She looked down at her hands. Her translucent fingers shimmered under the colorful lights of the park, and she could faintly see the texture of the metal railings beneath her skin.
It was not real.
None of this was real.
But that wish… that wish was real. It was so real that every time she saw her sister eat, she would subconsciously mimic the act of swallowing. It was so real that every time the wind blew, she would imagine the resistance of that wind passing through her hair.
‘I want to become human again.’
This thought was like a seed buried in her soul that had not died in 100 years; it was simply waiting for the rain.
And now, the rain had come.
A card, a promise, a miracle that only required her to speak.
She only had to turn back.
She only had to walk back to that stage, pick up that card, and say those words —
Elvia closed her eyes.
And then, she remembered Jiang Ming.
“If tomorrow were the end of the world. An unavoidable disaster from which no one survives, swallowing everything, leaving no future and no hope. You and your sister would both die together in that end.”
“At the final moment, before everything returns to nothingness…”
“What would you want to do?”
She had answered then.
She said she wanted to go to an amusement park, ride a roller coaster, eat cake, and become a person with weight again.
those answers were true. Every word was true.
But now, in this fake Amusement Park that perfectly replicated all her desires, she suddenly realized that those answers seemed to be missing something.
She closed her eyes and pondered.
She remembered Jiang Ming’s answer.
“What about you? Will the story you write ever end?”
“No.”
“Even in death?”
“Poetry has no end.”
Elvia opened her eyes.
She looked at her hands, at the translucent outlines that could pass through objects.
Then, she performed a strange action — she raised her hand toward the brilliant lights above the Amusement Park and gripped the air.
As if catching something invisible.
Catching… possibility.
Catching the possibility that it didn’t end here.
She thought about the few short days since Jiang Ming had appeared.
From that battle on the rooftop where she almost died, to the orange juice handed to her sister in the cafeteria, to the conversation about the Parabellum Knight in the library, to the wind whistling in her ears during the late-night drive, and just now — before entering this place, he had crouched down and seriously asked her, “If tomorrow were the end of the world.”
Just a few short days.
But the changes this man named Jiang Ming had brought to her world were more than everything in the past ten years — no, more than all the time since she became a Spirit Body.
He let her taste flavors again.
He let her feel the wind again.
He let her start thinking about what she truly wanted again.
Even knowing she was a Cleaner and bore an Angel Contract, he did not retreat or show fear. He simply said, calmly, that secrets could be exchanged for secrets.
That frankness… that attitude of treating her like a person.
Just a person one could eat with, chat with, and face danger with.
Elvia smiled.
She thought, ‘If I go to witness this so-called “Poetry Has No End” with this person… that seems…’
‘Not bad at all.’
Much better than sitting on a carousel alone.
Much better than eating an entire cake alone.
Much better.
After all, tomorrow isn’t the end of the world, is it?
Because she suddenly realized one thing:
She was alive.
Even in the form of a Spirit Body.
Even as a pair of Scissors.
She was thinking, feeling, choosing, and looking forward to what would happen tomorrow.
Was that not the definition of being alive?
Man is but a thinking reed.
Elvia released the teddy bear in her arms.
The bear hit the ground with a dull thud.
She turned around, her back to the stage, the card, and the clown host who was still waiting for her to look back.
Then, she stepped forward.
She did not walk toward the exit of the Amusement Park; she did not know where the exit was.
Instead, she walked toward the Ferris wheel.
That massive wheel rotating slowly, each cabin glowing with a warm yellow light.
She wanted to ride the Ferris wheel once.
Not because it was romantic, and not because it offered a panoramic view.
But because…
It turned very slowly.
So slowly that she would have time to think.
Elvia reached the base of the Ferris wheel.
The line was not long. She stood behind the blurry figure of a couple in matching clothes and waited quietly. When it was her turn, the staff member — a girl with a stiff smile — pulled open the cabin door.
She stepped inside.
Elvia entered the cabin only to find that someone was already sitting there.
It was a woman looking out the window.
The Ferris wheel began to move, making a slight metallic sound. They slowly left the ground, and the lights of the Amusement Park spread out beneath them like a warm river of stars.
