I had no urge to cry, nor any sadness. I slowly rose to my feet, and in the quiet, directed my words at the pursuers behind me and at those two “spectators” upon the platform: “You deserve to die!”

The bride’s expression shifted ever so slightly, while Ao Chi suddenly shot her a vicious glare and said in a low voice: “You dare…”

If I don’t cut down that man and woman who treat lives like weeds, then I’m the one who deserves to die.

The pain from my wounds had faded, and the strength that had abandoned me came flooding back. I needed this state — even if only for one minute.

I pushed away Jiu Jue, who had come to support me, and turned to leave.

“Stop!”

Someone called out behind me — not Jiu Jue.

That voice carried absolute authority, imperious without anger, brooking no resistance from any who heard it.

The thing was — I had heard that voice for over a thousand years.

I froze and turned back.

The “corpses” of Fatty and Skinny dissolved into a pool of perfectly clear water, gathered by some mysterious force, and began rising and piling upon itself, higher and higher, until it had stacked into the transparent shape of a person.

With a rushing sound, a fissure opened from the crown of the figure’s head and tore straight downward — like unzipping a garment — and a tall silhouette stepped out from within.

Those brows and eyes, that skin, the black robes embroidered with the hidden pattern of a purple dragon, the head held ever so slightly aloft, every movement, every gesture, even each individual strand of hair radiating an overbearing and imperious pride.

“Ao… Ao…” — I, who had always been quick with words, stumbled for the first time.

“Ao your head!” The newcomer seized my hand and, in a manner rough in appearance but gentle in truth, pulled me into his embrace. A torrent of reproach followed: “If I hadn’t shown myself, you would have been boiled down to soup! There truly is no woman more foolish than you! All these years and you haven’t improved in the slightest!”

Under the heavens, no one else would dare speak to me in such a tone, nor would anyone dare pull me into their arms with such brazen familiarity — only him.

And yet, the state I was in now… I continued to stumble: “You… you recognize me?”

“Oh right, I actually forgot.” He then cupped my face in both hands as though teasing a child, nearly nose to nose with me. “Only you, you foolish woman, could fail to recognize me. How could I possibly fail to recognize you!” He let out a sigh and called: “Shaluo… Shaluo… Shaluo…”

I had waited what felt like ten thousand years to hear that name called.

But that was not the most important thing. What mattered — was the person calling it.

His hands wrapped tightly around me, protecting me. In those beautiful eyes, unchanged from what I remembered, I saw my own reflection, and within them a burning heat, and a longing long thought lost.

Yes — this was the person I had been searching for. This was my Ao Chi.

My body was enveloped by an infinite sense of safety and warmth. My soul was like a baby nestled in a gentle cradle, rocking softly. I dissolved into fragments of starlight, drifting away into the distance.

All the things that did not belong to me were departing. All the things that were mine were returning.

“The wedding dress isn’t bad, though it doesn’t quite suit you.” Ao Chi’s fastidious commentary called my wandering mind back to the present.

A wedding dress?!

I looked down — the wedding gown that had been on Mu’s body had somehow ended up on mine. No, more accurately — this was simply my own body.

The cursed poison within me had been dissolved into nothing by Ao Chi’s presence. I had returned — Shaluo the tree demon, the genuine article.

I touched my own face in delight, then reached down to pick up a silver plate from the floor, flipped it over, and used its smooth, mirror-like bottom to examine my reflection furiously.

“What are you preening for! Look all you like — you’re still just an old demon!” Ao Chi impatiently snatched the plate away, then called toward Jiu Jue: “You’re not dead yet, are you? I never expected to see a Celestial Immortal of the heavenly realm in such a disgraceful state. Ha!”

The exhausted Jiu Jue maintained his composure nonetheless and reminded him: “This East Sea villa is no ordinary place — it bewitches humans’ fundamental nature and siphons the vital essence of non-humans. Were it not for this, how could it ever have come to this, where someone like you gets to mock me?”

“Being mocked by the one who saved your life is only fitting,” Ao Chi continued with his wicked grin. It seemed to be his nature — whenever he saw someone growing angry, he would go out of his way to make them angrier still.

I wasn’t angry. I simply had a mountain of questions to ask.

“You—”

Before the words left my mouth, Ao Chi had already pressed his hand over my lips.

“This is not the time for questions. I’ll explain later.”

With that, he took my hand and began walking forward.

Only then did I see — all those frenzied guests who had been hunting us stood frozen in place, every one of them, heads drooping, arms hanging, neither speaking nor moving.

“Insufferable puppets.”

Ao Chi simply waved his hand, as though brushing away bothersome flies and mosquitoes, and those who blocked our path truly flew away like flies — toppling into a heap upon the ground.

“If they are only humans who’ve been manipulated, don’t strike too hard.” Seeing the women and children fallen on the ground — including that little girl who had just run off and tried to take my life — I reminded Ao Chi.

“Which is precisely why I didn’t turn them into grilled fish,” Ao Chi replied with a glare.

Clap — clap clap. A round of applause rang out ahead of us.

The protagonist of tonight’s affair — the “groom Ao Chi” — clapped as he walked toward us, smiling. Behind him followed Mu, draped in bloodstained robes, covered in wounds. A great pity — the body I had returned to her looked anything but well.

Two Ao Chis. In outward appearance, they were absolutely identical. Standing between the two of them, I would have thought myself caught between two mirrors.

Mu said nothing, only watching me with a pair of murky, mist-veiled eyes.

