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

Pei Youyi released his hand and sat down on the edge of the bed.

The moon-white cheongsam was spread out on the light gray bed sheet, like a piece of moonlight falling on the water and refusing to sink.

She patted the empty seat next to her, a very faint smile curving her lips.

"Come and sit down."

"Don't be shy."

"I live alone in this room, so no one will bother me."

Gu Yan sat down next to her.

The mattress was softer than any cot he had ever slept on in the Seventh Army encampment.

He noticed a red string next to the ancient book on the bedside table, with a small silver bell hanging from the end, exactly the same as the one on his wrist.

He still remembers the knot she tied for him at Windsor Manor, the one she personally fastened into the ribbon.

She has worn it all these years, and has never replaced it even when it faded.

"This room of yours... is not quite what I imagined."

Pei Youyi followed his gaze to the succulent plant on the windowsill, and the smile on her lips widened slightly.

"You mean, too girly."

"Yu Ran said the same thing before."

"She said the things in my room didn't match my age."

She paused, then reached out and touched the bell very lightly, which emitted a very faint, crisp sound.

"Actually, the things I liked when I was young were similar to Yu Ran's."

"Practicing swordsmanship, cultivating, and managing family affairs."

"After adopting Yu Ran, I had even less interest in myself."

"Now that I suddenly have time, and I don't know what I like, I'm just trying to grow things one by one."

Gu Yan looked at the small succulent plant, thought for a while, and said it was very good, at least better than Elena's.

Pei Youyi asked her if she also kept any plants. Gu Yan said she kept a cactus, but it died last week from overwatering. She thought cacti, like swans, needed to drink water every day.

Pei Youyi chuckled softly and said that Lady Elena certainly didn't seem like someone who would know how to grow plants.

The two chatted for a while longer, mostly about trivial matters unrelated to the war.

How often should I water my succulents? Is the coffee machine on the ship more bitter than the coffee in Kyoto convenience stores? My hydroponic pothos is about to wilt from the sea breeze.

She spoke in a very soft and gentle voice, as if she were chatting with a family member who hadn't been home for a long time.

As the conversation progressed, Pei Youyi's voice gradually lowered.

She didn't lean on Gu Yan's shoulder, but sat quietly next to him, tilting her head to look at the boundless deep blue sea outside the porthole.

She didn't drink tonight, but she was more sober and braver than she was in the private room in Kyoto.

The thoughts that had been weighed down by the dense numbers of casualties and the countless deployment orders during the day were now retrieved one by one from the deepest recesses of her mind, held in the palm of her hand, and told to the person next to her word by word.

They talked about the smallest and most trivial things, whether they were related to him or not, and shared them with him.

However, as if he had thought of something, Pei Youyi suddenly fell silent.

"Sister Youyi, what are you thinking about?"

Pei Youyi did not answer immediately.

She remained turned to the side, tilting her head to look out the porthole at the boundless, deep blue sea. Occasionally, one or two fleet navigation lights would flicker beneath the clouds on the horizon, like a few still-burning sparks scattered on the edge of the night.

She remained silent for a long while before speaking, her voice very soft.

"Thinking of Yu Ran."

"Her plane should have already crossed the International Date Line."

Gu Yan looked at her profile.

The moonlight outside the porthole softened and clarified her exquisitely sculpted features, but her fingers, resting on her knees, were curling up slightly, her knuckles turning white as if she were struggling with herself.

"Don't worry too much."

"Yu Ran will understand your predicament."

Pei Youyi remained silent for a long while.

She didn't look at Gu Yan, but instead looked down at the faded red string on her wrist, the bell swaying gently twice with her slight trembling.

Then she looked up at him.

The moonlight fell into her pupils, illuminating her deep brown eyes with an intense brightness, as if something within them was silently shattering.

"Xiao Yan."

"Don't you think... I'm a shameless woman?"

"I've fallen for the boy my daughter likes."

Gu Yan was dumbfounded.

He guessed that Pei Youyi had something on her mind, and that she was probably struggling with the fact that Yu Ran was coming.

But he didn't expect her to be so direct.

When she asked that question, her eyes were deep and unfathomable. She wasn't being coquettish or testing the waters; she had truly held it in for a very, very long time, so long that she thought she would never ask it in her entire life.

Seeing that he didn't speak, Pei Youyi suddenly smiled.

It wasn't a very faint smile, but a more relaxed, slightly self-deprecating laugh.

That smile looked especially genuine on her gentle and refined face, as if saying, "Just as I thought."

You don't need to answer.

"I know the answer."

"It's unreasonable for an elder, a mother, to fall in love with the person her daughter likes, no matter where you look at it."

"Actually, I had thought about it when I was in Kyoto."

"If you had rejected me back then, I might have been sad for a while, but at least I could have continued to be the dignified and proper matriarch of the Pei family."

But you didn't reject me.

"You hugged me, kissed me, and took my sunflowers."

"I knew I could never go back after that."

She paused, tucked the stray hairs that had been blown by the sea breeze behind her ear, tilted her head to look at him, and a faint smile gently squeezed out the very fine line at the corner of her eye.

So it's not your fault.

"It was my own fault for not being able to resist."

"After all, this is my first time in a relationship, and I don't know how to control the situation."

Please forgive me.

Looking at her self-righteous yet guilty expression, Gu Yan suddenly felt a little amused and exasperated.

"Sister Youyi."

"Is this really your first time dating?"

"Doesn't it look like it?"

"It's not that it doesn't look like it."

"It's too unlike anything you'd expect."

He leaned against the headboard and started counting on his fingers.

"You made me kiss you in the private room in Kyoto, and even made an equivalent exchange: a kiss in exchange for the deployment of defenses at the pass."

"You wrote the meaning of sunflowers by hand in a Middle Eastern florist's shop and put it on the back of the label. You sent the flowers but didn't tell me the meaning. I kept it a secret until the florist revealed it to me."

"Now you're using this high-tech weapon, lip gloss, to launch a sneak attack, and you're even blindfolding me so I can't see your expression."

"These are all expert moves. You're telling me this is your first time dating?"

Pei Youyi chuckled softly, bent her knees, hugged the pillow to her chest, and rested her chin on the pillow.

She tilted her head to look at Gu Yan, the hem of her cheongsam spreading out on the light gray bed sheet, revealing her fair and slender calves and ankles bathed in the faint moonlight.

"Those are all things I learned from anime."

"When Ya Song heard that I was coming to Kyoto to fight alongside you, she copied a whole hard drive full of materials for me before I left, saying it was a crash course in love."

"She said that strong people don't develop relationships gradually."

"Kissing first is basic procedure."

"I think she makes a good point."