I raised stunning young ladies, but they all wanted to possess me.

Once the cleanup work on the defense line was temporarily completed, Yu Sheng helped Gu Yan back to the Chiyomiya family's villa.

She pressed him down to sit on the edge of the bed, poured him a cup of hot water, handed it to him, and then knelt down on the futon opposite him.

She remained silent for a while before speaking, her voice still possessing that composed elegance, but her tone concealed a complex emotion that only she knew.

"Mr. Gu has met Miss Lin."

"How do you feel?"

Gu Yan looked up at her and waited for her to finish speaking.

She lowered her eyes and fiddled with the tassel of the pheasant-shaped dagger at her waist. The deep blue tassel was gently twirled by her fair and slender fingers, as if she were sorting out some unspeakable words.

"Miss Lin really loves you."

Gu Yan's fingers paused on the rim of the cup for a moment.

How did you know?

"Because the way she looked at you just now was exactly the same way I looked at you."

"But she held back."

"I couldn't hold back."

She paused, then looked up at Gu Yan.

"She recognized the watch."

"Every time she came to Japan during those three years, she would go to that wagashi shop in Kyoto to buy a piece of matcha cake and eat it alone by the window."

"She said that was Mr. Gu's favorite flavor."

"She buys it every time she comes, but she never finishes it all."

"Because my hands started shaking halfway through the meal, and I couldn't hold the fork anymore."

"So Mr. Gu, she must have recognized you, but she left everyone an out."

"Your sudden resurrection is abrupt in itself. To the world as a whole, the Imperial Wall has been dead for three years."

"The remains disappeared when England fell, and their whereabouts are being sought in war zones around the world."

"If you showed up in front of everyone right now, do you know what would happen?"

"Even if we were to tell them, we should wait for the right time."

Gu Yan placed the teacup on the bedside table.

The bottom of the porcelain cup made a very faint, crisp sound when it touched the wooden surface.

"I know."

He leaned against the headboard, looking at the wood grain on the ceiling that shimmered silver in the moonlight.

"So I'm not in a hurry."

"Hanyu, thank you for keeping it a secret for me."

"You're welcome."

Yuzuru stood up, walked to the window, and opened it a crack.

The night breeze, carrying the fragrance of maple leaves, wafted into the room, ruffling a few stray hairs on her forehead.

She stood by the window, turning back to look at Gu Yan against the moonlight.

"Mr. Gu, please rest."

"I'm going to check the front lines. After two major battles, the number of casualties in the northern sector is still being tallied."

"There are many people who will not be coming back."

She paused for a moment, her deep brown pupils shimmering with a very faint watery light under the moonlight.

"Among those people were a mother's son, a sister's brother, and a groom who had just gotten his marriage certificate less than three days ago."

"His wife is still waiting for him to come back to Kyoto to try on his wedding dress."

Gu Yan nodded.

He watched as Yuzuru pushed open the door and walked out, his plain white kimono disappearing into the depths of the corridor.

Moonlight streamed in through the crack in the window she had opened, drawing a silvery-white line on the wooden floor.

He leaned against the headboard and remained silent for a long time.

Over the next few days, Gu Yan's injuries slowly recovered under the care of Lingquan and Yusheng.

Elena had visited once, scanning his meridians with her golden eyes and saying that his mental strength was already quite good, but his control precision was far from sufficient.

Her training method was simple to the point of being brutal: she made him stare into her eyes while using the Mirror Flower Seal to sense the fluctuations of spiritual energy emanating from her body.

After each training session, he felt as if all his strength had been drained, but he could feel his mental energy becoming more solid and precise little by little.

One morning, Yuzuru went to inspect the defense line as usual.

Before leaving, she changed into wooden clogs at the door and turned back to say, "I'll bring you a matcha cake from that old shop in Kyoto when I come back tonight."

Gu Yan stood under the eaves watching her walk away, when she suddenly realized something.

Having been in Japan for so long, he had never ventured out beyond the steel walls of the city defenses and the deep forests of the Chiyomiya family.

He wanted to see what the city behind the defensive line looked like after being ravaged by the two major battles.

The streets of Kyoto were quieter than he had imagined.

There were no air raid sirens, no gunfire, and no one was even speaking loudly.

Every household had white paper lanterns in front of their doors. Some were newly hung up, and the paste hadn't dried yet; others were covered in dust and had collapsed halfway after being rained on.

The memorial couplets on the wall were one after another. Some were printed, and some were handwritten. The ink had been blurred by the rain, but you could still make out that they read "In memory of my son", "In memory of my husband", "In memory of my daughter" and "In memory of my father".

The entire street, the entire city, was filled with white paper lanterns and blurred ink-stained mourning banners.

But no one cried on the street, shops remained open as usual, old people swept fallen leaves at the alley entrance, and children chased and played in the open space, as if those white lanterns were just decorations for some kind of festival.

Gu Yan's Emotional Eyes were always open. He saw gray, sorrowful outlines above the heads of the children playing and laughing, like a thin mist shrouding their tender faces.

The expressionless vendors, the elderly sweeping silently at the alley entrance—the whole city was silently licking the wounds left by the war.

He unknowingly walked to the end of a narrow alley.

The alley was very remote, the bluestone pavement was worn smooth by countless footsteps, and the eaves of the old houses on both sides almost touched each other.

Hidden deep in the alley is a tiny shop with an old wooden plaque above the door that reads "Four Seasons".

The storefront is small, with only a few tables. From the window, you can see an old maple tree in the courtyard.

A handwritten note was posted on the door, the handwriting neat and tidy.

During the war, our store provided free meals to the families of all fallen soldiers.

He pushed open the door, and the shop was filled with warm yellow light.

There were no other customers, only an elderly man in an apron wiping cups behind the counter.

His hands are very steady; he can wipe a cup for a very long time.

Gu Yan found a seat by the window and ordered a matcha cake and a hand-drip coffee.

Sunlight filtered through the thin paper of the paper lantern onto his desk, casting dappled light and shadow on the wood grain.

The shop door was pushed open from the outside.

A figure walked in, went straight to the person opposite him, pulled out a chair and sat down.

The latte art in the coffee cup wobbled slightly.

Sunlight streamed in obliquely through the window, falling on her long golden hair.

She wasn't wearing her combat uniform today; instead, she wore a minimalist white shirt and dark trousers, with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, revealing a section of her fair arm.

The shirt collar was slightly open, revealing glimpses of her collarbone.

Her hair was longer than it had been three years ago, falling over her shoulders with slightly curled ends that shimmered with a pale golden glow in the sunlight.

She sat opposite him, one hand casually resting on the edge of the table, the other supporting her chin.

Her fingers were long and slender, with very light nude pink nail polish, making her completely different from the irritable girl who used to crush her power-suppressing rings at the drop of a hat.

But what Gu Yan couldn't take her eyes off was her eyes.