“It has been no small thing to meet with you.” He stopped three paces away from us, his smile faint, carrying no apparent hostility. “You’ve been hiding for twenty years, haven’t you? Quite remarkable.”

I had thought gravity and solemnity were things utterly foreign to someone like Ao Chi. But today I discovered otherwise.

“How should I address you?” he sighed. “Anubis? Ao Shuo? Or… my dear brother?”

I wasn’t hearing things, was he? He called him Ao Shuo — called him… brother? Could my old saying actually hold true — that all the world’s madmen share the same blood?

“We look very much alike, don’t we?” The gaze he turned upon me was wholly transformed from before — now possessing a boundless gentleness. He pointed to himself, then to Ao Chi. “He certainly never told you he has a twin elder brother.”

“I have no interest in other people’s family affairs,” I said coldly, remembering well how he had treated me moments ago.

“Ha! This is precisely what I like about you — brave, and a little foolish.” He suddenly burst into laughter. “Especially that stubborn, solitary pride that comes from your very bones — that way you have of bowing to nothing and no one. It’s quite compelling.”

Mu’s eyes went dark as a candle flame snuffed out by the wind.

I felt such revulsion being “complimented” by a man like this. I turned my face away and refused to acknowledge him.

“You went through all this trouble, laid out such an elaborate scheme, forced me to show myself — was it truly only for the sake of reminiscing?” Ao Chi suddenly raised his voice, cutting in furiously.

“What’s wrong with a little reminiscing?” he replied, entirely unruffled, and began walking toward me.

Ao Chi stepped between us in a single stride, enunciating each word with deliberate precision: “Take one step closer, and don’t blame me.”

“Is that so?” He stopped, his smile gradually fading. “Are you still hoping to drive your blade through my heart as you did a thousand years ago?”

Between Ao Chi’s brows, a deep furrow formed. Especially at the words “drive your blade through my heart” — I clearly felt his body give a faint, involuntary tremor.

“Had it not been for the fact that my soul was adrift and homeless back then, the first man to enter your life would never have been Zi Miao.” He tilted his head slightly, his gaze fixed stubbornly on me from behind Ao Chi’s back.

Those words struck like a thunderclap, stopping my breath cold.

Part Two

He lifted his head and let out a long sigh. “Indeed — had I not already died beneath my own brother’s blade, had I not become a wandering wraith with nowhere to anchor, I would surely have found you before Zi Miao did. I would have given you a human form and taken you away.”

“You must have food poisoning,” I forced myself to stay calm. Don’t let your mind stray, don’t listen to this madman’s ravings.

“When you were still the ‘sacred tree’ atop Fulong Mountain, you must certainly remember how many people died because of you.” He spoke as though recounting a distant fairy tale, his tone perfectly serene and composed. “I watched from the clouds across from you, observing how you regarded the deaths of those foolish humans with complete indifference, utterly unshaken. And it was then I knew — I had found a kindred spirit. You probably never wondered why, throughout all those long years of being worshipped as a sacred object, not a single soul from the Underworld ever came to trouble you — despite all those deaths occurring because of you.”

I recalled the first thing Zi Miao ever said to me when we met — that if I kept causing such trouble, the Underworld would come for me sooner or later.

I had assumed he was only trying to frighten me, because in truth no one had ever come.

“Because I dealt with those self-righteous nuisances from the realm of the dead on your behalf. I didn’t want them interfering with your gifts and your singular beauty.” A note of regret entered his voice. “It’s a pity — fate simply wasn’t sufficient. The one who truly brought you into this world was not me. By the time I returned to Fulong Mountain, you had already been gone so long.” He paused, studying me with an expression of peculiar depth. “And the greater pity was that when I found you again, you had already become — just like all those vulgar and useless creatures. It’s truly a shame. You were ruined, utterly ruined — by Zi Miao, and by every single person who ever ‘helped’ you.”

“You’re deranged! I have no idea what you’re talking about!” My heart was in turmoil, yet my mind was working furiously, trying to piece something together.

“You never told her any of this?” He looked at Ao Chi, clicking his tongue and shaking his head. “That is a failing on your part. The first law of marriage — be honest with one another.”

“You have been deleted — by me, by the entire East Sea Dragon Clan, by the whole world.” Ao Chi declared with finality. “A person who never existed has no right to be loudly proclaimed. Do not sully the word ‘honesty.'” Then he lowered his voice, turning gently to me: “As for this matter, I’ll explain later—”

“No need to explain. If you didn’t say it, it must have been for my sake. Why press you?” I gave him a sidelong look. “It’s not as though you’ve only just met me.”

He couldn’t help but applaud again: “Such perfect understanding — I’m actually rather moved.” He lowered his hands and shifted his tone abruptly, gesturing at the puppet-like humans surrounding us. “I’m curious — can you move these people the way you’ve moved me?”

The more this madman spoke, the less I understood him. The words tumbled out of me: “First you stole my true form, then your female lackey tricked away my human shape, then you sent poisoned mists and skeletal birds to hunt demons, and now you’ve lured us all into this accursed villa — was it all simply to demonstrate how bored and shameless you are? What is it you actually want?”

“I simply didn’t want the atmosphere to be too tense. Chatting puts one at ease.” He was thoroughly unconcerned. “And don’t use the word ‘want’ to describe me — use ‘wish.’ What is my wish?” He turned his gaze to Ao Chi. “My dear brother — you know best.”

