The faces in the room changed the moment Song Tiantian finished speaking.
Men carrying children?
She read every one of those expressions and gave a short, contemptuous laugh. "Do you remember Chen Yunying? The apocalypse finally ended. She found someone she loved, got married, was preparing to have a baby with him — their baby. And then your people got to her husband. Talked him into feeding her that compound. She ended up carrying five children at once and nearly didn't survive."
"Encouraging people to have children — fine. Voluntary reproduction, no one's business but your own. But the moment you treat women who want to bring new life into the world as production equipment, something has eaten your hearts out." Her smile didn't reach her eyes. "You still don't understand why so many women refuse to choose men? They're afraid of becoming the next Chen Yunying. The second one. The third."
"And it isn't only Chen Yunying. There are several others you secretly dosed. They're so large now they can't get out of bed."
"Coming to me does nothing. You're right that without new births, humanity will die out — but humanity's extinction would be your own handiwork. If you had shown women the slightest respect, I believe most of them would still want children of their own. Instead, you've driven them to this." Song Tiantian paused, then added, almost as an afterthought, "You know, you could try a different approach entirely. Why does it have to be women? If you want children so badly — figure out how to carry them yourselves. Extract the embryos. Put them in men's bodies. Gestate, then retrieve." She said it lightly, just to watch their faces. None of it was feasible and she knew it.
The color that drained from every face in the room at those words was very satisfying.
If she hadn't climbed to where she stood today, none of these women would have had any say at all.
She left in excellent spirits.
The moment she mentioned men carrying children, every face had gone white. Which meant they found the idea of it repulsive — just as repulsive as what they'd done to women who'd only wanted to have a family. She'd only wanted them to understand: men and women were both people, and both deserved the right to choose.
After Song Tiantian walked out, silence settled over the room. Then, one by one, they all looked at Han Wu.
Han Wu raised his head. "You drugged those women without telling me. Now you've pushed them past their limit. What you should be thinking about is how to apologize, what respect actually means, and how to destroy every dose of that compound you're holding. Whether they're women or men, they're people. In this world, everyone should have the equal right to choose whether or not to have children." He paused. "Don't forget what they are now. They're not fragile creatures you can push around. They are not livestock. What you did was inexcusable."
He had a deep respect for Song Tiantian. She was a woman worth admiring — she had taken the women who had nothing and helped them grow into something formidable. Without her, his own ability could only protect the women he personally cared about. He couldn't protect every woman in the world.
"My mother is a woman. My sister is a woman. My cousins — all women." Han Wu stood. "They matter to me. I don't want any of them becoming a breeding tool. So you've managed to make an enemy of me as well."
He let that land, then added, almost pleasantly, "Oh — you haven't forgotten the Zombie Castle, have you?" He rubbed his chin, smiling in a way that made everyone uncomfortable. "I imagine you haven't. Because at this rate, I think these women may well go settle outside its walls. Even a woman who deeply wants children can't endure treatment like this forever. And that place — I don't think it would turn them away."
That was when the room truly lost its composure.
The Zombie Castle.
Years had passed since the apocalypse ended, and that place remained strange and untouchable. It housed zombies that no compound could eliminate — zombies that could speak, that could think, that were terrifyingly powerful. They had schemed against the castle once. It had come to nothing. Not only the zombies but the mutated plants and creatures surrounding it had made any approach nearly impossible. They'd tried weapons. Nothing worked. The outer perimeter was encased in some mysterious force that no armament could breach.
They had provoked those inside once, gotten themselves captured, and assumed they would die. Han Wu had been the one to bring them back out.
The people who'd been dragged in and thoroughly beaten had heard it with their own ears — the castle's mistress, that zombie in the flowered dress, calling out to Han Wu in her soft, deliberate voice: Brother. Han Xiaojiao. Han Wu's sister. Song Tiantian's closest friend. She commanded every powerful zombie in that castle, and she was not someone anyone could afford to cross.
The land around it was beautiful — clear water, green hills, a castle that looked like something out of a dream. If it weren't for the formidable, untouchable zombies inside, everyone would have wanted it for themselves long ago.
"Think carefully," Han Wu said quietly. "Those compounds cannot be kept. Not if you want humanity to survive. The women of this age — do you truly believe you can control them? Even without Song Tiantian."
He left.
The people remaining in the room sat in deepening silence, expressions growing heavier with every passing minute.