“Are you having fun?” the woman said.
“Who are you?” Elvia asked.
“Lilith,” the woman replied. “You can think of me as someone who can grant your wishes.”
Elvia sat opposite her, the teddy bear set aside. She did not speak, only watched the other woman quietly.
The cabin rose until they reached the highest point. Only then did Lilith finally turn her head.
“That card,” she said softly. ” ‘I want to become human again.’ That sentence is very simple, is it not? Flesh, warmth, heartbeats, breathing… everything you miss, everything you lost, can return. This is your deepest desire, Elvia. Do not deceive yourself.”
Her voice carried magic, threading into Elvia’s ears and stirring the longings she had forcibly suppressed.
Yes, flesh, warmth, heartbeats… every word was like a needle pricking the softest part of her soul.
Elvia lowered her head, looking at her translucent hands. The light of the Amusement Park passed through her palms, casting blurry spots of light on the floor.
“Flesh, warmth, heartbeats…” she slowly repeated. Then she looked up, staring directly into Lilith’s eyes. “These are important. I used to think that without them, I was no longer human.”
The corners of Lilith’s mouth curled into an elegant arc, as if to say, “See?”
“But,” Elvia’s voice became clear, “what is a human? Is it merely a body that breathes, eats, and rots? Or does it lie here — ” She lightly tapped the position of her heart with her fingertip, though there was no heartbeat there. “Does it lie in thinking, in feeling, in memory, and in… choice?”
She paused, her gaze passing through Lilith and toward the vast, fake night sky outside the cabin.
“I was once lost, seeing myself as merely a pair of scissors, a tool, a contract creation existing for a purpose. I envied my sister and everyone with a physical body, thinking that was what it meant to be alive. But later, I discovered… it is not.”
“Jiang Ming let me taste flavors again and feel the wind. Not with a tongue or skin, but with this.” She tapped her chest again. “He speaks to me not as a tool or a ghost, but as a person. He asks me what I want and listens seriously to my answers. He tells me that poetry has no end.”
Her eyes lit up with a radiance that did not come from the park’s lamps, but was ignited from within.
“From that moment, or rather, from the moment I decided no longer to exist merely as Elvira’s shadow… I was already human. The only difference between me and them is a temporarily absent body. But my soul, my will, and my pride remain as long as I do not bow to despair or kneel to the fate you have arranged.”
She took a deep breath, though she did not need to. Her words were resonant and firm.
“My soul will forever be noble, and I will forever be entitled to call myself human.”
The cabin paused briefly at the highest point, as if time itself had stopped. The smile on Lilith’s face vanished, replaced by a deep, unreadable scrutiny.
“An interesting answer,” she finally spoke after a long while. “Then, the card, the wish… you have decided to give up on becoming human again? Even though it has been your deepest obsession?”
“What I am giving up is your definition of a human,” Elvia shook her head. “I do not need to pray to you for anything to prove what I am. I am me.”
Lilith fell silent. The cabin began to descend slowly, and the clamor from the ground grew audible once more. Just as the cabin was about to reach the bottom, she suddenly smiled again.
“Then, girl,” she asked softly, “if the eligibility for a wish still stands, and if this journey must leave a mark… what is the wish you truly want to make right now?”
Elvia closed her eyes.
She saw the serious look in Jiang Ming’s eyes when he crouched before her, she heard the phrase “Poetry has no end,” and she felt the certainty of choosing to walk together toward an unknown tomorrow.
When she opened her eyes again, her gaze was clear and determined. She looked toward the vast world below, where reality and falsehood intertwined, and toward the unpredictable future waiting for her.
“My wish is — “
Her voice was not loud, but it was filled with the power to pierce the boundary between illusion and reality.
“I want to continue writing that poem with Jiang Ming, even if poetry has no end.”
The room fell into a brief silence.
Jiang Ming’s fingertips moved slightly as he slowly unfolded the paper before him.
The paper lay silently on the surface of the coffee table. The light caught it perfectly, illuminating the fresh ink handwriting:
To witness the so-called endless poetry.
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