“Impossible.” Ao Chi said flatly. “The gate to the Time Axis — don’t even dream of opening it.” For the first time, that head that was always held high lowered ever so slightly. “Why, after all these years, are you still utterly unwilling to change? Is even losing your life insufficient to bring you to your senses?”

“Because this world has never shown me progress.” A cold, desolate disappointment rose in his eyes.

He snapped his fingers. The liquid crystal screen that had been hanging skewed against the wall, its surface cracked and fractured, suddenly blazed to life with images.

Part Three

It was nothing more than news from around the world, playing in alternation.

Earthquakes, tsunamis, flash floods, wildfires that could not be extinguished, volcanic ash that could not be stopped — swallowing cities, annihilating crowds, ruins everywhere, devastation as far as the eye could see, the dead beyond counting, the living wailing in grief.

I knew none of it was fabricated. All of it was real. Especially in recent years, such reports had grown ever more frequent.

The images flickered in the depths of his impassive eyes. He remained silent for a long while, and only at last turned to us and asked: “You see all of this — but do you see what lies beyond these images?”

He walked up to a silver-haired, Western man in a suit and tie, and crooked a finger at the center of his chest. A still-beating heart emerged from within the old man’s body and landed in his palm. He walked to the great set of scales and placed the heart on the right pan, then set a feather on the left — the result was self-evident: the scales plunged hard to the right.

He then turned the wheel. The pointer drifted and came to rest on the black side.

“Ha — by Anubis’s reckoning, only the one whose heart is lighter than a feather may ascend to paradise in death. The Wheel of Fate has spoken — this man can only descend to the underworld.” He dusted off his hands and tossed the heart aside. “Payne Stanley. Head of Stanley Industries. The world’s largest arms supplier. A man with a great enthusiasm for weapons trafficking.”

“Stop!” I leapt forward to intervene, but Ao Chi caught my arm. “You are not his match.”

Another heart fell upon the pan of the scale.

“Khalid Faisal. The wealthiest man in the Middle East — and the patron of dozens of so-called biochemical research institutes. Roughly half of the viruses currently ravaging the world are his products — whether successful or not.”

A third heart. A fourth. A fifth…

“Sanbon Junichi. A brilliantly gifted nuclear physicist, once retained by countless nations with a great fondness for nuclear war. Right up until the day before he came here, he was conducting experiments in an uninhabited zone. Though it used to be a lively village.”

“Jin Wanfeng. A fixture in the top three of the global billionaires ranking for three consecutive years. Countless enterprises under his banner. His hobby: clearing vast swaths of forest to build industrial zones — and, when no one is looking, dumping industrial waste into mountains and oceans. He is also very fond of mass hunting of wild animals, of which he is particularly proud.”

One name after another was spoken aloud. One heart after another was contemptuously cast aside. One atrocity after another was laid out in full — acts so shameful they made me blush on humanity’s behalf.

He dusted his hands together. “What a pity. Not a single heart lighter than a feather.” He picked up the feather and blew it into the air. “They desire too much. Their appetites are too heavy. How could their hearts possibly be light? Humans have always been this hideous.”

“One thing at a time. Even if you killed every person here, I would never allow your wish to be fulfilled.” Ao Chi stepped forward to face him, a long blade flaring with light appearing in his hand. “If you force my hand, I will let history repeat itself.”

“I only wanted you to face me. I have no intention of striking you — just as I offered no resistance back then.” His face showed not the slightest killing intent. “Ao Chi, you are my only brother. Do you remember how, when you were young and got yourself pinned beneath the Mountain God’s spirit-suppressing stone for mischief, it was I who spent three days and three nights tearing that stubborn stone apart with my bare claws? My blood soaked you from head to toe. I have no wish to fight you — and you’ve never truly wanted to fight me either. Am I wrong? Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been hiding all this time to avoid seeing me.”

His voice was as gentle as a lullaby.

The hand Ao Chi held his blade with trembled violently.

“A thousand years ago, I only wanted to obtain the key from our cousin Ao Kong. You know what this means — change always demands sacrifice, and our cousin Ao Kong was such a good soul that he wouldn’t have minded offering his life. We of the East Sea Dragon Clan have always guarded the Time Axis. We hold more power than anyone to change this wretched world. Yet we simply didn’t know how to use it.” A flicker of helplessness passed across his brow. “Grandfather ordered you to carry out clan law against me because of Ao Kong’s death. Their vision was simply not far-reaching enough. They lacked the wisdom to see clearly — and to think I had always admired them as my idols, had believed they would support me.”

“Utter nonsense! Do you feel not even a shred of remorse?!” Ao Chi was clearly incensed by his tone, and drove the tip of his blade sharply toward his brow — yet the other man didn’t even blink.

He watched Ao Chi’s razor-sharp blade with a smile and continued in the same unruffled, gentle manner: “Your blade transformed me from a prince of the East Sea Dragon Clan into a wisp of wandering spirit. I was truly lost at the time. I drifted to Fulong Mountain and stayed for a long while, contemplating my future. I had already died — I couldn’t return to the world I had known. What was to become of me? Ha. Would you believe it — one day I witnessed the servants of the King of the Underworld chasing down a creature with the head of a wolf and the body of a man. I have always been one to help others readily, so I concealed the creature’s trail. It turned out to be a subordinate of Anubis, who had slipped back from a distant place of exile to gather intelligence on the Underworld. I followed it to Egypt, and there I met the wretched ‘deposed lord.’ It had been exiled by the King of the Underworld to that barren land for so long that it had grown very old — and what was most devastating, it had lost all will to fight. But I was different. Though I had died, I still carried within me the power of the East Sea Dragon Clan — albeit somewhat altered from before. I reduced that Anubis to a heap of sand beneath my feet, and took over the governance of that region in its stead. I have always welcomed change — including transforming myself from a royal scion of the East Sea Dragon Clan into what you now call the Egyptian God of Death. I’ve always performed this role rather well. The Pharaohs held me in the highest respect. And I, in turn, was willing to lead them to the eternal paradise.”