"Han Wu is right. We were too desperate, and we did something unforgivable. Women aren't saying they don't want children — what happened with Chen Yunying, that was entirely our fault. Song Tiantian mentioned men carrying children — could any of you accept that? Of course not. And that is exactly as cruel as drugging a woman who was only trying to have a family and forcing her to carry five at once. If we push them far enough that they go to the Zombie Castle — it's over."
"This is the survival of all humanity," someone still muttered. "How can they be so selfish?"
No one agreed with him this time.
They hadn't said they wouldn't have children. They'd been pushed until they didn't want to be used as tools. A life of marrying someone you loved, having children you chose, growing old together — who wouldn't want that? The problem had never been the wanting.
Several months later, the Age of Ability Users passed its first laws governing reproduction. The substance of them was as follows:
No person shall be compelled to bear children. No reproductive compounds shall be administered to any woman without her full and free consent. No person shall be forced into marriage for the purpose of reproduction. Both men and women shall have the equal and autonomous right to choose whether to bear children.
Coercion, violation, and related offenses against women shall be met with severe punishment. The most serious cases shall result in exile beyond the boundaries of the human settlement zone — where the mutated plants and animals are free to offer their own welcome.
Alongside the laws, benefits were announced: newlywed couples would receive housing in the safest, most desirable areas. Those who chose to have children would be eligible for a range of additional support.
The combination worked. Couples who had genuinely wanted families went ahead and married, received the promised benefits, and built lives without interference. No one forced them to have more children than they wanted. No one came in the night with compounds. They were happy — and when the memory of Chen Yunying surfaced, there was still a shadow of grief. But they were free.
Then Song Tiantian released the body cultivation technique.
She made it public, open to anyone who wanted it. The women who'd been preparing to build families but carried unease in their hearts, and those who'd set aside questions of love entirely in favor of making their mark in the new world — all of them received it with overwhelming relief.
The technique, at its highest level, wasn't the most powerful thing in the world. It wouldn't make anyone match an ability user in combat. But it meant they could not be easily hurt. It meant no one could raise a hand against them without consequence. And given a choice between the laws handed down from above and the technique handed to them directly, it was no contest — they wanted the technique.
Song Tiantian was summoned for another meeting that same day. The people there came close to pointing at her face and demanding to know why she hadn't kept such a thing to herself.
"Most women aren't interested in domination. And this technique won't take any of them to the heights of a true ability user — the powerful will always be the ability users. I only didn't trust certain rules to be enough, and I wanted them to have the means to protect themselves. If you want to call that selfish — yes, I'm selfish. If that selfishness means they can stand on their own two feet forever, fly wherever they please in this world, then say whatever you like."
And it proved out, exactly as she'd said.
Her one decision had quietly rendered a great deal of scheming irrelevant. Women could genuinely choose now. In an age where strength was everything, you could overpower one strong woman — you could not overpower them all.
Song Tiantian's own women showed no particular urge to rush off and find husbands. They felt the new laws were for ordinary women, not for all women — not all women were like them, needing no one, and the policies didn't speak to them personally.
But the laws genuinely protected ordinary women from being violated. And Song Tiantian's following, for all that it was formidable, remained a minority.
"If you find someone you love," Song Tiantian told her women, "don't let them slip away. Everything I fought for was the right to equal and free choice — so that you could decide for yourselves, without being pressed into anything."
"Male, female, whoever — if you love them, that's all that matters."
Her mind drifted, as it always did, to Miss Ning and Xiaojiao — and to the fact that Xiaojiao, still waiting to be perfect, still hadn't married Miss Ning. At this rate Song Tiantian's own hair would go white before the wedding happened.
"Tiantian, you can stop lecturing us," one of her women said. "What about you? Is there someone you like? Man or woman?"
After the apocalypse, no one cared about such distinctions anymore.
Song Tiantian shook her head. "I haven't thought about it." She looked down, a faint smile at the corner of her mouth.
She had always longed for a beautiful love. She had simply lost, somewhere along the way, the courage to go looking for one. To be alive, to guard what they'd built — that was enough. Anything beyond that, she'd stopped daring to want. When the longing got too loud, she thought about Miss Ning and Xiaojiao, and that warmth was enough to carry her through.
Her women exchanged glances, then looked pointedly at the man standing behind Song Tiantian.
He's right there, isn't he?
"Tiantian, sometimes the person you're looking for is already just a turn away."
Song Tiantian only smiled. She didn't turn around.
Behind her, Yin Ke made no movement. He stood as still as something rooted to the ground.
