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At the Hoshimi Household.
The familiar courtyard and corridors felt unusually long as Miyabi walked, swaying with every step and nearly tripping on the floor.
She stopped in front of a familiar door, hesitated for a moment, took a deep breath, and finally mustered the courage to open it.
Inside the warm room, Mrs. Hoshimi lay peacefully on the bed, her eyes tightly shut, just like a sleeping beauty.
Around her were numerous life-support devices, occupying a large part of the room and disrupting its cozy atmosphere.
Miyabi's heart jumped. Instinctively, she glanced at the monitor displaying her mother's heartbeat, and seeing the steady pulse, she felt a slight relief—but her heart still hovered uneasily.
This situation wasn't quite what she had imagined.
Her mother had survived; she wasn't dead—but it seemed she wasn't fully recovered either.
"Miss, why have you returned?"
The Hoshimi family butler hurried over, stopping outside the room with a puzzled look directed at Miyabi.
"My mother… hasn't woken up?" Miyabi asked anxiously.
According to the original plan, after the Taizan Fukun no Matsuri had been completed successfully, she should have returned home to see a healthy mother—but now, things seemed different.
Could something have gone wrong?
"Miss, have you been overworking yourself recently? Since the lady was rescued from Hollow Zero by an unknown hero, she has remained in a coma!"
The butler replied honestly.
He felt as if Miyabi had suddenly lost her memory, but considering her usual demeanor and the recent Bringer incident, this version of Miyabi wasn't all that surprising.
"Why can't she wake up?"
Miyabi pressed further.
"The doctors said that her survival after severe ether erosion was a miracle, but it left aftereffects, which is why she hasn't been able to wake… You and your father don't know how many times we've cried over this."
"Aftereffects…"
After the butler's explanation, Miyabi understood the situation.
"Hey, is this Arden?"
To untie the knot, you must call the one who tied it—Miyabi immediately dialed Arden Xu's number.
"The master is here."
Seeing Arden arrive, the butler addressed him as "Master-in-Law."
It seemed that the small note slipped into Mrs. Hoshimi's hand had worked—without Miyabi knowing, she and Arden had already confirmed their relationship.
"Mm."
Arden nodded at the butler and stepped confidently into Mrs. Hoshimi's room.
He immediately began examining her.
After a moment…
"Can my mother wake up?"
Seeing Arden frown and then relax his expression, Miyabi asked worriedly.
"Mm…"
Arden withdrew his hand from Mrs. Hoshimi's pulse. "No need to worry. She'll wake up soon."
He admitted that it was indeed his oversight.
To ensure Mrs. Hoshimi's ether erosion was fully cleared and with Arden absent, Miyabi had to administer strong remedies herself—medications, anti-ether potions, and talismans all at once.
Now, it seemed that ether erosion was no longer a concern, but the side effects were significant, which was why Mrs. Hoshimi remained unconscious, effectively a vegetative state.
Of course, treating a vegetative patient was far easier than resurrecting the dead. Arden immediately gave Mrs. Hoshimi—a.k.a. his mother-in-law—a golden pill.
"If all goes as expected, she should wake by tomorrow morning."
"Mm."
The first pale light of dawn spread across the Hoshimi courtyard. Arden had returned to Yunkui Summit the previous night, but Miyabi had stayed by her mother's side for a full day and night.
She wanted her mother to see her first when she awoke.
Suddenly, the hand Miyabi held twitched.
"!!"
Feeling it, Miyabi's eyes widened. "Mother?"
She knew this time; her mother had truly returned.
Her moist eyes met her mother's steady breathing, feeling the warmth of her body—healthy from every angle, just like a sleeping beauty waiting to be awakened.
"Wake up, I'm back."
Miyabi pressed her mother's hand to her cheek.
The previous movement hadn't been a trick of the senses; perhaps sensing Miyabi's tears and voice, the fingers moved again.
Miyabi didn't want to miss the moment her mother awoke, her gaze fixed on her mother's face. When she saw her eyelids twitch and her mother open her eyes, Miyabi's heart seemed to melt.
"Miyabi… is that you?"
Mrs. Hoshimi looked at her daughter in confusion, but soon the fox-eared girl before her overlapped with her memory of her daughter, and her gaze softened.
"It's me, mother… it's me!"
Miyabi tightly held her mother's hand, as if afraid of losing her again.
Mrs. Hoshimi looked at her daughter, smiling with her characteristic gentle warmth. "You've grown… As I thought, the one who saved me back then… was my daughter, you."
...
Shu-shu-shu…
As Miyabi pondered how to explain everything to her mother, a flurry of footsteps sounded outside.
It was Hoshimi Souichirou.
After the Bringer incident, as both Miyabi's father and the head of the influential Hoshimi family in New Eridu, Souichirou had been extremely busy.
But no matter how busy, upon hearing that his wife had awakened, Hoshimi Souichirou dropped everything and rushed home as fast as he could.
BANG!
The door was pushed open, and a man slid in in a clumsy, sprawled posture.
In his haste, Hoshimi Souichirou tripped on the door frame.
"Cough cough!"
He quickly got up and, seeing his wife who had been comatose for ten years finally awake, immediately disregarded all decorum and rushed forward.
"Darling~~ you're finally awake… do you know how I've lived all these years? Waaahhh~!"
He cried louder than Miyabi herself.
...
After father and daughter cried themselves out, they finally settled quietly by the bedside.
Mrs. Hoshimi had regained quite a bit of strength; under the effect of the golden pill, even her muscles, which had atrophied from years of bedridden life, had regained some tone.
She could sit up without anyone's support.
...
Some curious eyes fell on the father and daughter. To outsiders, the scene just now might have seemed like mourning, as if she had died rather than awakened.
Of course, these were minor details; what mattered most was communication—learning what had transpired during her years of unconsciousness.
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