“Jiang…” Her voice was as thin as a thread. With every word she spoke, bloody foam overflowed from the corners of her mouth.
“Don’t talk! Hold on! Lillian! Elvia! Quick!” Jiang Ming turned his head and roared, his voice already cracking.
Lillian and Elvia rushed over, scrambling, but their healing powers encountered the same terrifying rejection when they touched Elvira.
Elvia’s tears fell in large droplets. She released life energy in vain, only able to watch helplessly as her sister’s breath grew weaker and weaker.
Elvira shook her head with great effort. Her gaze fell on the front of Jiang Ming’s clothes, as if she were searching for something. Using her last bit of strength, she raised her cracked right hand and reached tremblingly into Jiang Ming’s shirt. Inside, he was carrying the diary she had given him.
Jiang Ming understood immediately. He held her tightly with one hand and, with a trembling other hand, helped her pull out the blood-stained diary and placed it into her cold hands.
Elvira didn’t have the strength to open it. She just held the diary tightly to her chest, her bloodied fingers stroking the leather cover. Then, her gradually fading gaze looked at Jiang Ming.
“Write… please…” Her lips moved, barely making a sound. “For… my story… write an… ending…”
Jiang Ming’s eyes reddened instantly, and his vision blurred. He nodded heavily, almost enough to break his jaw. He carefully supported Elvira, letting her lean against his arm, then freed his right hand and tremblingly fished a pen out of his pocket.
He flipped to the last blank page of the diary.
The paper was already splattered with spots of her warm blood, like flowers blooming in despair.
The tip of the pen hovered over the paper, trembling so much it couldn’t descend. A thousand words were blocked in his throat, and the massive grief almost tore him apart. He looked at her increasingly ashen face, feeling her life slipping through his fingers like shifting sand.
Then, he took a deep breath, and the pen tip landed.
His handwriting had never been so forceful, yet never so gentle:
“Later, she came to a sea constructed of lies and dice. There was an Evil Dragon there, perched on a lonely island at the end of fate. The dragon was invincible because it was despair itself.”
Elvira’s eyes lit up slightly, as if she wanted to see the words he was writing clearly.
“People say that when facing invincible windmills, charging is foolish. But there are always some fools in this world, some knights, who would rather have their spears break against illusory giants than lower them to a ridiculous reality.”
Jiang Ming’s tears finally fell, hitting the paper and blurring the ink and the bloodstains.
“She was not alone. By her side was a Sage of the stars, a singer of life… and one marksman who always wanted to see through the mist. Together, they did the most foolish and bravest thing. They awakened all the departed souls who had been crushed by the windmills but refused to dissipate, and launched one final, most magnificent charge against that massive windmill that turned the fates of countless people.”
He paused here for a moment, as if he could hear the roar of the undead tsunami, as if he could see the brilliance of the ghostly blue soul fire perishing together with the darkness.
He looked down at Elvira. The corners of her mouth curved upward.
“Did the windmill fall? Perhaps. But that is no longer important.”
Jiang Ming’s handwriting became increasingly steady, as if he were constructing an eternal epitaph for her:
“What matters is that in that story known to no one, a girl named Elvira, in the capacity of a human, held her rust-stained but never-bending spear and launched a charge against the giant she had identified.”
“She lost to the transformation, lost to time, and lost to many things that cannot be said. But she never lost to fear, and she never betrayed her pride as a human or those she loved.”
“Thus, at the end of the story, when the setting sun plated the sea surface with molten gold, and when the ghost ship filled with immortal spirits set sail again toward the eternal return…”
Jiang Ming raised his head. Through his tear-blurred eyes, he seemed to truly see the shadows of the dissipating ghost ships appearing again on the gradually dimming golden horizon. They were lined up silently, their sails filled with the wind from the other side. Transparent figures stood on the ships—everyone who had once fought side by side.
They looked quietly at the Argo, at Elvira in his arms, as if waiting, as if urging a companion to board.
And within this vision, Jiang Ming saw another image.
On a boundless field filled with blood-colored flowers, Elvira rode a magnificent white horse. Her armor was bright, her long hair flying. She held a straight spear high in her hand, its tip gleaming with a cold light. She was launching a resolute, lonely, and glorious charge toward the incomparably massive, slowly turning windmill on the horizon.
The wind blew her cloak, making it snap loudly like a flag that would never surrender.
Jiang Ming closed his eyes, letting that image be carved into his heart, and then continued writing:
“People say she mounted a white horse formed of starlight and obsession, following those souls who also refused to rest, and began her charge once more. This time, there was no end point before her and no path of retreat behind her. There was only the endless, free wilderness and an eternally burning heart that belonged to a human.”
“So, please do not weep for her.”
“Because in this story—Elvira gained eternal life.”
The pen tip lifted. The final period was as heavy as a falling star.
The moment he finished writing, Elvira’s body in his arms trembled slightly. She seemed to use the last of her strength to focus her gaze on Jiang Ming’s face.
Those crimson eyes, which were gradually losing their luster, reflected his silhouette so clearly it was heartbreaking.
There were no words, only wordless attachment, relief, and a sliver of deep regret that could never be spoken again.
At some unknown point, she had found herself falling in love with him.
Perhaps it was the first time they met, perhaps the first time they fought side by side, or perhaps the first time they rode a bike together.
She had thought there was still much time, thought that those silent gazes and subconscious leanings would one day brew the courage to speak. But now, there was none.
If there were a chance, she certainly would have said it.
She slowly blinked once. Her long eyelashes flickered like the wings of a dying butterfly for the last time.
Then, that final bit of light went out.
the hand holding the diary loosened weakly. The diary slid down and was caught by Jiang Ming’s trembling hand.
Her body, in his arms, completely lost all weight and all temperature.
The cracks on the right half of her body stopped spreading.
Her left eye was closed quietly, as if she had simply fallen into a deep sleep. That unfinished curve at the corner of her mouth, however, seemed to carry a trace of Elvira’s stubbornness and gentleness.
The sea breeze continued to blow, bringing a deathly silence after victory and the empty void of having lost everything.
Lillian turned her face away, her shoulders shaking silently. Elvia let out a mournful cry, collapsing beside her sister’s gradually cooling body. She tightly grabbed her left hand, which was still intact, her tears soaking the backs of their joined hands.
Jiang Ming did not move. He just held her, very, very tightly. His head was lowered, his cheek pressed against her cold forehead where the brilliance had faded. Warm liquid continuously slid down, soaking her hair.
He seemed to still be able to see the figure of the white horse carrying her, charging toward the windmill, getting further and further away, merging into the horizon where the blood-colored sea of flowers intertwined with the golden sunset.
The ghost ship full of undead slowly turned its bow in the vision, sailing toward the twilight of the deep sea. The sails brushed over the water, leaving not a single ripple.
the story that no one knew had reached its conclusion.
The knight had died.
But the story said that she gained eternal life.
End.