Ning Xin had once told Xiaojiao her evolution would take at least three years.
At first, Xiaojiao assumed that with her abilities, three years would be more than enough. Three years came and went, and the apocalypse hadn't even ended — she'd only progressed far enough to speak.
Five years, then. Surely five years.
At five years, her skin was still deathly pale.
She stopped naming years after that. Fifteen years. Fifteen years should be enough. By then, the Age of Ability Users had arrived. Her eyes had recovered their normal appearance. Her skin was still an unhealthy white, but there was a little more color to her blood, a faint suggestion of pulse, a heartbeat that could occasionally be heard if you listened carefully enough.
But the wound on her neck showed no sign of closing.
There were moments she nearly gave up. Maybe this is as far as it goes. Maybe I'll never be fully restored. She felt low and sad. She couldn't marry the person she loved most in the world while looking like this. Couldn't bear the thought of her beloved looking at the wound, the pallid skin, all the evidence of what she was. And under all of it, a quiet terror: what if she grows tired of waiting? What if she leaves?
"You're doing it again."
Ning Xin came and wrapped her arms around Xiaojiao, kissed her forehead, and looked directly into her eyes. "Xiaojiao is going to become the most beautiful version of herself. You already are. No matter how long it takes — I'll be here."
"Ning Xin." Xiaojiao looked up at her with plaintive eyes. "Am I being ridiculous? Big Circle scratched ridiculous on a piece of paper the other day and made a special point of showing it to me."
That wretched fat orange cat. Nothing better to do than lie around eating and mocking her in writing.
Ning Xin considered this. "A little," she said.
Xiaojiao's face crumpled. Ning Xin immediately added, "But I love it."
"Ning Xin — you already know exactly how long it'll take for me to evolve, don't you?" Xiaojiao said, with the certainty of someone stating a fact. "And the protective barrier around the castle — that's yours too, isn't it?"
She pulled Ning Xin close, arms tight around her waist, and whispered against her ear: "You're not from this world, are you?"
"Everything you said is right."
Xiaojiao held her tighter still. "Last life," she said softly, "and the life before that, and the life before that — we were always together, weren't we?"
This time, she didn't get an immediate answer. And in Ning Xin's eyes she saw something she hadn't expected: a flicker of genuine uncertainty. Her heart seized.
Weren't they?
"I don't remember," Ning Xin said — and Xiaojiao could tell she meant it, that she wasn't protecting her from something.
Xiaojiao pressed her lips together. Then: "I think we've been lovers across every life we've ever lived. You must have been so eager to find me in this one that you flew too fast, tripped, fell, and hit your head on a rock on the way down — and that's how you lost all the memories of before."
"..."
Outside the window, Big Circle had been draped over the ledge watching the moon and half-listening to all of this. At that last sentence, he nearly fell off entirely.
His owner really did have a gift for finding explanations. How did the second owner put up with her?
"Ning Xin — at the rate things are going, how many more years do I need to fully evolve?"
"Twenty more years."
Xiaojiao breathed in slowly. "Twenty years. That's a long time."
"It doesn't matter. I'll wait. We'll get married when you're at your most beautiful."
"Ning Xin — even if you fell and broke your memory of all our past lives, you still love me in this one. That's enough. I don't need you to remember. I only need you to love me." Xiaojiao smiled. "I'm going to work hard. I'm going to evolve into the most perfect version of myself, and then I'm going to marry you."
"Alright."
From that day forward, Xiaojiao truly threw herself into it. She drank from the spring water every single day, and she went to Yin Ke for help. By then, Yin Ke had evolved into a Zombie Emperor — but their situations were different. They had sparred together; he couldn't beat her in a fight, and yet his evolution was more complete than hers for now. He told her his theory: when she finally reached her full potential, she would likely surpass even him.
That was exactly what Xiaojiao needed to hear. She went back to her training with renewed purpose.
Twenty years later, in a place overrun with mutated plants, a massive cocoon had grown.
When Ning Xin sensed the change in Xiaojiao, she came to this place and stood before it, a quiet smile on her face.
Big Circle, whose intelligence had long since grown to rival a human's, caught Xiaojiao's scent inside the cocoon and understood what was happening. Even he couldn't quite stay calm. For a cat whose entire life philosophy was eating, sleeping, and eating again, the restlessness was unusual.
None of the mutated creatures nearby dared come close.
Ning Xin and Big Circle waited for a full week without leaving — through day and night alike. The cocoon that had been still for so long finally stirred, slowly cracking open. A slender silhouette appeared inside. When Ning Xin saw Xiaojiao's face, something in her eyes settled into warmth and calm.
