The room seemed to freeze. Even Gin stopped his frantic scroll examination to gape at them. Soma let out a terrified squeak and jumped off the night stand and hid behind Kai, her tiny paws clutching at his leg like a drowning child.

  "Absolutely not." The words came out as a growl, deeper and more feral than Kai intended.

  Lulu didn’t back down. Instead, her desperation surged forward like a breaking wave.

  "I’ll give you everything!" she cried, her voice cracking under the strain of raw need. "All the manuals—not just body refinement or qi gathering, but techniques that go even beyond the Golden Core realm! Secrets that sects would kill for! You can have my notes, my artifacts, my—my own body if you want it! Just give me that rabbit!"

  Kai recoiled slightly, thrown by the sheer intensity of her outburst. Until now, Lulu had carried herself with a smug confidence, a smirk always playing at the edges of her lips no matter the situation. But this? This was something else entirely. Her eyes burned with a manic energy.

  Kai glanced down. Soma had pressed herself so tightly against his leg that her fur bristled against his skin. Her ears lay flat against her back, her entire body trembling. She wasn’t just scared—she was terrified.

  "What the hell is going on?" Kai demanded, shifting his stance to shield Soma more fully. "Why are you acting like this?"

  Lulu’s breath came in short, ragged bursts. "That rabbit—it’s the answer! The thing I’ve spent my entire life searching for! I’d given up, resigned myself to never finding it, but now—!" Her voice broke, and for the first time, Kai noticed the deep shadows beneath her eyes, the gauntness in her cheeks that no amount of beauty could mask.

  "You want a dream rabbit?" Kai asked slowly, piecing it together.

  "Not the rabbit itself—the sleep!" Lulu nearly sobbed the word. "Do you have any idea what it’s like? To lie awake every night, your mind screaming even as your body collapses? To spend years—decades—chasing rumors, swallowing elixirs that rot your meridians, begging for just one night of true rest?"

  Kai stared at her. He’d assumed the dark circles under her eyes were from a few sleepless nights, but now, it seems like it was more than that.

  "What’s wrong with you?" Kai asked, his voice sharp. "Are you sick? Cursed?"

  Lulu’s lips twisted into a bitter smile, but her eyes remained hollow—dark pits of exhaustion that seemed to swallow the light around them. "Cursed," she muttered. "Born with it. A rare physique, one that denies me sleep. Not just occasionally. Ever."

  Kai frowned. "I’ve heard of plenty of unique physiques, but nothing that outright prevents sleep. That doesn’t make sense."

  "It’s called the Eternal Memory Physique," Lulu said, her voice flat, as if she’d explained this a thousand times to a thousand skeptical faces. "I remember everything. Every sound, every sight, every smell, every touch—all preserved in perfect, agonizing detail. The only exception is taste, for some heaven-forsaken reason. I can’t recall the exact flavor of my mother’s cooking."

  Kai picked Soma up and started petting her to calm her down as the weight of her words settled over him.

  "Okay," he said slowly, "but why would perfect memory keep you from sleeping? Is it some side effect? Qi overload? A mental backlash?"

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  Lulu let out a ragged laugh. "It’s not a side effect. It’s the core of the curse. When I close my eyes, I don’t drift into darkness—I relive my entire life, moment by moment, as if it’s happening all over again. The joy, the pain, the humiliation, the terror—all of it, fresh and raw, every single night. Imagine lying in bed, trying to rest, only to be forced to watch your regrets play out in perfect clarity. Over. And over. And over."

  "Pft," Gin scoffed, rolling his eyes. "Can't sleep because you've got a few bad memories? Try being born as a drunken master. That's a real cursed physique—doomed to become an alcoholic despite never touching the stuff until you turn eighteen and get the shakes."

