There was never a real clock tower on Clocktower Street, the capital road of Hexi Prefecture in Donglin District.
The name, rich with retro charm, came from a heartbreakingly idiotic gravity miscalculation made by the Federal military during their first landing on Donglin Planet.
The battleship crashed right here. The explosion lit up the sky like fireworks—beautiful, brief, and utterly disastrous. Faces of the soldiers were cast in an eerie glow of joy and dread. The commander of the Fourth Military Region looked out over the wreckage and sighed, "I feel lonelier than those fireworks."
From the shattered hull of the ruined ship tumbled an enormous vintage clock the commander had brought along for... ambiance. It landed with a thud on the mining colony's surface. The ship was destroyed. The stupid, clunky clock survived—and it still worked. It ticked on, a cruel joke at the expense of the Federal government's supposed prowess.
The commander's poetic sigh was not without merit. The Federal Administration was furious—furious enough to conduct a sweeping disciplinary campaign within the military. Many were stripped of their ranks. As a symbol of shame, that still-ticking clock was ordered to remain where it had fallen, an eternal reminder to all civil servants of the price of incompetence.
The commander himself? Exiled to the borderlands of Westlin District. He faded into obscurity, a lonely man forever out of step with his ambitions.
Years passed. The clock, corroded by acid rain, crumbled to dust long ago, likely buried in some Donglin junkyard. But the name "Clocktower Street" stuck.
Today, there were no fireworks on Clocktower Street. Nor was it lonely.
Instead, the air was thick with laughter and anger, the sound of protest swelling like the opening act of an absurdist play. Tattered signs flapped in the wind. Coffee-fueled residents and whiskey-fueled drunks mingled in chaotic unity. The officers of the 2nd Police Precinct were quickly overwhelmed. The situation teetered on the edge of riot, or maybe… theater.
Deputy Chief Bao Longtao stood behind the barricade with a cold, hawk-like expression. He wasn't particularly worried about the crowd crossing the flimsy yellow tape—Dongliners, after all, had long learned the fine art of releasing steam without lighting the whole boiler. Besides, the Federation was a society ruled by law. Everyone knew where the line was—and what happened when you crossed it.
What concerned Bao wasn't the crowd—it was the coincidence. The orphans showed up too precisely. Their protest was oddly adorable. And if the media caught on, even the governor's office wouldn't be able to lay a hand on them. Order lurked beneath the chaos—and it made Bao uneasy.
"Jian Shui'er!"
"We want to see Jian Shui'er!"
Their voices, hoarse but high-pitched, rang out again and again—joyful, defiant, exhausted.
Bao had already made his decision. He'd notified the governor's office and requested negotiation experts from Federal HQ. No riot gear, no crackdowns. Too many reporters around. And truthfully, this time the government was a little at fault. Bao's cautious nature wouldn't let him gamble the wrong way.
It didn't take long. Officials from the governor's office, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Public Relations Division of the Police Headquarters all rushed to Clocktower Street. They tried to placate the crowd. But no speech could explain why the girl with lavender hair had vanished from the screen.
And no one would admit who made the idiotic call to cancel the show. They blamed "technical issues."
Negotiations dragged on. And all the while, the orphans melted away into the crowd under Bao Longtao's watchful eyes.
Soon after their leader Vigor vanished with the rest, the street erupted into cheers.
A single ding. The café's ultra-thin scroll-TV flickered back to life. Silence fell. Cops wiped sweat from their foreheads. A female reporter smirked in satisfaction. The officials inwardly cursed the spineless, witless governor.
At exactly 8:00 PM, Channel 23 brought Jian Shui'er's lovely face back to the capital of Hexi Prefecture.
It was a night worthy of national celebration.
The night sky over Donglin was always strange—black and ashen, tinged faintly red, like the gates of hell from a cultivator's nightmare. But to the people living here, it was just the sky. They'd seen it all their lives. Nobody looked twice.
There were no stars. Or rather, just a few stubborn ones twinkling with effort, resentful that their light, traveling so far to reach this dusty rock, was so thoroughly ignored.
Two figures—one big, one small—slipped into the shadows beneath a flickering streetlamp. They moved with practiced ease, avoiding the signal detectors, ducking through an alley beside Clocktower Street, and emerged under a lone green tree.
The tree stood on a small rise. No lights. Against the red-stained night sky, it looked like a piece of intricate paper-cut art.
Beneath the tree sat a boy, likely a teenager. Cross-legged, alone, his thin silhouette outlined in the soft glow of a portable scroll-TV resting on his knees. He looked... heartbreakingly lonely.
"Le-ge... why are you always sitting here by yourself?" asked the smaller of the two figures, voice still hoarse from hours of chanting Jian Shui'er's name.
The other figure was Vigor—the orphan gang's unchallenged leader. He looked at the boy under the tree and let out a long, admiring sigh.
"Lonelier than fireworks," he whispered.
The same words the Fourth Military Region's commander had spoken, decades ago—now immortalized as a folk saying all over Donglin. Even someone as uncultured as Vigor knew how to use it.
They ran up the hill, approaching the lonely figure they called Le-ge.
Just as they got close, the boy's shoulders began to tremble. Silent sobs.
Vigor's expression darkened. He stepped in front of the boy.
"Xu Le... what's wrong?"
Xu Le didn't lift his head. His eyes stayed locked on the ultra-thin TV on his knees, on the lavender-haired girl glowing on the screen. Tears streamed down his face.
The end credits rolled.
Finally, Xu Le looked up. His eyes were honest, earnest. He wiped the tears from his face... and the drool from the corner of his mouth.
And in a voice filled with utmost conviction, he declared:
"Jian Shui'er... is just too beautiful. One day... I'm going to marry her!"