Big Circle took one look, turned around, retrieved a tin of food, and lay down to eat with great contentment. His owner was fine. That meant he could go back to what mattered. A cat's life should be food and sleep.
When the last of the cocoon fell away, Ning Xin hadn't yet spoken a word — and then a warm, living body wrapped around her. She recognized the feeling instantly and held on. Neither of them said anything. She could feel Xiaojiao's heart pounding, wild and overwhelmed.
Xiaojiao pulled back and looked at her — clear eyes, brilliant smile, a smile that seemed somehow different from before. Those eyes were luminous and unclouded, and they held nothing but her reflection, and love.
"Ning Xin," Xiaojiao said, her voice full of something long-held and finally released — as though they had loved each other for lifetimes and been separated just as long before finding each other again.
"You really don't remember."
She said it softly, hands at Ning Xin's waist, drawing her close. Just before she kissed her, she said: "But I don't mind. Whether you remember or not — as long as I'm in your heart, that's everything."
Ning Xin didn't remember. Xiaojiao did. Every life. Every version of them. In the life before this one, she hadn't remembered until the moment she was dying. In this life, the memories came back the moment she finished evolving. If there was a next life, she would at least not have to wait until death to remember Ning Xin.
Something told her there were still things she didn't know — things about them, their history across all these lives. But none of it mattered. They were together. Xiaojiao loved Ning Xin, and Ning Xin loved Xiaojiao. That was enough.
Word reached the human world that the vain zombie of the Zombie Castle was getting married.
There was a beat of collective blankness. No one had heard news of the Zombie Castle in years. Those who weren't of it couldn't get in; those who lived there had no interest in coming out. It was said to be a paradise unto itself.
The rulers of the human world stared at the wedding invitations Han Wu had sent them, with his cheerful note that they were welcome to attend his sister's ceremony. Their expressions froze.
The zombie is getting married?
They clutched their invitations with slightly unsteady hands and slid their eyes toward Song Tiantian, who looked more radiant than if it were her own wedding. Which it wasn't. This woman had never married. They had a very strong urge to shout: even the zombie found someone, and you're still single — do you see the man standing behind you like a very devoted piece of furniture?
Getting Song Tiantian married might actually do something for the birth rate again. The old policies and incentives, combined with Song Tiantian releasing the body cultivation technique, had lifted the threat of extinction. Whether or not it was the technique's doing, women who had trained in it were producing children who were, in nine out of ten cases, born with abilities. Ability users lived at least two hundred years — the strongest could live five hundred, even eight hundred — and none of them aged into the infirmity and illness that had plagued humanity before the apocalypse. There was no longer any desperate urgency to maximize population numbers. With long lives and no burden of aging, a slower, more natural pace of family-building was enough to sustain growth.
Which meant an extraordinary number of single people.
The foremost among them being one Song Tiantian.
"Everyone," Song Tiantian said, already on her feet, invitation clutched in both hands, "I need to go to the Zombie Castle. Any questions can wait until I'm back. And honestly, things should be fine whether I'm here or not — as long as you're not doing anything quietly harmful to women, I'm not concerned." She was out the meeting room door before anyone could respond, Yin Ke following directly behind.
That ridiculous, beautiful love was finally coming to its ending. How could she miss it?
"I need to go too," Han Wu announced. "I've been waiting decades for this. My little sister is finally getting married. I'm going to be white-haired before the day's over. I need to go tell our parents." He followed. "Forgive the early exit."
The room looked after them.
Those two smug single people.
Harm women? Ha. Did they dare?
Even the girls without any ability at all could punch a dent into a tree trunk with one fist. Were they supposed to go around worrying about them?
They rather desperately wanted to propose a bill for the protection of defenseless, non-ability men — specifically the large, muscular ones who found themselves lifted over their partners' heads whenever said partners were irritated.
Han Xiaojiao and Ning Xin were finally married.
Several people had been waiting for this day for decades.
The moment the two of them stepped out in their wedding gowns — both of them so beautiful it almost hurt to look at — Song Tiantian burst into tears. She watched them exchange rings. She watched them kiss. She watched the way they looked at each other, each one the whole world to the other. Her heart was so full she could barely stand it. She took photograph after photograph, and grabbed Yin Ke's arm so he could record the video.
She was going to keep this. On every day that was hard or hollow or dull, she would look at it, and it would make her happy.
