Chapter 45 · Starlight in Sugar Paintings

Tokyo's autumn sun spread a layer of honey-colored sugar frost on the windowsill. Grandma Chizuru, wearing Su Qinghuan's newly embroidered cherry-blossom apron, poured malt sugar into a copper pot. The sugar cubes melted slowly over low heat, the amber liquid glowing softly—just like the half-piece of stardust meteorite on her wrist.

"Sugar painting requires 'steady hands, calm heart, sharp eyes'." She scooped up the copper spoon, wrist flicking as sugar syrup fell like golden thread. "Yuekui used to call me clumsy, said I always burnt the sugar when cooking—" She paused, smiling at the crowd gathered around the table. "Now here I am, teaching you youngsters."

Little Peach held Coalball closer, the flower-winged crow on her shoulder tilting its head. Sakura propped a tablet to live-stream Grandma Chizuru's movements; Jiu's murder of crows brought bamboo sticks, lining them neatly on a celadon plate; Su Li's spatial spirit pattern recorded every step, saying it would "store in the family memory bank".

"Let me try!" Asagao rolled up her sleeves, her spirit pattern core warming at her wrist. The moment her sugar spoon touched the pot, the syrup rippled—reflecting Yuekui's face as she'd carried Chizuru through ruins on that stormy night three hundred years ago.

"It's a memory resonance!" Grandma Chizuru guided the spoon into Asagao's hand. "Yuekui always said, if you truly want to do something, even sugar paintings will hold the memory."

Asagao's hand steadied. Syrup fell from the spoon tip, first forming a phoenix tail, then a head, finally a star dotting the feathers. When the painting set, its sugar shell shimmered with tiny light patterns, identical to the Reverse Scale Core's starlight.

"Wow!" Little Peach clapped. "A phoenix! Just like Grandma Chizuru's hidden sugar painting!"

Grandma Chizuru took the painting, her fingertip touching it—light patterns on the sugar shell suddenly flowed, projecting a memory: Yuekui sitting by a campfire, drawing sugar paintings in the ashes with a stick. "After the war," she'd said, "I'll make Chizuru a phoenix prettier than the clouds."

"She called sugar paintings 'sweet armor'." Grandma Chizuru's voice trembled. "When black mist corroded hearts, we survived winters on these sweet things."

When Lin Ye took the spoon, the Reverse Scale Core's starlight warmed. His spoon arced in the sugar, the syrup automatically outlining Yuekui's form—her injured self leaning on his shoulder, bloody bangs still smiling: "Little Ye, your porridge is so sweet."

"This is…" He paused. "I've seen this in a dream."

"It's the sweetness hidden in your heart." Grandma Chizuru wrapped his hand in hers. "Yuekui said the most precious memories aren't in spirit pattern cores, but in sugar paintings, porridge, scarves—the light that makes you smile when remembered."

By afternoon, the Spirit Pattern Tree was surrounded by sugar paintings: a round-eared kitten like Coalball, clusters shaped like sakura hairpins, spread wings of Jiu's crows, and a secret one Lin Ye drew—Little Peach napping with Coalball.

"Captain!" Little Peach dashed over with her painting. "Yours has a tail!"

"Of course it does." Lin Ye ruffled her hair, gazing up—Yuekui's phantom stood on the branches, her spirit pattern core no longer a remnant but glowing warm gold like sugar paintings. She flicked a fingertip, an osmanthus petal falling into a painting, making the kitten's ears twitch.

"So sugar paintings can hold spirits too." Su Li raised her tablet as the projected painting blinked with Yuekui's touch. "Yuekui's core fragments have long melted into these warm memories."

Grandma Chizuru took a wooden box from her bosom, containing twelve half-stardust meteorites. As she placed the last fragment into the sandalwood box's groove, the star map completed—exactly the Locking Dragon Abyss constellation from three hundred years ago, each star engraved with "reunion".

"Yuekui said when all 'Reunion Knots' tie, she'd return differently." Her gaze swept over everyone. "Now I believe it—she's already back, in your laughs, Coalball's collar, every sugar painting."

At twilight, they sat on Tokyo Tower's deck, Grandma Chizuru's sugar paintings in a glass jar at the center. The Reverse Scale Core hovered above, starlight gently coating each painting like moonlit glaze.

"Captain, where do you think Yuekui is now?" Little Peach nibbled a phoenix wing.

Lin Ye looked at the city lights, starlight dancing in his eyes. Remembering Yuekui's letter and the flowing memories in sugar, he smiled: "She's here." He pointed to his chest. "And in all of yours."

Wind swept the tower, lifting an osmanthus petal that landed on the phoenix painting's tail. The painting glowed gold, the tail's star shooting into the sky to become a new star—identical to the brightest one in the star map when Yuekui sealed the pollution three hundred years ago.

Somewhere far away, a healed soul watched, smiling softly. It was Yuekui, and every "Reunion Knot" once wrapped in love.