Chapter 1280: 38. Seamless Replacement

“So what if I haven’t?”

Hamreign took a deep breath and restrained her aura. “That proves nothing. Was what I said wrong? So-called love is nothing more than a combination of desire, possessiveness, and dependence. It merely comes from a person’s own desires. It is fragile and laughable, easily eroded by time until it becomes something not even worth mentioning.”

“Well......I suppose what you said is probably right.”

Seeing that this great lady was not truly angry, Old Mark let out a long breath of relief, then scratched his cheek. “I don’t really understand complicated things either. I’m just a rough old man. But I think love is something subjective. It’s different for everyone, and in the end, you can’t simply apply someone else’s experience to yourself. As for what it’s really like, you have to experience it yourself before you can know.”

“Hmph. What difference could there possibly be?”

Hamreign dismissed it with disdain.

The exact same words again.

But......so what?

She had no need to experience it.

The knowledge and experience granted by her long life were already more than enough.

What she understood far exceeded anything mere humans could know."

At that moment, those human women once again appeared in Hamreign’s mind—their controlled postures, the lascivious sounds spilling from their mouths, the ugly sight of them abandoning themselves completely to pleasure and freely exposing their jealousy and narrow-mindedness.

It was truly laughable.

They were all the same.

Clowns controlled by desire.

And she......would absolutely never fall for it..

......

......

The two continued forward while chatting along the way, and before long, they arrived at the small hill Old Mark had mentioned, the one that was supposed to be covered in flowers.

Flowers......there were none. There were only scattered withered vines and branches, sparse and uneven like the top of a middle-aged man’s head.

The small grave stood at the highest point, covered in weeds and moss.

“Sorry, my dear. I’m a month late this year. The flowers have all withered.”

Old Mark’s face was filled with boundless tenderness as he gently stroked the words carved into the gravestone.

Perhaps Hamreign had truly been right, and what he missed was merely that beautiful image in his heart.

But the emotions he displayed could not possibly be false."

He half-knelt before the gravestone and carefully removed the weeds and moss from it bit by bit. It was clearly something he did every year. Otherwise, the place would have long since disappeared beneath the wild grass.

Once he finished, he took out the flowers from his bundle. They had already become disordered during his desperate escape earlier, yet he still carefully placed them one by one around the grave......He had anticipated that the flowers would already have withered, but he still hoped that his reunion with her after an entire year could take place during the most beautiful season.

Finally, he gently embraced the gravestone as though embracing the lover he had once held in his arms and began telling her everything that had happened over the past year......the new house that had been built, the birth of a granddaughter, his children’s inability to understand him, and the injury to his leg some time ago that had caused him to arrive a month late.

Good things, bad things, strange new things.

All sorts of things.

So many of them.

“......”

Hamreign quietly listened from the side while looking out over the surrounding night.

She could not understand what was interesting about these utterly ordinary stories, yet unexpectedly, she had an extraordinary amount of patience for them.

The inexplicable irritation she had felt before seemed to have completely vanished along with Old Mark’s words.

The love carried by this human might indeed surpass that of the vast majority of people she had witnessed.

But it still could not shake her.

After all, what she pursued was a higher, holier, more eternal emotion.

This mere love was still nowhere near enough to stir the strings of her heart.

Rustle......

Hmm?

Immersed in the story, she had accidentally allowed the night wind to slip past her defenses. Her fiery-red hair scattered in the breeze, and the hair ornament atop her head was blown loose as well.

She caught it in one hand and carefully examined the ornament, which was not particularly expensive, before sighing softly:

“What terrible craftsmanship.”

He clearly had so many women around him, yet he could not even put a hair ornament on properly. Should she say that he simply had not put his heart into it, or......

“It’s beautiful.”

Hamreign raised her eyes.

Old Mark had already finished mourning his wife and was curiously looking at the hair ornament in her hand.

“Was it a gift from your lover?”

“......”

“Ah, sorry. I forgot. You don’t have a lover.”

Old Mark hurriedly covered his mouth.

Perhaps he had become too happy after being reunited with his wife and had lost his head again for a moment.

He really was getting old.

“Sorry, sorry, I......”

“My companion gave it to me.”

Hamreign saw no reason to hide it. She placed the ornament back into her hair and answered, “It was a gift we exchanged with each other.”

“Companion?”

Old Mark blinked, seeming particularly interested in that word.

After all, normally speaking......did companions give each other something as ambiguous as hair ornaments?

“Male or female?”

“Is that important?” Hamreign glanced at him.

“Cough, cough......not important. I was only curious.” Old Mark gave an awkward smile.

“To me, gender is irrelevant. Whether he is male or female, good or evil, or even whether he is human at all, none of that matters. What matters is that I have already made a promise with him. We will remain together forever, moving forward through eternity, sharing each other’s pain and becoming the people who understand one another best.”

Hamreign extended her hand and slowly closed her five fingers.

As though, across some vast distance, she were holding someone’s hand.

“I see......what an enviable relationship.”

Old Mark sighed in admiration and raised his thumb.

As expected of such a great person. Even her relationship with a companion was so extraordinary.

However......

Old Mark suddenly stroked his chin and sank into thought.

