The man looked at Lu Mo.
Under the dim lamp light, the girl simply looked up, gazing at him seriously.
In her eyes was a resolve far beyond her years.
He knew where the girl’s resilient character came from.
The girl believed in him.
She believed he could see this path through, that he wouldn’t let harm come to her.
She also believed in herself, that she could endure the fusion of strange flames until the very end.
At that moment, he felt the last shred of hesitation within him vanish.
His daughter was willing to trust him, to press forward toward this new direction of research.
So why should he be afraid?
Why should he remain rooted in place, refusing to move forward?
“…Mm.”
After a long silence, he smiled, looking at Lu Mo as he finally made his decision.
“I believe in you too, little Lu Mo.”
“In that case, let’s try this new direction of research.”
“We’ll succeed…”
“Daddy will cure your illness. You’ll be able to walk freely under the sun, enjoying the happy times you deserve.”
“Daddy promises you.”
From that day onward, the man changed the direction of his strange flame fusion research.
No longer chasing absolute stability.
Instead, within a certain degree of chaos, he sought to find a new balance.
He wrote down many things.
The new research direction was indeed much clearer than the old one.
The man had more ideas now, no longer stuck, constantly recording in his notebook.
Sometimes, Lu Mo would come to the study to research alongside him.
The girl, fair and clean, wearing an adorable cartoon pajama set, would sit among piles of messy books that clashed entirely with her aesthetic.
She looked like she was just there to play.
And yet she would stare at the notes with absolute focus, her young face etched with seriousness.
Occasionally, she would offer her own ideas.
Though her tone and thoughts were childish, they never failed to make the man’s eyes light up with sudden insight.
“That’s right… why didn’t I think of that?”
“Good, good, good…”
“My daughter has the mind of a genius!”
That period of time was probably the happiest for the two of them.
The man’s research no longer stagnated; every day brought new progress.
He frowned and sighed less, no longer as exhausted as before.
He had more time to spend with Lu Mo.
He would bring her small gifts from time to time.
He would take the girl into town to buy pretty clothes and dresses.
He would bring her to places farther away, carrying her on his back, running through grass that swayed like ocean waves.
He still had his episodes.
Suddenly striking a pose he thought looked cool, or spouting lines he believed were profound.
Sometimes, Lu Mo would subconsciously finish his sentences.
It both surprised and delighted him.
Replaying her words in his mind, he would realize those lines seemed even more profound than his own.
So he simply started using them himself.
Was his daughter finally growing up, beginning to understand her father?
“Old man, has anyone ever told you… you’re a cornball?”
“What’s a cornball?”
The man shook his head. “I’ll just be myself. Nothing else matters.”
During this time, due to her frail constitution, Lu Mo’s body also ran into some problems.
Like suddenly getting nosebleeds that wouldn’t stop for a long time.
Like sudden tinnitus, her vision going black.
Like being perfectly fine one second, then her body giving out and collapsing the next.
At first, Lu Mo thought these were all normal occurrences.
Or perhaps, that her body hadn’t yet adapted to the new flame.
But gradually, she realized the problem wasn’t that simple.
She felt…
Her body seemed to be withering away more and more.
The wound on her chest was growing increasingly severe.
And the pale purple flame’s suppression over it was slowly weakening.
The man hid it from her.
He told her that at this stage, her condition was still stable, so she didn’t need to worry about anything happening.
But in truth, Lu Mo could feel her body growing weaker by the day.
The worst time was when she suddenly woke from a nightmare, her body ice-cold, vomiting blood.
The wound on her chest had faintly split open, blood quickly staining her pajamas and bedsheets.
“Ugh…“
“Daughter!”
“Daughter, what’s wrong?!”
“Don’t scare Daddy…”
The man reached Lu Mo’s side in an instant, pulling her into his embrace.
He immediately began suppressing her injury.
Strange flames, life potions, life-saving treasures—he used everything at once.
It was a long while before Lu Mo felt like she might survive.
She lay weakly on the bed, covered in blood, her complexion pale to the extreme.
Through blurred vision, she saw the man sitting by the bedside.
His body was stained with blood as well.
Though he had managed to stop her wounds, he seemed somewhat dazed, tinged with dejection.
Lu Mo spoke.
“Old man…”
“It’s okay, daughter…”
Hearing Lu Mo’s voice, the man quickly tucked away those negative emotions and smiled at her.
“It’s all right now…”
“You’ll be fine…”
“Daddy’s right here…”
He stayed by her side the entire time.
Through the whole night.
For the next nine days, Lu Mo could barely even walk.
Because of the excessive blood loss and the severity of her injuries, the man took care of her constantly, until she finally recovered.
Even though the man said nothing, Lu Mo knew her time might truly be running out.
The only way to survive…
Was that焚诀 (Incinerating Art).
Their research wasn’t slow.
But the rate at which Lu Mo’s life was draining seemed faster.
After that, the man accelerated his research even further.
Day and night.
Through the hours until dawn.
He also began conducting real-world strange flame fusion experiments.
But most of those experiments failed.
Flames exploded, and he sustained injuries as well.
Occasionally, a few succeeded.
But either the new flame seed couldn’t sustain itself for long and quickly collapsed.