I believe even the most imaginative writer in the world could not have conceived so mad a story. And yet he truly was Anubis. The moment I saw that swarm of skeletal birds, the spinning wheel and the great scales, and those men and women dissolving into black sand — it had all come to me then. Every one of these things belonged to the god of death Anubis. He could command skeletal birds born from the dead. His entire army was wrought from black sand. And the wheel and scales he wielded — weighing a human heart against a feather to determine the fate of the soul — all of it was the exclusive domain of this one god.

Of Anubis, what I knew was not a great deal. I had only heard that it was originally a creature with the head of a wolf and the body of a man. Long ago, when this world was not yet fully formed, it had been taken on as a servant of the then-King of the Underworld, charged with guiding the souls of the dead. But in time, this creature’s ambitions grew too large — it even sought to usurp the King of the Underworld himself — and was stripped of the greater part of its power and banished to a remote desert, namely what is now Egypt. From that point forward, Anubis appeared in countless legends as the god of death in Egypt. No one ever knew that Anubis had simply been a rebel of the Underworld.

What I had even less expected was that when this creature’s rebellion failed, it was in turn supplanted by the very man now standing before me. And this man — claimed to be Ao Chi’s own twin elder brother, born of the same parents. It defied comprehension.

“You had a chance to begin again,” Ao Chi said, his blade still raised. “Had you been willing to stay in Egypt and serve as your Anubis. Ao Shuo — why couldn’t you be content? Why do you still cling to those mad ideas of yours?”

“My dear brother, I believe in good fortune finding the good.” He suddenly broke into laughter and pulled Mu, who had been treated like thin air for so long, into his arms. “Five hundred years ago, I returned to Fulong Mountain.” He glanced at me. “I was looking for you. But you were long gone. I rested in a hollow at the base of the mountain and heard a small and pitiful locust tree weeping. It had been calling you ‘Big Sister Shaluo’ all this time. It told me many things about you — it had clearly been lonely for a very long while, with no one to speak to. And more importantly — I learned that it wished to become like you.” He pressed a light kiss to Mu’s cheek. “That moved me.” He paused. “Though you were the woman I most wanted by my side — since we had missed each other, having this little one near me was better than nothing. Bringing her to me as Zi Miao once brought you to himself — at least my regret became a little lighter.”

Hearing him invoke Zi Miao’s name so casually, I felt an unstoppable revulsion well up inside me, and I snapped: “Don’t you dare compare yourself to Zi Miao! What you ‘cultivated’ is nothing but a monster just like yourself! How fitting — you two deserve each other.”

“No, no — you’re being too hasty.” He wagged a finger at me with perfect patience. “Mu is no monster. She is an extraordinarily kind soul — especially to me. Do you know that two hundred years ago, I was accidentally sealed beneath the Sphinx by the then-King of the Underworld? It was Mu who, without sleep or rest, gathered souls from every corner of the world on my behalf. It took her nearly one hundred and eighty years, using the power of those lingering spirits to break the King of the Underworld’s seal and restore my freedom. Can you truly call such a devoted girl a monster?”

If he truly was Ao Chi’s twin elder brother, I had to admit his eloquence far surpassed Ao Chi’s by many levels. What I admired even more was that someone could describe their own crimes and wrongs as though praising the most noble deeds in the world — and do so with a steady face and every appearance of sincerity.

He was the true monster — in both method and soul.

“I told you long ago that staying on Fulong Mountain would have been best for you.” I looked at the expressionless Mu with disappointment, feeling a profound and bottomless pity for this foolish girl. The urge I’d felt to deal with her harshly gradually ebbed away.

“Mu — I am not you. Our temperaments, our thinking, our circumstances — none of them could ever be the same. You cannot be me.” I sighed, genuinely baffled. “Why must you try to become me? Is being yourself truly so painful?”

“Have you ever envied the birds that fly overhead? Have you ever admired the ones who come and go as they please? Have you ever been terrified of a boundless, unending loneliness?” Mu lifted her long lashes. “If you have — then you have no right to lecture me. You are not so much greater than I am.”

Every word she spoke was etched with hostility and resentment toward me.

All right. I forced myself not to fault her further. Her cultivation was lower than mine, and the one who had led her into the world was that man — a soul like a devil’s, a god of death in exile. One who is near ink will be stained black.

I suddenly recalled the first time I had seen her — the glimpse I had caught in Mu’s voice of that book, Discourse on the Harms of Warlord Fragmentation. And at last I understood why she had reacted so viscerally to that kind of historical account. This foolish child — so wholeheartedly defending this counterfeit Anubis, living so utterly and unflinchingly beneath the shadow of his dark wings.

Others might fail to understand — but I could.

She was just a woman, with a beloved name enshrined in her heart, willingly bound by that curse called “love.” Just as I once was with Zi Miao. If anyone had ever hurt Zi Miao, my reaction might have been even more unhinged than hers.