“Strange. Perhaps I’m overthinking it, but why do I keep feeling that the kind of relationship you’re describing......would sound perfectly natural even if you directly replaced the word ‘companion’ with ‘lover’?” he said unconsciously.

Making promises, staying together forever, becoming the person who understood the other best......

Weren’t those exactly the kinds of things a deeply loving couple often said when privately pledging their lives to each other?

Nothing else aside, when he had been young and pursuing his equally young wife, he had said those sorts of words more than once.

They had completely swept her off her feet.

“......Shut up!”

Hamreign froze for a moment, then became furious once again:

“Do not use your filthy, dirty, vulgar emotions to defile the pure and noble relationship between us!”

“S-sorry! I didn’t mean to defile it.”

Realizing that he had said the wrong thing again, Old Mark hurriedly waved his hands and explained, “I just thought the two sounded a little similar, so I said it without thinking......”

“How are they similar?”

Her golden pupils blazed once more, and the terrifying pressure almost sent Old Mark straight to the afterlife on the spot.

“Human, do not spout nonsense here. After everything I just told you, do you still not understand? So-called love is nothing more than a combination of desire, possessiveness, and dependence. But between him and me, there is absolutely no desire mixed into our relationship!”

That was the fundamental difference.

She would never reveal such an ugly side of herself like those laughable human women!

“I-is that so?”

Old Mark wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. “If there truly isn’t any desire mixed in......if you don’t have any improper thoughts toward your companion, not even the slightest thought of that sort......then it really is an extraordinarily pure and noble emotion. I understand now. It isn’t love. It absolutely isn’t love!”

“Hmph. Good that you understand.”

Hamreign gave a cold snort and withdrew the pressure from her golden pupils.

But after all this, she suddenly found the whole thing rather boring.

She had originally only intended to pass some time here, yet in the end, this old man who had seemed somewhat different was still nothing more than an ordinary human who had surrendered to humanity’s own desires.

He was even foolish enough to mistake her “companionship” with Muen for that laughable thing called love.

Boring.

“I’m leaving.”

“Eh?”

Old Mark froze, not expecting her departure to come so suddenly.

“I......”

“Don’t worry. I’m not angry with you. I simply don’t think there is any reason for me to remain here any longer.”

Hamreign swept her sleeve. “You now carry a trace of my aura on your body. The demonic beasts here will no longer attack you.”

“Wait, my lady......”

“Goodbye.”

Old Mark still wanted to stop her, but Miss Dragon remained as decisive as ever. Her figure flashed and completely disappeared.

Only Old Mark remained behind, scratching his head vigorously.

“She really wasn’t angry because of what I said?”

Probably not.

Someone of her stature surely would not get angry so casually.

He had merely blurted out a couple of truthful observations.

Surely not.

Absolutely not.

Still......

“So in the end, you’re just a troublesome woman too......” Old Mark lowered his voice and sighed.

For some reason, he suddenly felt that this “companion” the great lady had spoken of......was inexplicably pitiful.

He would probably suffer through some extremely miserable experiences in the future.

—That was the intuition of someone who had once been hopelessly entangled with a troublesome woman himself.

......

......

“Boring.”

Hamreign streaked through the sky.

Some of the things Old Mark had said continued echoing through her mind.

Her feelings resembled love?

Laughable.

These humans were all so laughable.

Could she, a thousand-year-old dragon, truly be incapable of distinguishing between such things?

“If there is no desire, then it absolutely cannot be that sort of vulgar romantic love!”

Hamreign murmured the words again as though reaffirming them to herself.

Her fiery-red figure flashed rapidly, and before long, she caught up to the carriage beneath the night sky.

“Hmm?”

From a distance, she raised an eyebrow.

Because the carriage had actually stopped.

“They’re already resting this early?”

Hamreign landed.

Before she had even reached the carriage, her perception instinctively spread toward it......

Then her movements froze.

She immediately withdrew her perception.

She had no intention of spying on what the people inside the carriage were doing at that moment, but those strange sounds still inevitably reached her extraordinarily powerful senses.

“It’s been this long, and they still haven’t finished?”

A trace of displeasure appeared in her eyes.

She had deliberately left precisely to allow those two shameless women to vent their desires. After all, she had already heard enough of those sounds and had no desire to hear any more.

Yet unexpectedly, she had been gone for quite some time and they still had not finished?

Could Muen endure something like that for so long?

“Normally, it would be one thing, but are they planning to keep doing it throughout the entire night even while traveling?”

Hamreign felt that this was highly inappropriate.

She immediately began walking forward, preparing to remind those two human women not to indulge themselves too excessively.

As for Muen......

He had definitely been forced.

As her companion, how could he possibly be at fault?

“Mm......ah......Muen......so good......”

That snow-white expanse rose and fell like surging waves, and even Hamreign found the rippling motion produced by its movement startling.

Was it that snake-demon-like woman?

No.

It was not her.

Then perhaps the other one......

No.

Even less likely.

The difference in size was practically the difference between a firefly and the radiant moon. There was no need whatsoever to compare or think about it.

Which meant......

“Another shameless human woman......has appeared?”