer on her smooth, long legs. There was a questioning look in her crimson eyes.
Then, under her strange gaze, Zane quietly took out a pair of stockings from his pocket…
"If I'm not mistaken, these should be mine, right…"
For a moment, Zane felt a chill under her stare. But for the sake of letting Sanhua wear stockings, so what if he exposed the fact that he had stolen them?
A Sanhua without black stockings was not a complete Sanhua, just like the 3D world couldn't exist without Tifa.
Even if one pair was discovered, thousands more of Sanhua's stockings would stand up in his collection.
Everyone dies someday. Some die under Rover's blade, others under Sanhua's stockings.
He, Zane, had no regrets.
But just as Zane closed his eyes, waiting for death to arrive, death seemed to play a joke on him. A faint fragrance brushed past his face.
When he opened his eyes, the girl had already taken the stockings and walked back toward the changing room.
'I'm still alive!?'
While Zane was celebrating his narrow escape, Sanhua, who had already stepped into the changing room, felt a hint of amusement.
She lowered her head slightly, looking at the stockings she had regained, and couldn't help but curse softly, "coward."
Even now, he still didn't understand what it meant for a girl to let a boy take her personal clothing.
Lost in thought, Sanhua stepped lightly on the cold floor with her bare feet.
Her skin was gradually covered by black as the polyester fabric tightly wrapped around her legs, the dense sensation pulling her thoughts back.
Releasing her hands, with a crisp "click," she put on her boots and once again walked out to stand before him.
But this time, before she could hear the boy's admiration, the surrounding crowd of excited citizens had already surged forward.
"Look, it's Lady Sanhua and Lord Zane!"
"Oh my~ are they on a date?"
"Lady Sanhua looks so beautiful today!"
"Lady Sanhua, I'm your dog!"
"Hey man, wipe your drool, it's about to drip on me!"
————
The rising chorus of exclamations made Sanhua freeze. Clearly, this usually reclusive bodyguard of the Magistrate had no experience dealing with a situation like this.
At this moment, she was no longer the cold-faced guard, but just a girl who had never seen much of the world.
On the other side, noticing her unease, Zane quickly ran up the steps to her side.
But this time, instead of shielding her from the crowd, he took her slightly cold hand, gently rubbing the calluses on her palm from years of training, and leaned close to her ear to whisper, "Now, take a closer look at them."
"Look at them?"
Sanhua repeated his words and raised her eyes to look at the citizens again.
At that moment, the noisy, chaotic hell she should have seen was filled with blooming flowers.
In her eyes, all living beings usually appeared like blurry, noisy souls, ugly, dirty, cowardly, chaotic… her eyes could see all of it. Sometimes, she couldn't even tell whether what she saw were humans or Remnants.
She had once seen dozens… even hundreds of corpses piled together beneath a terrifying Asura, and among those faces were people she knew.
But right now, those once-blurry souls were shining with dazzling light.
She suddenly felt afraid. Her grip on Zane's hand grew colder.
"What is this… I…"
She was afraid that what she saw was just another illusion from hell, that if she blinked, everything would return to chaos. That the "flowers" before her were nothing more than a fleeting dream.
But Zane tightened his hold on her trembling hand.
"Your eyes are definitely not a curse. What you're seeing and hearing right now is real."
"Lady Sanhua, thank you for protecting my son."
An old man knelt in front of her. Seeing this, Sanhua broke free from Zane's hand and instinctively helped the old man up.
Zane followed close behind her. "When the Remnant tide broke out, this old man's son volunteered to transport supplies. You were the one who protected them."
As he spoke, he helped her lift the old man, then ignored the suggestive looks from the surrounding crowd and pulled her into an embrace.
"If you want to protect humanity, you have to understand humanity first. Its strength, its weakness, its kindness, and its ugliness. You save others because you believe the 'hell' in front of you is worth protecting, don't you?"
Sanhua hesitated, then raised her fair face into the sunlight. But in her eyes, there was only the boy before her, just like that day.
"So this is why you brought me out?"
"Heh." Zane scratched his head. Sanhua always locked herself in Sister Jinhsi's office.
She was afraid that seeing those ugly things and losing control of her emotions would cause the cold within her body to spiral out of control, leading to unpredictable consequences.
"I didn't expect you to be this popular. I didn't think so many people would come just because you came out shopping."
He had discussed this issue with Jin Jinhsi long ago, but never found the right opportunity.
Hearing his explanation, Sanhua's heart trembled slightly. A strange feeling spread through her like a rising tide.
Sensing her turbulent emotions, Zane gave a simple grin. Amid the crowd's teasing cheers, he bowed to them, then grabbed Sanhua's hand and ran out of the crowd without looking back, heading toward Bianting.
But they didn't go straight inside. Instead, they sat together on the steps outside the gate.
Neither of them spoke. They just quietly felt each other's presence until the sun set, the glow of dusk stretching their shadows long across the ground, intertwined, never parting.
Sanhua opened her eyes. Today, it felt like she had dreamed a beautiful dream. But from now on, she would no longer dream of that hell filled with blood and broken limbs.
From this moment on, flowers would accompany her.
She lifted her face and looked at the boy beside her, who had closed his eyes in a deliberately composed manner. His breathing was steady and rhythmic.
He must have fallen asleep.
'Thank you… idiot…'
Sanhua removed the mask from her head and gently leaned against his shoulder.
Not far from them, a gray-haired figure peeked out from a trash can, grinding their teeth in frustration. "Falling asleep at a time like this, what a damn useless guy!"
But even as they said that, they waved the bat in their hand at the curious onlookers trying to get closer, making sure the two wouldn't be disturbed.
The kid's eaten too many bitter moments. Having something sweet once in a while isn't too much, right?