I was truly not much greater than her. I was simply a little more fortunate. Fate had given me the chance to put my madness to the test — but it also gave me the people who stopped me from seeing it through: Zi Miao, Ao Chi, and all the ones I would eventually come to call friends.

I could not imagine — had those people never entered my life, would I still be who I am now?

And Mu — her world, from beginning to end, held only that madman. In the name of love.

But tell me, foolish child — is what exists between you and him truly “love?”

You give everything for him without hesitation. And yet from that man’s eyes, I have not seen a single thing that belongs to love. Even the kiss he gives you — it is nothing more than a master’s reward to a plaything.

Simply out of envy for my bond with Zi Miao, simply out of wanting to become another me — is that reason enough to remain at this man’s side in such a diminished state?

“You will be the death of yourself,” I said, looking her straight in the eyes.

The more I showed my disapproval of Mu’s closeness to Ao Shuo, the closer she pressed herself to him, her smile cold: “How hypocritical. Back then I begged you to take me with you — you refused to even hear me out, and left me alone in that wretched place to fend for myself. And now you’re suddenly worried about my life? If you were truly faithful to me, you should worry about yourself first.” She paused and glanced at Ao Chi. “Had I anticipated that Ao Chi would be so utterly shameless as to split his own vital essence in two and hide within the bodies of two earthworm demons — fooling absolutely everyone — I would never have been so careless. I would never have let you escape that catastrophe.” Her laughter grew louder and louder. “Do you know what that amber-colored liquid was? It was a poison extracted from vengeful spirits — those who wander the mortal realm, unable to descend to the underworld or ascend to the heavens. It is potent enough to dissolve a powerless wretch like you into a pool of blood and water, so that I would never again have to lay eyes on your hypocritical and revolting face, or hear your voice. You—”

“Hush.” Ao Shuo’s finger rested gently upon her agitated lips, and he shook his head at her. “This is the one thing you’ve disappointed me with.”

Mu stared blankly, her lovely eyes flickering with panic — like a small cat terrified of being forgotten.

“We agreed it was only a performance. They are not our enemies — they are friends who can help. And yet behind my back, you tried to destroy our friends.” His finger slid slowly across her cheek, his expression unreadable. “I don’t like being defied. Not even once. Mu — you used to be so obedient.”

Bang!

My fist connected with Ao Shuo’s face with a tremendous crack, sending the man crashing sideways to the ground.

He actually had the nerve to call us “friends!”

“Shameless!” I trembled with fury at his words and at the way he treated the woman beside him — I was so incensed I hadn’t even noticed that when I had thrown the punch, the strain had torn a wide rip across the right shoulder of my wedding dress.

Ao Chi stood with his mouth slightly open, then pulled me aside and said: “When it comes to hitting people — leave it to me. You’re wearing a wedding dress. You look terrible fighting in it.”

His mood was forever this mercurial — forever prone to saying the wrong thing at the wrong moment. Just a moment ago he had been engaged in weighty, somber conversation with his own brother, and now he was critiquing my fighting form.

Indeed — true brothers. Two monsters flying in tandem.

Ao Shuo picked himself up off the floor, rubbing his jaw, and smiled: “You’ve hit me, you’ve cursed me. Now then, dear brother — hand me what I’ve come for. I’ve done all of this for one reason — to wait for you. ‘Dragon heart and tree body’ — one I have already obtained. I only need your key now.”

He stepped toward us, one pace at a time, his face as serene as ever. And yet in each step of his approach, I saw a desire buried in the dark for a thousand years — methodical, dismantling every obstacle in its path, until in the end it would close around everyone’s throat.

His presence — it had never truly been lesser than Ao Chi’s.

“No wonder the ‘energy’ of the East Sea Dragon Clan on this man… is dead…” Jiu Jue was gasping for air in great heaving breaths, his complexion ashen.

Before his voice had finished, his body swayed and he collapsed to the ground.

“Jiu Jue!” I started and rushed toward him — but countless light halos of lake-blue suddenly swam before my eyes, like soap bubbles blown by a playful child, all drifting toward the luminous mass within the spinning wheel. They scattered trails of light like stardust in their wake. But these were no soap bubbles — they were Jiu Jue’s vital essence, dispersing from within his body. They were the life force of a demon.

Why was this happening so suddenly? Could his injuries truly have become this severe? Impossible — this old thing Jiu Jue had survived a hundred battles. Even stripped of his spiritual power and unable to cast any spells, his body should not have been this fragile.

“What trick have you played now?!” I screamed at Ao Shuo, pressing my palm urgently to Jiu Jue’s forehead, channeling my own spiritual energy into his body, trying to stem the dissolution of his life.

It was no use. Completely no use. No matter what I did, those halos continued to rise and burst. The speed only increased. And Jiu Jue’s body began to take on a gradual, creeping transparency.

“Irredeemable!”

The furious arc of Ao Chi’s blade flared with blinding light as it cleaved straight down from above Ao Shuo’s head. A great fissure split from his crown all the way down to the ground, and a massive crater was blasted into the earth beneath his feet.

“I told you — I would not fight you, no matter what you did to me.”

Ao Shuo’s body, like a puzzle torn clean in two, cracked and collapsed downward. But across the shattered face, that expression — impossible to describe with any word — congealed and would not dissolve.