Or the new flame seed was something Lu Mo’s body simply couldn’t bear.
The man was exhausted.
Sometimes he’d doze off while walking.
Sometimes he’d nod off while cooking, face-planting straight into the pot.
“Old man, get some rest.”
Lu Mo looked at him, speaking with concern.
The man smiled again, forcing himself to perk up.
“It’s fine, I’m okay…”
He couldn’t rest.
He… couldn’t stop.
He was terrified of waking up one day to find his daughter lying there, cold and still.
He was terrified of never seeing that well-behaved, genius daughter again.
“It’s all my fault…”
“It’s all my fault. All of this happened because of me…”
The man muttered quietly in the dark of night.
But the more he chased that elusive hope.
The deeper his despair grew.
Eventually, he couldn’t even bear to look at Lu Mo anymore.
Days passed like that.
In the midst of busyness, it was impossible to feel how much time had slipped by.
Before he knew it, Lu Mo’s birthday had arrived.
No matter how busy he was, the man never forgot this day worth celebrating.
He had bought a cake earlier.
That day was overcast, with a fine drizzle drifting from the sky.
But the wind and rain outside couldn’t blow into the small house.
The man placed a paper crown on Lu Mo’s head, then lit the candles on the cake.
Under the glow of the candlelight, the little house took on a warm, cozy atmosphere.
That egg, as a member of the family, was placed on a chair as well.
“Happy birthday, little Lu Mo.”
The man smiled at Lu Mo.
“Mm, thank you, old man.”
Lu Mo returned the smile.
She could tell the man hadn’t relaxed.
He was still tense, carrying a sense of urgency, and something… complicated.
The man patted Lu Mo’s head and spoke gently:
“Daughter, you stay home and behave, okay? Daddy just remembered there are a few things he needs to buy. I’ll step out for a bit and be right back to blow out the candles with you. Sound good?”
“But it’s raining outside right now.”
“Why not go buy them tomorrow?”
Lu Mo wanted to say that.
But in the end, she didn’t voice those words.
She simply nodded.
The man smiled at her.
Soon, he put on his coat and left through the door.
Lu Mo, meanwhile, looked at the candles on the cake, then at the wind and rain outside the window, and waited quietly.
“Drip—”
“Drip—”
She waited, and waited.
The birthday candles on the cake burned down, and she waited.
The cake’s cream slowly melted and slumped, and she waited.
The sky grew darker, the rain heavier, and she waited.
When the room fell completely dark, surrounded by nothing but blackness, she was still waiting.
She didn’t know how much time had passed.
But the man never came back.
“What happened to old man?”
“Did he get lost?”
“Is he taking shelter from the rain?”
“He’s not out jogging in the rain, is he?”
“Did he get beaten up for shooting his mouth off?”
Lu Mo muttered to herself.
She had a suspicion.
She had experienced many things in her previous two simulated reincarnations, seen all kinds of strange human nature.
But at this moment, she couldn’t help curling up in her chair.
She didn’t want to think that way.
An invisible weight pressed down on her from all directions, making it hard to breathe.
It was a feeling of…
Loneliness.
She suddenly felt cold.
She got up, wanting to find a coat to wrap around herself.
And just then, she felt a wave of weakness wash over her.
A searing pain erupted from her chest at that very moment!
“Why…”
“Why… of all times, now—”
Her body convulsed and collapsed.
As she fell, she knocked over the chair holding the egg nearby.
Just before she lost all control of her body, she used the last of her strength to catch the egg before it could hit the ground.
She clutched the egg tightly as she crashed heavily to the floor.
The injury that had been suppressed for so long erupted once more.
Blood spilled from her mouth, her head throbbed with splitting pain, and the horrifying wound on her chest split open again.
Blood stained her dress, pooling and spreading across the floor.
And she simply curled up in the pool of blood, holding the egg tightly… close to her.
She felt her consciousness beginning to fade.
Blood flowed, her body temperature slowly draining away, growing cold.
The wound on her chest split wider, and pale purple flames even began seeping from the gash.
Was this the end?
That beautiful egg, in that moment, became soaked in her blood.
She curled up in the pool of blood, embracing the egg that was believed incapable of ever nurturing life.
Before losing consciousness, she thought, with difficulty.
As the flames from her chest and her life force ebbed away, touching the egg—
Some kind of miracle seemed to occur.
“Hum—”
From inside the egg came a resonant hum.
Something slowly awakened, gradually beginning to peck at the shell.
“Peck—”
“Peck—”
More and more cracks spread across the egg, bursts of light flaring between the fissures.
“Peck—!”
The shell fell away.
The egg was broken open from within.
“Chirp—”
A fledgling let out its first cry, opening its eyes to look at the first person before it—the one embracing it.
It saw Lu Mo, covered in blood, her breath barely a thread.
At this rate, the girl would die.
At this moment, it didn’t yet understand life and death, didn’t understand meeting and parting forever.
It simply felt, by instinct, that things couldn’t go on like this.
So, it wobbled its way toward Lu Mo’s chest.
And then, it pressed its own wing against the girl’s chest.
Soon, a pale golden flame flickered to life in the dark little room.
Warm. Gentle.
At that moment, it enveloped the girl.