Yin Ke held the camera carefully and recorded exactly what Song Tiantian asked — all of Ning Xin and Xiaojiao's most beautiful moments, preserved.
The wedding ended. The guests departed.
That night, Xiaojiao led Ning Xin to stand before a mirror. She looked at the two of them — a very well-matched pair — and tilted her chin up deliberately to show off her neck. The wound was gone. Nothing remained but smooth, pale skin. She was deeply satisfied.
She leaned close to Ning Xin's ear. "Ning Xin," she whispered, "am I beautiful?"
"Beautiful."
"How beautiful?"
"The most beautiful," Ning Xin said.
Xiaojiao laughed, delighted, and pressed a kiss to Ning Xin's cheek. She murmured back: "In my heart, you're the most beautiful one."
My Ning Xin is the most beautiful of all.
"Ning Xin — I'll wait for you."
Ning Xin looked at her, puzzled.
Xiaojiao smiled softly. "Every life — I'll wait for you to find me. Don't fall asleep and forget to come."
If Ning Xin could be beside her in every lifetime, she would gladly go through all of it again — every hardship, every sorrow.
"I will," Ning Xin said, her voice gentle. "I'll come."
Xiaojiao stepped out of her dress. She stood before Ning Xin, complete and radiant, and smiled. "Ning Xin — now, am I beautiful?"
"Beautiful."
"Then do you love me like this, or like I was before?"
"Both."
A faint flush spread across Xiaojiao's cheeks. Her love didn't remember her — and yet the response was exactly the same. All the right words, said with that perfect steadiness. If she didn't already know Ning Xin's nature so well, she might have thought she was being teased. She pushed past her shyness and did the only reasonable thing — pulled Ning Xin close and rid her of every stitch of clothing. "I think," she said, "you look even more beautiful like this."
And her Ning Xin, naturally, offered no resistance. Not a trace of embarrassment on her face — though those long, elegant hands were very enthusiastic indeed, moving with an exactness that made everything at once familiar and new.
Song Tiantian stayed at the Zombie Castle for several more days before finally preparing to leave.
This world had moved in the direction she'd worked toward. From here, she only had to keep watch over what they'd built.
She had heard, in recent times, what had become of Fang Cheng and the others.
After the Age of Ability Users began, Fang Cheng, Pei Wenqing, and Lei Zhe had wanted to cut their ties with Gu Dongling and find ordinary women to settle down with. It had not gone well. Women who had survived the apocalypse were not easily deceived, and when they learned about the trio's history, they declined without hesitation. The three men had decent abilities and passable looks, but their reputations were poor — and in an age where women had both the law and the strength on their side, no one was obligated to overlook anything.
So the three of them had drifted back to Gu Dongling.
He had been quietly waiting for exactly that. He played on their desires, sowed suspicion between them, and watched with pleasure as they turned on each other in an endless cycle of accusation, confrontation, and retaliation. He found the whole thing enormously entertaining and became increasingly absorbed in it. The four of them had been tangled together for decades — lives in complete disarray, and yet none of them able to walk away.
In their fighting, the three had left marks on each other: Fang Cheng lost an arm, Lei Zhe an eye, Pei Wenqing his face — burned by Gu Dongling. Every day brought some new retribution and counter-retribution. They knew Gu Dongling had engineered all of it, and that knowledge made them angrier, not less attached. They redoubled their attention to tormenting him. He continued to provoke. The three continued to fight. On and on without end.
Song Tiantian had no further interest in them.
The love she had kept closest to her heart had finally found its ending. Everything was as it should be.
She walked out through the Zombie Castle gates. Yin Ke followed close behind.
The sun was setting. She caught sight of their shadows on the ground and stopped short — surprised, for just a moment. Two seconds later she kept walking. The tall shadow behind her kept pace. She slowed; it slowed.
She turned around suddenly and looked directly at the person casting that shadow.
"You've been following me a long time," she said, smiling. "Aren't you tired?"
"How could I be tired," Yin Ke said. His voice was as cool as always — and somehow she heard warmth in it anyway.
She laughed under her breath and walked on quickly. Yin Ke stood there for a half-second, caught off guard. Then she called back over her shoulder: "If you're not tired, then keep up."
She watched his shadow stretch forward and fall into step beside hers, and she quickened her pace. The shadow stayed with her, stride for stride — lighter, somehow, than before.
She tilted her face toward the setting sun.
Then she glanced back at Yin Ke, and smiled.
End of Arc: The Flowered Dress