I watched as that man became a heap of black sand, spiraling where he had fallen — not fleeing, not scattering, but drifting freely in every direction, then dissolving.

Mu darted to the front of the spinning wheel and sat down, resting her head against it, her expression serene, her long hair dancing. Her bloodstained robes and the swirling black sand particles all around her composed a magnificent tableau.

“So you did strike after all,” she taunted Ao Chi with a thin laugh. “But you can’t even find where your brother is. What will you do now?”

Ao Chi’s brows were locked in a deep knot. The hand gripping the blade swung down hard, driving the blade deep into the unyielding ground.

He was truly furious.

I knew it was not directed at the vanished Ao Shuo — but at himself.

Of all things, what I feared most was Ao Chi “diminishing himself.”

The scheming Ao Shuo had evaded every direct confrontation, yet had found the exact words to strike at Ao Chi’s most vulnerable places. Killing without a blade — that is the highest mastery. As long as Ao Chi fell into disarray, Ao Shuo would have his opening. Infuriating!

Jiu Jue’s breath was thin as gossamer thread. I had to find a way to save this old fellow before he breathed his last.

His vital essence was being drawn ceaselessly into the spinning wheel.

I rose to my feet — and a wave of dizziness crashed over me, sending the entire scene lurching from side to side. I blinked hard, shook my head, steadied my breathing, and at last managed to stand somewhat upright as the vertigo slowly receded. But a sense of unease flashed through my heart.

I stole a quiet glance at my own right hand. Tiny points of light were seeping out, just like Jiu Jue’s vital essence — drifting toward the spinning wheel.

I swiftly clenched my hand shut, pretending nothing was amiss, and walked to stand before Ao Chi. I wrapped both hands around his fist, which had been balled tight. Holding hands — an utterly ordinary gesture between a man and a woman — was something I had never initiated with him before. This was the first time.

He turned his head, his expression complicated as his eyes found my face.

“I don’t know what history you and your infuriating brother share,” I said. For the first time, smiling at him came to me with an ease I had never felt before. “But I believe everything you’ve done has been right.”

Those eyes — always so proud and stubborn — seemed to reflect a sky that had suddenly turned clear.

In the gaze we exchanged, for the first time, there was no clash of lightning and fire — only the steady, mutual support of those who have weathered hardship together.

What is so wrong with allowing yourself to be soft just this once? No one loses a piece of themselves for it, do they?

In the past, neither of us had understood this. I could only hope that the understanding we had come to now was not too late.

“You—” Ao Chi held back for a long moment and finally opened his mouth. “You… you’re standing on my foot!”

I looked down — my left foot was shamelessly occupying most of his right.

I… hastily withdrew it. This man truly had a gift for ruining a moment. We had only just had such a perfect atmosphere.

“Where is he?” Ao Chi’s expression changed in an instant. He seized Mu with lightning speed. “Give me an answer, and I won’t hurt you.”

“You have all the time you need to go and find him yourself.” Mu showed not a flicker of fear at his threat, and cast a glance at me with a smile. “Though I’ll warn you — you may have time, but she doesn’t have much left. Nor does the blue-haired fellow on the ground — or the rest of your pack of demon friends.”

Ao Chi and I were both struck cold.

Part Four

“Open your eyes and look clearly at what surrounds you.” Mu raised her arm and passed it through the air in a wide sweep.

The floor, the walls, the ceiling — wiped clean away by her hand. Tables and chairs, lamps and candlesticks, humans toppled everywhere — including us — were suddenly suspended weightlessly in the air.

Look up — black clouds were rolling in from all four directions, one wave pressing hard upon the next, endless, sealing the sky into a wall without gap or boundary, permitting not a single ray of light to penetrate. So what I had seen from the sky earlier had been no illusion after all.

Look down — the full panorama of Fulong Mountain lay spread below: ridge upon ridge, strange stones and flowing water. But every element composing this scene existed in only one color — black. Varied in shade, light and shadow crossing, divided and recombined — rendering this mountain I knew best in the world as an utterly alien face.

Standing in a world like this, I felt like a faint and powerless star adrift in darkness, insignificant and small. Had Ao Chi not held my waist firmly at my side, I would very nearly have plummeted from that place suspended between sky and earth. An oppression I could not control, like a rope winding around my ankles, dragged me without cease toward a bottomless depth.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Mu was immensely proud of what lay before her. “Not only here — the entire world looks exactly like this right now. A harmony and unity like never before. The power you have all contributed — the master is most satisfied.”

“We?”

I jolted back to clarity. By “we,” did Mu mean the demons they had captured, and the vital essence Jiu Jue had lost? This morning at the mountain’s peak, Jiu Jue and I had misjudged the time… So the sun’s light had been completely blocked out by whatever “this world” now was.

The thought had barely formed when another wave of dizziness surged over me — stronger than before. My vision went blurred and shifting, and through the haze, droplets of black fell like rain from above, settling on my hair, my cheeks, my limbs. A burning pain erupted from every inch of my skin — starting light, growing heavier — as though countless paper-thin blades were slicing my flesh apart hair by hair. My head became unbearably heavy, as though a hand inside it were forcing outward, trying to pry my skull apart.

Cold sweat poured from me. I could not stand. Not even Ao Chi’s arm was enough to stop me from sliding out of his grasp, beyond my own control. More and more light escaped from my body, pouring out unimpeded.

“Shaluo! Shaluo!” He dropped to one knee, pulling me into his arms, shaking me hard as my entire body convulsed uncontrollably and my jaw clenched tight.

