A spring breeze carrying the first hints of warmth rustled through the peach blossoms, lifting the hem of the girl's dress in a graceful arc. Her twin tails of satin-like hair swayed gently like celestial ribbons caught in an astral dance.
Fu Xuan's crystalline eyes narrowed as she scanned the courtyard - layered irises resembling fractured prisms that seemed to peer through spacetime itself. Though her porcelain features remained impassive, the subtle tightening of her gloves betrayed her unease.
"Grand Diviner? Who's that?" Anming blinked up at her, wooden practice sword dangling carelessly at his side. To the child, this ethereal visitor might as well have stepped from the pages of Xianzhou's oldest fairy tales.
The corner of Fu Xuan's lips twitched imperceptibly. Since glimpsing that catastrophic future through the Qiong Guan Array, sleep had become a stranger. She refused to believe fate was immutable, yet how could millennia of divination-guided prosperity be mere coincidence?
"You mean Master?" Anming's eyes lit with recognition as he pointed to the jade token at his waist - Jingtian's unmistakable craftsmanship. "Are you... my senior sister?"
Peach petals drifted between them like frozen raindrops. Fu Xuan's breath caught as realization dawned - this was the variable that had disrupted all her recent calculations. The living paradox standing before her radiated neither a diviner's insight nor a warrior's aura, yet somehow carried the weight of celestial revisions in his tiny fists.
"To think Master would take another disciple after all these years," she murmured, bending to examine the boy properly. Her crystalline gaze swept over grass-stained knees and a wooden blade notched from countless strikes. "Though you resemble more a stray pup than a stargazer's apprentice."
Anming puffed out his chest. "Grandma says real men become Cloud Knights! Not stuffy old star-readers!"
"Old?!" The petals swirling around Fu Xuan's boots suddenly froze mid-descent.
"Xianzhou folks live forever!" The child nodded sagely. "You must be at least three hundred! An antique! A relic! A—"
The wooden sword flashed.
A hurricane of pink petals erupted as blade intent sharper than shattered jade pinned Fu Xuan in place. Her twin tails whipped backward as the blunt tip halted a hair's breadth from her third eye.
"...Interesting." Her voice remained steady despite the storm of calculations racing through her mind. Every evasive path the Matrix of Prescience illuminated ended with that wooden sword at her throat.
"Victory!" Anming twirled his weapon with a grin that quickly faltered as Fu Xuan's own practice blade tapped his forehead.
"Proper address, junior." Though her tone carried winter's chill, something akin to amusement glimmered in those kaleidoscope eyes. "Or must I educate you in etiquette?"
The ensuing chase around peach trees ended with a tearful Anming clutching Jingtian's robes. "Master! The ancient crone's bullying me!"
"Peace, both of you." The Grand Diviner emerged from the pagoda's shadow, his astrological fan tracing soothing arcs through the charged air. "Fu Xuan, meet your junior. Anming, greet your senior sister properly."
Reluctant mumbles of "Senior Sister Fu" were exchanged under duress. As Jingtian observed their strained interaction, the vision that had haunted him since Anming's adoption resurfaced - twin comets blazing across night skies, their luminous trails converging yet never touching.
"You've seen it too, Master." Fu Xuan's voice cut through the floral-scented breeze. "The inescapable conflict. The price of defiance."
Jingtian rotated his mechanical hand, sunlight glinting off artificed joints. "Destiny's river flows where it will. Our role is but to witness its course."
Anming tugged at Fu Xuan's sleeve, oblivious to the weight of their words. "See? Told you diviners just spout riddles!"
As petals settled in Fu Xuan's hair like a crown of fading stars, the Matrix's cruel calculus played behind her eyes - endless variations of fire and loss, every path demanding sacrifice. She gently removed the child's grubby hand, her resolve hardening like rapidly cooling stellaron glass.
If fate permits only one road... Her gaze lingered on Anming's carefree smile. Then I shall pave it with my own bones.