Steampunk Era: Mad Abield
Chapter 1026: Section 657: Love from the Past (Part 4)_3

Chapter 1026: Section 657: Love from the Past (Part 4)_3

Until Malin pulled his gaze away from the stars and let go of his yearning for the past.

"You like watching the stars; why is that? Are the stars really that beautiful?"

"Because when I was a kid, there was nothing else worth looking at. Sometimes, I got so bored that I’d start counting stars."

Malin spoke the truth. A long time ago, back when he was still a child, on the rooftop of the orphanage, he and... he and someone would do just that.

Doing something so foolish, yet relishing it endlessly.

Malin found that he had forgotten who else used to share in that boredom with him, but... it must have been a very close friend.

Thinking of this, Malin let out another sigh. Despite having achieved a legendary status, why had he forgotten who that person truly was? Could this be another interpretation of senility?

With such self-mockery in mind, Malin sat up.

"Counting stars... now that’s undiluted boredom you can see with the naked eye." Meng Quyi chuckled as she scratched her head, then tilted her gaze toward the stars again.

"And you? What do you do at night?" Malin pressed his hands against the wooden planks of the rooftop. He didn’t know why, but he wanted to ask, wanted to know an answer.

"Back in Thainan, when I was a child, I used to study War Witch crafts under my mentor. As my skills progressed, I grew up, and soon my peers started inviting me to join their banquets. You know what banquets signify—places brimming with all sorts of arrogant, ambitious young males chirping as tirelessly as sparrows." Meng Quyi sighed at this point. "For reasons unknown, they all seemed to like me, though I never liked them."

"I heard you’re a half-blood." Malin asked.

"Yes, I am. And perhaps, in their eyes, I was nothing more than an exotic toy—a mongrel."

"Calling someone a mongrel is a deeply disrespectful act. But if you call yourself that, it’s a desecration of your parents’ lineage. In life, you cannot choose the family you’re born into, but you can choose the person you want to become." Malin said, looking at the dispirited girl before him.

"Indeed, Mr. Malin, you’re correct. As for me, I want to become someone like my father, someone who strives for survival in this world. Everyone thinks this way." At the mention of her father, a faint vitality returned to the girl’s demeanor.

Before Malin, it seemed as though she had shed her facade, speaking endlessly about her peers.

She resented those peers who treated her as a commodity, and despised even more those who viewed themselves as mere commodities. To her, they were both pitifully weak and overwhelmingly domineering.

"But I understand—it’s not this era’s fault, but rather the consequence of life and death circumstances. Every Thanan must act this way. Only unions between the strong can produce stronger offspring. Everything is about survival; love has no place in it."

Love, in this era, is dead.

The girl concluded with a long, drawn-out sigh.

After listening to her lament, Malin finally watched her step down from the rooftop, and then he sighed as well.

Yes, in this era, love truly is dead.

Even for Malin and his women, at the start, it was more of a familial bond forged to warm one another in the cold darkness.

As for love—it was the purest and most intimate of attachments. It wasn’t entirely absent, but it was simply too extravagant.

In this era, love was the kind of bond you shared when facing death together, a mutual survival born out of despair.

Malin had seen it countless times before, and now, he was numb to it.