I wanted to tell him not to worry — but I couldn’t speak. That ten-thousand-arrows-through-the-heart agony was gradually shutting down every sign of life within me.

The black droplets continued to fall, like insects burrowing into every pore. The longer it went on, the more unbearable the pain became.

Mu stroked the luminous form within the spinning wheel and smiled: “The power of the god Anubis, combined with a highly concentrated ‘nourishment’ refined from the vital essence of vast numbers of demons — the Marshlight Kingdom born from this is the grave of sunlight, the paradise of the dead. Every demon, within the Marshlight Kingdom, will be infected by the power of this place. Their vital essence will dissolve and there will be no escape — like wretched creatures sinking into a swamp. To wait for the moment when the Three Kings’ Stars would block out the sun, we prepared for twenty years. There are nine thousand eight hundred and eighty-three kinds of demons in this world — we needed to capture some of each, and do it quietly without being discovered. Quite the trouble, especially since some of the minor demons had cultivation too low to yield much of anything worth refining. But you great demons are another matter entirely — just one of you produces a remarkable effect. Ha.”

Mu’s tone was suffused with the reckless release of something long suppressed. Though most of what she said I could barely follow — the Marshlight Kingdom, the Three Kings’ Stars blocking the sun — I had never heard of such things.

“The Marshlight Kingdom?” Ao Chi’s voice resonated against my eardrums. “You’re saying you created the Marshlight Kingdom?”

“Indeed. Even for just one hour — it’s more than enough to make those irritating, hypocritical demons disappear forever.”

I couldn’t see Mu’s expression, but I could imagine how “delighted” she looked in that moment.

“If you will only obediently surrender your heart, the Marshlight Kingdom will vanish at once — this is the master’s promise to you.” She spoke with insufferable arrogance, like a queen who disdains all creation. “But if you refuse — then you can send off your Shaluo, your pack of foolish demon friends, and every demon in the world, on their final journey.”

Surrendering… Ao Chi’s heart?

The Time Axis… the key… dragon heart and tree body…

The scattered fragments of what Ao Shuo had said earlier buzzed and hummed in my ears, a jumble of broken words.

He had manipulated Mu into stealing my true form. Now he was forcing Ao Chi to surrender his heart?

The pain, which had been steadily worsening, suddenly brought my thoughts into razor-sharp clarity.

“Ao Chi! Don’t give it! Don’t you dare yield!” My hands locked around his, my fingernails nearly breaking through skin.

My eyes were clearly open — but why could I not see his face?

Part Five

Just then, several muffled thuds came from nearby — as though something had fallen from the air. Amid the chaos there came the shrieking of a cat, the grinding and snapping of bones, and the fluttering of butterfly wings.

“I told you to run faster! If you’d come earlier, you wouldn’t have been locked out!”

“You’re a cat — I’m just a skeleton. How am I supposed to be as fast as you?”

“I offered to carry you, and you refused.”

“Who in their right mind would let a butterfly that small carry them! The embarrassment would never live it down!”

It was… it was Cang Tongkai and the others! I could clearly catch their scent.

“They arrived late, shut out at the villa’s front door. Given their enthusiasm, it would be rude of me not to let them in.” In the darkness, Mu’s flat voice transformed into something monstrous, plowing through my frantic, desperate heart.

The pain continued to mount. After those uninvited guests arrived, I felt as though my skin were trying to separate itself from the muscle beneath, about to dissolve entirely.

“Why is your body emitting rings of light?”

“You too!”

“I… I can’t seem to breathe…”

“My head is spinning! My body feels like it’s on fire! The pain is unbearable!”

Very soon, I heard the sounds of those figures collapsing to the ground.

“You still have time to choose.” Mu’s footsteps moved in our direction, every step imbued with an air of inevitable triumph, as though victory were already in hand. “Ao Chi — use your one heart to exchange for the woman you love, for your friends, and for every demon still living in this world. You lose nothing by this. There’s no need to throw their lives away for the sake of a world of lowly humans, is there?”

Ao Chi fell silent.

I had no idea what Mu and Ao Shuo intended to do to the existing world — but I knew Ao Chi must not nod his head. This deal must not be made!

“No!” I gripped Ao Chi’s hand and refused to let go, not even in death.

“Look at Shaluo — look at how much pain she’s in, how she suffers.” Mu, at this moment, must surely be casting a gaze full of counterfeit compassion upon me, trying to “touch” him with it. “You know what it feels like for demons inside the Marshlight Kingdom.”

And indeed — I was in agony so profound it felt worse than death. But I uttered not a sound. I did not want Ao Chi to hear.

“If anything happens to her — I will make you pay with your lives.”

Ao Chi’s reply was simple and absolute.

A wave of force unlike anything I had felt before erupted beside me with a piercing howl. Blazing light flooded the darkness before my eyes.

I heard Mu let out a low cry of pain, then there was the sound of something heavy hitting the ground, and the smell of scorched things.

Then — my own startled scream. A row of cool, hard teeth seized my waist and flung me upward, and I landed on a body armored in scales. On its heels, various things began to tumble down around me — some soft and furry, some cold and hard, some carrying a faint smell of wine. What was this…

Something small and light-as-a-feather settled on my shoulder, and Ku Yue’s familiar, faint voice reached me: “It’s us…”

Before I could process anything, I felt a sudden lightness — and my entire body launched into the air at a speed I had never before experienced, shooting upward.

