Chapter 42 · Stardust in Old Pages

As morning light filtered through the carved wooden windows of the old bookstore, Lin Ye stood on tiptoe to reach the top shelf of Ancient Spirit Pattern Scrolls. His Reverse Scale Core warmed at his waist, and warm golden light patterns crawled up his fingertips to the book spines. A thick, dusty volume suddenly "snapped" into his palm—the gilded cover of Spirit Pattern Annals · 300-Year Scroll glowed with a familiar light in the sun.

"Found it!" Little Peach popped her head out from the children's picture book section, golden powder still clinging to her hair from rummaging. Coalball in her arms pawed at a bookshelf crack, mouth holding a tattered page with a crooked star map. "Meow—" It dropped the fragment at Lin Ye's feet: a pollution distribution map of Locking Dragon Abyss from three hundred years ago.

"Is this book alive?" Su Li laughed, crouching to brush her fingertip over the star trails on the fragment. "It's resonating with my spatial spirit pattern." The light patterns flowing in her palm touched the page, instantly weaving three hundred years of time into threads that formed a dynamic map in mid-air—the black mist back then wasn't mere chaos, but a tangle of tiny "knots of resentment," each tied to a human face.

"These were spirit pattern envoys corrupted by the pollution." The phantom of the Rampaging Guardian stood by the window unknowingly, his spirit pattern core no longer frenzied but weathered. "When Yuekui sealed the black mist with the Reverse Scale Core, she could only trap their bodies, not sever these obsessions."

Su Qinghuan emerged from the inner room holding a Family Spirit Pattern Handbook, osmanthus petals from the tea she'd made still clinging to her apron. "When I was little, elders said that when General Yuekui exhausted her spiritual power, she looked to the sky and said, 'May my embers serve as a guide, until love reignites.'" She opened the handbook, a dried osmanthus leaf pressed between its pages. "This was her token to future generations, saying that when the pollution vanished completely…"

"Her form would appear in the star map." Asagao finished. Her spirit pattern core suddenly warmed, and the stardust meteorite bracelet on her wrist lit up with the same star trails as the fragment. Everyone looked up to see starlight pouring through the bookstore's stained glass dome—it was the night sky of Locking Dragon Abyss from three hundred years ago, with Yuekui standing at its center. Her spirit pattern core had shattered into a thousand stardust shards, each wrapped in a smiling face: little Asagao crying "Mom, hug me," Coalball (then a scrawny kitten) laughing with a sugar-coated hawthorn, and the Levithan Squad as they were now.

"So she placed us in the stardust all along." Lin Ye reached out to touch the light particles, his fingertips warming like the rice balls Su Qinghuan had made the night before. "She wasn't sealing the pollution—she was waiting for us to tie enough 'Reunion Knots' to rebuild her spirit pattern core."

In the afternoon, everyone sat in wicker rocking chairs. Sakura combed Jiu's murder of crows, each feather tip dusted with golden powder from the old pages. Su Li projected the Spirit Pattern Annals onto the wall with her spatial spirit pattern, and a few words among the dense text glowed warm gold:

"The end of a Love Knot is letting every 'I' be reborn in another's memory."

"Then Yuekui's spirit pattern core never disappeared." Little Peach suddenly pointed to the projection—all memory shards of Yuekui glowed, even the blood she'd shed when injured had condensed into tiny starlight. "She just became our memories, Coalball's collar, Mom's rice balls, and…" She grabbed Lin Ye's hand and pressed it to her chest, "the warmth of our heartbeats now."

Lin Ye felt something well up from within. The starlight of the Reverse Scale Core surged, illuminating the entire bookstore like day. Memories of spirit pattern cores corrupted by the black mist—the Rampaging Guardian's madness, Su Qinghuan's despair at losing Asagao, even Lin Ye's own urge to give up in dark days—all transformed into tiny light spots, wrapped by Yuekui's stardust and recondensed into a warm galaxy.

"Has the pollution truly vanished?" Su Jiuli asked. His murder of crows suddenly exploded into black mist, only to be purified into white butterflies upon touching the starlight. He looked out the window, where faint black threads hovered above the city skyline. "These are residual obsessions."

At twilight, the Levithan Squad stood atop Tokyo Tower. Lin Ye's Reverse Scale Core hovered mid-air, starlight pouring down like a waterfall to absorb the residual black threads. With each absorption, a new star formed in the core, each containing a healed face: a boy crying "Daddy, don't go," a mother trembling with a terminal diagnosis, a veteran shielding his spirit pattern core in war…

"Yuekui's 'Reunion Formation' meant we'd finish what she started." Asagao's voice trembled. Her spirit pattern core resonated with the Reverse Scale Core, light patterns intertwining into a giant net that caught the last wisp of black mist. "Not sealing, but… reconciling."

As the final wisp dissolved into the Reverse Scale Core, Yuekui's voice echoed in their ears, carrying three hundred years of wind and osmanthus scent: "Thank you for showing me that love is never a lone battle."

Late at night, Lin Ye sat alone on Tokyo Tower's observation deck. The Reverse Scale Core shone brighter than ever, its core no longer swirling with lonely dark red but warm gold from a thousand stars. He took out the stardust meteorite bracelet from future Little Peach, finding tiny characters engraved inside:

"Reunion isn't an end—it's the start of the next 'now'."

Footsteps sounded below. Without turning, he knew it was Little Peach coming with Coalball—her steps were as light as clouds, yet unmistakably eager.

"Captain!" Little Peach's voice rode the night wind. "Mom's making sweet wine rice balls tonight with newly sun-dried osmanthus petals!"

Lin Ye stood, the Reverse Scale Core's starlight forming a galaxy behind him. He opened his arms to catch Little Peach as she leaped into them, Coalball meowing up to his shoulder to rub its head against his ear—just like the stray cat had nuzzled the injured general in Yuekui's arms three hundred years ago.

"Let's go." He ruffled Little Peach's hair. "To eat rice balls. And then…" He looked at the city lights blooming in the distance, "to turn more 'nows' into 'thens' worth remembering."

Moonlight spilled over Tokyo Tower's steel frame, overlapping their shadows on the stardust-like city lights. And where they couldn't see, a healed soul stood on the clouds, smiling softly at it all—Yuekui, and every "Reunion Knot" once wrapped in love.