Hovering three feet above the cracked black star-stone tiles of the Imperial Astral Tower observatory, the three-second phantom projection of [Upper-Realm Frozen Astral Prison. Sector 6] flickered like a candle flame caught in a blizzard and began to fade. Ten million Dad Points is a bargain if it lets my kids hear their mother’s voice tonight, Gu Changsheng thought softly.
“Wait! Don’t go yet!”
Nine-year-old Gu Nian took a frantic step forward, his small hands reaching toward the shimmering silver-blue light. Stopping an inch away, terrified that his warm fingers might accidentally shatter the fragile image of the woman in snow-white robes. His round dark eyes—the exact mirror of Gu Changsheng’s—brimmed with hot, stubborn tears that he refused to let fall as he looked up at his father.
“Dad,” Gu Nian whispered, his voice trembling so hard it barely rose above the midnight wind whistling through the broken roof tiles. “When Mom had to leave Frost-Pine Town, I was only three years old. I remember the snow-plum smell of her scarf, and I remember her tucking the warm brick under my feet...
but whenever I close my eyes at night, I can’t remember what her voice sounds like anymore. Can we fix her hairpin so it doesn’t go dark again?”
