“Your friend said he needed to go home but would return to find us,” my mother replied.

“You seemed on good terms with Wenzhi. Better than I expected after what he did,” Shuxiao remarked curiously.

My mother’s eyes narrowed as she sat straighter. “Is he the one who betrayed you? The Demon you hate?”

A few days ago, I would have agreed at once. Yet the things Wenzhi had said, how he had come to our aid so unflinchingly … these went deeper than I wished. While it did not make things right between us—nothing ever would—it was no longer pure bitterness in my heart when I thought of him.

“He did betray me. I despised him and worse,” I said haltingly. “But he also helped us, more than you know.”

“Have you forgiven him?” Shuxiao asked tentatively.

“No,” I said fiercely. “Nor will I ever trust him again. But I don’t hate him anymore either.”

“Anyone who deceived you in that manner cannot be trusted.” My mother paused, shaking her head. “However, some tales told of me are little better. It was as Wugang said—many believe that I wanted the elixir for myself, that I stole it to become immortal. Is that not a vicious betrayal? Was I not a selfish coward, regardless of my reasons?”

I had never heard her speak with such raw anguish, her expression haunted with grief both old and new. Perhaps Ping’er’s death had wrenched her heart apart, and all the sorrow within had spilled forth.

I reached out to take her hand. “You did it to save us.”

“Only we know that.” Her smile was sad and thin. “While the story remains the same, the picture painted is so vastly different. Your father must have hated me, and the mortals should despise me too.”

“They do not,” I assured her. “Perhaps because they sense your pain. As do I.”

“This is what matters.” She pressed my hand tight. “That those we love understand what we did, and why.”

It would comfort her to learn that my father understood, that he forgave her—but I kept silent. Wenzhi’s reasons for his deception slid into my mind: his brother, a twisted monster, the vicious games of power where only the strong survived. Yet it was not the same—one driven by despair, the other, a calculated betrayal. Wenzhi had asked for us to start over, but it was impossible. All that had been precious between us could never be remade. It was gone, as irrevocably as an incense stick burnt to ash.

On the horizon, white sands rippled as bolts of pale satin, billowing with the breeze. The turquoise ocean mirrored the skies, its waters flecked with pearlescent foam. Coconut trees with leafy fronds and golden globes of fruit swayed at the far end of the shoreline. Yet unlike the beach of the Eastern Sea that flourished with life, this place was starkly desolate.