saga

I...

...so I really wasn't... how could that be...?

This grievance... can never be avenged?

That's a good thing! Isn't it?

Tianshi Li, I have one more question to ask thee.

Given Xiaoyu's true origins, how will the Tianshi Bureaus choose to deal with her?

I know what you mean to say, Saga, but she is a product of the Tianshis, and a unique one at that. We cannot let her roam freely.

Tianshi Li, may I make one more request?

What else could you ask? That whole story of yours, I explained to you what it all really is. It never happened. You just stitched it together yourself.

I don't mean to impose. I just want to ask, before we go to the Tianshi Bureaus, can I visit someone first?

I may have made all this up, but I wasn't born from nothing.

You said that if it hadn't been for that girl raising me, I would have been reduced to dust on a bloody battlefield, right? I'm standing right here, alive and well, so at least that part is true.

But I haven't even spoken to her once.

If you go meet her as you are now... that wouldn't be very good would it? Do you really have to insist on this?

I can cover myself up. I won't tell her what I am. I will just say thank you.

'Every kindness deserves a thanks'...

Tianshi Li, as the saying goes, 'Men are not grass and trees, how can they be without a heart?' This is Xiaoyu's only wish. Can we indeed be more heartless than the very plants of the field?

I urge thee to grant her request.

Ah... umm...

*Sigh*!

'Here lies Yuan Yu, a beloved mother'...

It's been... so long ago... I didn't know...

No wonder the whole estate was in ruins when I woke up...

I thought at least one of my memories wasn't fabricated...

But I was wrong.

Xiaoyu...

Duoxie, sister.

I can't... repay anyone's kindness.

As soon as she finishes speaking, a faint light appears. It's not too bright, but Saga closes her eyes.

When she opens them, all she sees is a pea in her palm, its surface as hard as jade.

Tianshi Li, I have another question.

Did we... truly meet by chance? Do Tianshi apprentices always carry such talismans?

...*sighs* It's a product of the Tianshi Bureau. How could I not know of it, being so close to the capital here?

The two of you met here by chance, so I thought maybe I should let you finish your journey, and then when you part ways, I'll sneak in and take her back to the Bureaus...

Thou knewest of the girl Yuan Yu for some time?

Actually, no. I just knew that this pea soldier could never fulfill her wish.

It's been a hundred years since the last time there was a war in Shangshu and the Tianshis marched on the battlefield.

Pea soldiers have neither consciousness nor memories, and yet this one became self-aware, with her own 'struggle', her own 'adventure'...

She trudged all that way, from Shangshu to Baizao, enduring so many hardships, only to find that it was all... nothing.

What was the point?

Someone once told me that when we look at paintings, we think we are 'real people' looking at 'unreal people', but who is to say we are not the ones in the painting, our lives being drawn by some unseen hand?

There are many days when I think of those words, including this one.

Thou sayest that Xiaoyu traveled so far and suffered so much, only to discover it was all nothing.

And yet, I think...

It was not necessarily 'nothing'.

However you want to put it, it doesn't change the ending.

What can you do to change it?

Xiaoyu gave herself a story—and for that story, she journeyed a thousand li. As this humble servant of Buddha accompanied her part of the way, I shall...

...Record this story.