Oh, Dearie, love is a plague. You are the newly crowned Asmodeus, are you not?

Oh? Is it love?

How lucky for him.

I can’t help but be verbal!”

Wonderful news! Come and have tea with me!

“The goddess saved me,” she smiles sadly. By this, of course she means Chang’E. “I could have stayed with her, but it was too painful to be so far away from my children. I’ve been in hiding all of this time. It’s… such a long story.”

“There is something you should know,” she says softly. “They think I’m dead. I survived the poisoning attempt, but only by pretending that it worked. I couldn’t go back for them.”

// Yes! I love this idea! They were good friends until one was imprisoned and the other died 😭

She shakes her head and sighs as she takes her friend’s hands. “How do I explain it? Everything that I have done from the moment A-Huan took his first breath, to the last time I held the two of them, has been for their safety. But A-Zhan was still so young. It must have felt like abandonment.”