  Lulu's head snapped toward him, her eyes burning with something far darker than anger. "A few bad memories?" Her voice was low, dangerous, like the hum of a blade being drawn. "Let me paint you a picture, Gin. Imagine you're a little girl—no older than six—with two loving parents. One evening, while you're playing by the hearth, demonic cultivators break down your door."

  She stared down Gin with an unmatched intensity. "Your mother shoves you under the bed and tells you not to make a sound. You obey. You stay quiet. But you hear everything. You hear the way they laugh as they break your father's fingers one by one. You hear your mother's screams when they peel the skin from her back. Demonic cultivators don't just kill—they savor suffering. The more pain they inflict, the more potent the demonic qi they harvest."

  Kai's stomach turned. Even Gin’s expression shifted to one of horror.

  "And then," Lulu continued, her voice trembling with barely restrained fury, "when they're done, they drop their bodies right in front of your hiding spot. Your mother's lifeless eyes stare at you through the gap in the bedframe. Your father's hand—the one that used to tousle your hair and hug you with—lies palm-up, fingers bent at unnatural angles. And the smell... the smell of blood and burnt flesh clings to you for days afterward."

  She paused for a brief second, her breath coming fast. "Now imagine reliving that. Every. Single. Night. Not as a hazy nightmare, but in perfect, excruciating detail—the screams, the begging, the way your mother's voice cracked when she called your name one last time. That's not a 'bad memory’, it’s worse."

  The room fell deathly silent.

  Gin looked away first, his bravado crumbling under the weight of her words. He took a sip from his gourd, but this time, it seemed less like placating his addiction and more like a desperate attempt to drown something far worse than thirst.

  Kai exhaled sharply, his grip tightening on Soma. "Damn," he muttered, because what else was there to say?

  Lulu let out a long, shuddering sigh that seemed to carry the weight of countless sleepless nights. Her eyes had dark circles beneath them—-bruises left by years of relentless torment.

  "That's why I was so desperate for the wine," she admitted, her voice hollow. "Certain... substances can dull the memories enough to let me sleep. I've poisoned myself with every sleeping draught and mind-numbing elixir imaginable - burned through my savings, ruined my cultivation base chasing just a few hours of peace." Her lips twisted into a bitter smile. "Ran out of the last concoction that worked a year ago. The wine of a drunken master was my final gamble before... other options."

  Kai felt his chest tighten as he caught her meaning. The way she had stared down at his blade without fear when threatening her spoke volumes, as if she didn’t care if he cut her down.

  "Three months," Lulu continued, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Three months without a single moment of true rest. I was either going to brave the southern lands and the Righteous Alliance to find more pills, or..." Her eyes drifted toward the Kai’s blade again before she clenched her fingers into fists.

  Then her eyes locked onto Soma, and something like wonder broke through the exhaustion. "But this... a dream rabbit's abilities..." A shaky laugh escaped her. "All those years wasted on pills and techniques when the answer was a spirit beast's natural gift. The irony would be funny if it didn't hurt so much."

  Kai pulled Soma closer, feeling the rabbit's warm weight against his chest. "I'm sorry for what you've endured," he said quietly. "But Soma isn't something I can give away. She's family."

  The little rabbit nuzzled against Kai's tunic, her silver eyes glowing with devotion. That simple gesture seemed to shatter Lulu completely.

  "Then just end it!" she screamed suddenly, her voice cracking like dry kindling. "I'm tired! Tired of the memories, tired of fighting, tired of… it all," the raw despair in her voice left no doubt - this was a confession of someone who'd reached their limit.

  Kai exchanged a glance with Gin. The drunkard looked away uncomfortably, suddenly finding his gourd very interesting. The weight of Lulu's suffering hung heavy in the air between them.

  Kai's mind raced. He couldn't - wouldn't - surrender Soma. But to walk away now, knowing what he knew... Mike's words echoed in his memory: “When someone's drowning, you throw them a line, no matter who they are."

  "There's another way," Kai said slowly, the idea forming even as he spoke. "Come with us."

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