"Things that seep out from the rift," Lin Mo didn't explain in detail. "Like fragments of existence, but without a complete self. They mimic life, but something is always off. Alright, I need to take her back. You'd better leave; it does no good for ordinary people to get too involved in this kind of thing."
But Qian Renxue didn't move. She looked at the girl, at the starlight flickering in her eyes, at the threads connecting her to the Void. Within her temporal perception, those threads weren't just spatial connections, but temporal ones—they extended from the girl's body, not pointing to the "present" rift, but piercing through time, connecting to countless "possibilities."
"Wait," Qian Renxue said. "Can I give it a try?"
Lin Mo frowned. "Try what? This isn't a problem that can be solved with soul skills. We need specialized isolation and purification equipment, and we have to contact the experts in Tian Dou City—"
"I'm not going to use a soul skill," Qian Renxue interrupted him, walking forward and stopping a few meters away from the girl. "I just want to... talk to her."
"Talk? She can't hear a single thi—"
Lin Mo's words came to an abrupt halt. Because he saw Qian Renxue's eyes change. It wasn't the glow of a soul ring activating, but a deeper transformation—as if clockwork gears were turning, hourglasses were flowing backward, and stars were being born and dying within her pupils. When she looked at the girl, her gaze no longer rested on the surface; it pierced through time, seeing things far deeper.
Qian Renxue actually wasn't entirely sure what she was doing herself. It was instinct—the spontaneous application of her time-anchoring abilities within a mortal body. She stared at the threads connecting the girl to the Void, not trying to sever them—which might hurt the girl—but "looking" along them instead.
She saw an expanse of chaos. Not darkness, not the Void, but the "undetermined." It was the girl's future, a future eroded by the Void, with countless possible endings: her vanishing into the rift, her becoming a vessel for the Void, her going mad and attacking others, her slowly fading away in an isolation room... all possibilities pointed toward existential demise.
But amidst this chaotic sea of possibilities, Qian Renxue saw a point of light. Tiny, fragile, but undeniably there. It was a different future: the girl recovering, growing up, becoming an ordinary person, getting married, having a child, growing old, dying—a mundane, complete trajectory of life.
The reason this future still existed was because of a certain connection. Tracing the light back to its source, Qian Renxue saw a scene: the girl's seventh birthday, her mother giving her a teddy bear, her holding the bear and smiling happily. That moment, that connection, that memory, was an anchor. It was that ordinary, warm moment that had left a mark in time, preventing the future of a "complete life" from being entirely wiped out by the Void.
Qian Renxue did the only thing she could do: she reinforced that anchor.
Not with power, but with existence itself. She separated a trace of her "weight" as a time anchor and poured it into that moment. It was like adding a single grain of sand to one side of a scale—insignificant, but enough to cause a minute shift in the balance.
The starlight in the girl's eyes flickered once, then began to weaken. She blinked, the starlight fading to reveal her original brown pupils. She looked around in a daze, seemingly unable to comprehend why she was there.
"Where... where am I?" the girl's voice was weak.
Lin Mo was dumbfounded. The instrument in his hands showed that the girl's Void Connection Index had plummeted from 87 down to 12, already well below the danger threshold.
"How... how did you do that?" He looked at Qian Renxue, his eyes filled with shock and wariness.
"I don't know," Qian Renxue said honestly. She felt a surge of intense exhaustion—the action just now had consumed a massive amount of her mental energy. "I just thought of someone important."
This wasn't the complete truth, but it wasn't a lie either. While reinforcing that anchor, she really had thought of her own mother. Not the mother in the memories of the Angel God, but the mother of Qian Renxue, the little girl who once had a mother and then lost her. That connection, that love, the weight of that memory—that was the most fundamental and most powerful force to resist the Void.
Lin Mo stared at her for a few seconds, then shook his head. "Forget it, it doesn't matter. Thank you, you saved her. But don't tell anyone else about this, understand? The observation station has regulations; unauthorized personnel aren't allowed to contact Fading Syndrome cases. I'd be reprimanded."
"I understand," Qian Renxue nodded. "Will she be okay?"
"I'll take her back to the observation station for a full checkup. If her readings stabilize, she can go home tomorrow. But Fading Syndrome is irreversible; she might have another episode in the future, and she'll be even more sensitive to the rift." Lin Mo walked over to the girl and gently supported her. "Come on, Xiaoyu, I'll take you home."
The girl nodded obediently, then took one more look at Qian Renxue, a hint of confusion, as well as a trace of gratitude, in her eyes.
After the two left, Qian Renxue stood alone on the hillside. Moonlight spilled over her, casting a long shadow. She raised her hand and looked at her palm. There, she could feel a subtle change—the action she had just taken seemed to have not only helped the girl, but also had an effect on herself.
In her temporal perception, a new point had appeared on her own existential "line." Not an anchor of the past, but a possibility for the future? No, more accurately, it was the mark of a "choice." When she chose to help that girl, when she chose to use her time-anchoring power to reinforce an ordinary moment, she had created a potential fulcrum for her own future.
"Is this the beginning of anchoring the future?" she murmured to herself.
Not a grand plan, not an earth-shattering feat, but a tiny choice, a decision to help a stranger. This choice, this action, left a mark in time, becoming a part of her future.
Qian Renxue returned to the inn, but she couldn't sleep. She sat by the window, looking at the pale gray rift in the distance, pondering the old man's words: "You need a future, a future so solid, so certain, that it almost already exists."
Solid, certain. What did that mean?
She recalled her entire life. As the Crown Prince of the Tian Dou Empire, her future had been mapped out for her: inherit the throne, rule the empire, continue the glory of the Spirit Hall. As the Angel God, her future had been bestowed upon her: guard the God Realm, maintain the balance, await the next inheritor. All of these futures were given to her, decided for her, rather than actively chosen by her.
What was the future she had truly chosen for herself?
Once, she had chosen to be Tang San's enemy; that was born of hatred and pride. Later, she had chosen to become a guardian; that was born of duty and atonement. But were these choices truly "the future she wanted"? Or were they merely reactions to the past?
Outside the window, the first ray of morning light pierced the night sky, illuminating the distant rift. That patch of grayish-white looked even more jarring, even more ominous in the dawn light.
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