Dream violet and star-sea blue shone into one another.
Making up this pair of Star-Blessed Eyes, holding the universe's sea of stars, able to see the finest hair and cross time and space.
Everywhere her gaze reached was a blue-violet halo.
Under the halo's wash, the passage of time slowed.
"Compared with the first time, can the body bear this state better now that my Tier has risen?"
Unhurried, Li Yue swept the room with her own eyes.
Opening the Sword Art only briefly, to recover her sight and take in her surroundings, did not bring too great a load.
She took the phone Bai Wuxie had handed her and studied closely the self in the photos on it, a self she was seeing with her own eyes for the first time.
"Nngh!"
Her pupils contracted slightly.
Startled, Li Yue froze.
The self in the photo and Bai Wuxie looked altogether too much like sisters. The same pale white hair, a similar hairstyle. Add a height of one metre fifty, shorter than Xiao Bai, and a cool, quiet air that happened to set off Xiao Bai's bubbly one.
To an outsider who knew nothing, they might genuinely be mistaken for a pair of sisters.
Except that Xiao Bai was the big sister, and she was the little one.
A moment's silence.
"......"
Without a word Li Yue took a selfie of herself with her eyes open, and handed the phone back to Bai Wuxie.
The next second.
Her eyelids closed lightly; darkness covered everything.
The halo faded, and time flowed normally again.
"Eh? What's......"
Bai Wuxie, not yet caught up, took the phone by reflex and was drawn at once to the brand-new photo on it.
In the photo, the subject had a white eyebrow lifted without meaning to, a few traces of bashful pink still on her cheeks, and the cold-cute expression of a girl next door in a sulk.
"Eh-heh-heh, that's my cute little A-Li for you!" The girl let out a giddy, lecherous giggle.
Afraid Bai Wuxie would start squirming again, Li Yue's face stiffened, and she spoke a little unnaturally:
"Big Sis, I'm hungry."
She finished.
"Right! We haven't had breakfast yet. Come on, tell me what you want, big sister's treat." Bai Wuxie, suddenly enlightened, asked in earnest.
"Phone, Big Sis."
Li Yue signalled it tersely.
"Okay, you order."
Bai Wuxie nodded.
She handed her phone to Li Yue.
But what she did not know was......
The moment she had the phone, Li Yue, unruffled on the surface, did one thing first: she quietly deleted that selfie that had shamed her half to death, and only then ordered the food.
"Little sis, why are your ears red?"
"......From ordering."
"Really? Don't you lie to your big sister."
The guilt and the sense of transgression inside her grew heavier.
Li Yue, who had just told a lie, finished the order without a flicker and handed the phone back to Xiao Bai.
She truly did not know what had come over her, to be so absurd as to agree to play the sisters game with Xiao Bai. Perhaps it was the influence of this sensitive body, a princess of the Nation of Night's; or perhaps the Sword Soul had roused some hidden nature of her soul.
In any case, the odds were she would not have an easy time of it today. As penance, then, she would play Bai Wuxie's little sister properly from here on.
Soon enough.
As the dishes came to the table one by one.
The two shared a lavish breakfast.
Sharing a meal, in name; in truth a one-sided feeding, the big sister looking after the little one.
Li Yue only took a small, delicate mouthful of fresh strawberry pudding with her own knife and fork at the start; after that it turned into Xiao Bai doing the work for her, feeding her every kind of dish bit by bit.
Cream pudding, strawberry pudding, bread nibbles, ginseng-and-antler mushroom soup, French baguette, and more.
Whether or not the small mouth could hold it, anything edible and tasty was fed in, one thing after another.
At the start Li Yue, who considered a grown man ought not to submit to this, refused. But under the assault of one fond, doting "little sis" after another, she was forced to give in and accept. She emptied her head entirely, and was reduced to a hatchling squalling to be fed.
The sorry state of the room could be summed up in one sentence.
A certain eighteen-year-old white-haired girl, hand-feeding, live, her aloof little-princess sister who might as well still be losing her milk teeth.
"Little sis, why're your ears red again?"
"......It's too delicious."
"Really?!! Then eat more, it's good for growing. You'll definitely fill out better than your big sister!"
That said.
Bai Wuxie made a furtive measuring gesture at her own chest.
Today she wore a casual white summer sundress with light blue ruffled trim. Two half-transparent ribbons over her shoulders held the dress up.
"Okay."
Li Yue nodded, thoroughly obedient.
With no notion at all of what the words implied.
After another round of good food had gone down.
The tabletop had been cleared at a stroke, while Bai Wuxie was still lingering fondly over the warm scene the two sisters had just made, her face all doting.
After a while she remembered the day's plan, and with mock seriousness counted it off on her fingers for Li Yue:
"In a moment, going by distance and how long each takes, nearest to farthest and shortest to longest, we'll go in order to a small, pretty flower shop, the clothes shop I always go to, and the Blade Wielders' and Sword Maidens' underground market."
"After the flower shop and the clothes shop we'll come back to this restaurant for lunch, then set off for the underground market in the afternoon, do a bit of shopping until evening, and after that we'll each have to go our own way."
"Of course. Don't you worry, Li Yue. Your big sister will protect you the whole way, and won't let anyone with bad intentions near!"
As she spoke.
Bai Wuxie, her face solemn, reached out and took Li Yue's tiny palm in hers.
Her cerulean eyes threw back a dazzling light, firm and grave and no less gentle for it.
"A-Li. If you can't see, then let me be your eyes. Even if it's only for today, or from now on. So long as you want it, I'll see the road ahead clearly for you, read people's hearts, and witness everything."
She finished.
The girl blushed, very quietly.
She knew perfectly well how ambiguous those words sounded to anyone else, far beyond an ordinary friendship, a little improper even between sisters.
But so what? To protect someone important she would never regret saying it. If anything, she only wished she could say it once to Ke Jie as well.
Plainly.
Someone had been pierced straight through the heart by that one line.
"I......"
Li Yue, at a loss, started to speak and stopped.
A rosy flush crept quietly up the roots of her ears.
A thousand words inside her gathered at last into one low murmur:
"......Thank you, Big Sis~"
Of her own accord she answered the other's hand, lacing her fingers through Bai Wuxie's, just like real sisters.
Now they were, in the truest sense, sisters of the heart, with no blood between them.
***
After that.
One tall and one small, drawing eyes without number along the street, the two sisters arrived at the door of the nearest flower shop.
From the doorway inward, what the eye took in was row on row of iron racks neatly filled with every kind of common flower, a few rare varieties, and a handful of unusual, extraordinary blooms.
One or two shop assistants could be dimly seen busy at work, cleaning and tending or explaining and selling. A few customers wandered back and forth, apparently choosing.
"......"
Bai Wuxie stopped at the door and did not take the next step.
"What is it, Big Sis?"
Li Yue tilted her head a little and asked, faintly puzzled.
"Shh! Someone I know. Let's steer clear."
Bai Wuxie's face went tight, and she turned to go.
The next moment.
From inside the shop came that familiar, amused woman's voice:
"Wuxie, where are you off to? Your master here happens to need a helper to pick out memorial flowers."
Feng Rui inside the shop had called Bai Wuxie outside to a halt.
Neither master nor disciple had imagined this chance meeting.