“Hold on tight.” Ao Chi’s voice came from below, and through the thick armor of scales, I felt a pulse — alive, strong, and beating.

Through my hazy, half-blind eyes, I seemed to see — as if from the day we first met — that lawless, defiant dragon, hidden in the clouds.

I held tight to this great creature, pressing my burning cheek against the scales, and found it surprisingly soothing. The pain lessened considerably. In that momentary lightness, I felt an urge to sleep.

Through my drifting fog, I asked: “Where are we going…”

“To find the sun.” His voice had never been this calm. “Don’t fall asleep. Talk to me.”

“The sun… will roast me into a roast pig.” I smiled. “What is the Marshlight Kingdom… Mu seemed so pleased with herself.”

“Once every thousand years, the three stars — the King of the Underworld, the King of the Sea, and the King of Heaven — align in a straight line for the span of one hour. The abnormal magnetic field produced in that instant momentarily blocks the sun’s light from reaching the human world. If, during that one hour, a person has in advance collected the vital essences of various demons, refined and concentrated them, then chosen a location saturated with yin magnetic energy to release all that power at once — resonating with the Three Kings’ Stars in the cosmos — our world transforms into what you see now: not only robbed of light, but with its innate balance and laws of existence completely shattered. You could also think of it as a kind of virus, blanketing the entire world, but with demons as its sole target. Within this ‘viral kingdom,’ demons will gradually lose all their powers and ultimately be incinerated to ash by the force of the Marshlight Kingdom.” His voice grew more and more furious. “The kindling wood that summons the Marshlight Kingdom is a forbidden act. Three thousand years ago, a cultivator attempted to use this method to exterminate every demon in the world — and failed. He was annihilated by a joint force of demons and the heavenly realm, and reportedly left not even his bones behind.” He paused briefly, then suddenly broke into a laugh. “Amusing, isn’t it? The so-called ecological balance doesn’t only refer to humans and animals. If every demon were to die out, this world would not fare well either. Intelligent people all understand this and will do everything in their power to preserve that balance. So anyone who summons the Marshlight Kingdom — they truly deserve to die.”

Ao Chi said a great deal, and I understood it only in fragments — Ao Shuo and Mu had captured demons specifically to create a realm of death where all demons would be wiped out in a single stroke. Yet Ao Shuo’s purpose was clearly not directed at demons.

Floor 39

“Your brother wants to destroy all the demons in the world?” I followed his words and tried to stir myself, to keep from drifting into sleep — though I was truly exhausted.

“It’s not the demons he wants to destroy. It’s humanity. All of humanity.” Ao Chi was silent for a moment. “But I never imagined he would persist for this long, or stake so much on it. Every calculation meticulously laid — and all of it simply to force my hand. I completely failed to anticipate it.”

“I heard him mention the Time Axis… what is the key?” This keyword, raised more than once by Ao Shuo, was my greatest source of confusion.

“The Time Axis lies hidden deep within the earth’s core. It governs the flow of time across the entire world — a critical device, preserved and protected by our East Sea Dragon Clan, which no one is permitted to alter.” Ao Chi’s voice grew low. “That person was different from the rest since childhood. He read countless books — so very many — and often ventured out into the world beyond, sometimes gone for days on end. Every time he returned, his expression was grim. He would speak of how filthy that world was, of how humans were despicable and worthless vermin. He said that if time could be used to purify the world completely — to make the human race vanish altogether — he could certainly build a perfect kingdom, just like our East Sea: noble, prosperous, clean.” He sighed and continued: “The Time Axis is sealed within nine layers of spiritual barriers, and only one single key can unlock it. This key rests within the heart of whoever holds the role of guardian, and only the one chosen as guardian may pass through the corridor leading to the Time Axis. Anyone else who attempts to force their way through — even if they manage to seize the key — will not survive to use it, because they will be crushed into a pulp by the collision of light and darkness, of extreme yin and extreme yang, within the corridor before they even reach the barriers. Yet even knowing this, back then he still stopped at nothing to obtain the key hidden within the dragon’s heart.”

Dragon heart and tree body — one I have already obtained. I suddenly understood what those words meant.

Floor 40

My true form, protected by the blood of the King of the Underworld, could transform wood into a vessel that might safely traverse any space. Ao Shuo was not the guardian — if he hoped to reach the Time Axis without being crushed flat in the corridor, he first needed to find a “vehicle” that could carry him safely through. No wonder he had gone to such lengths to steal my true form. In this world, only the King of the Underworld possessed the power to move unobstructed through any space, and Ao Shuo naturally would not dare raise a hand against the King of the Underworld — so he had come for me instead. This man was truly without shame or limits. An entire life spent scheming and plotting, all for the sake of a Time Axis that none of us had ever even laid eyes upon.

“He killed someone to get the key, didn’t he?” I thought of the cousin they had mentioned. And this event — it must have been the root of everything that had festered in Ao Chi’s heart.

“That year, the key’s inheritor was our cousin Ao Kong. And that person was so consumed by his obsession with reaching the Time Axis that he actually chose to strike at Ao Kong with lethal force — while our grandfather had gone out on patrol with his trusted attendants — and the blow came while Ao Kong lay ill, unable to accompany them. He was in the act of cutting out his heart when I happened to return unexpectedly and stumbled upon it all.” Ao Chi fell silent for a long time, as though a scab were being peeled back slowly — raw, aching. “This incident sent shockwaves of fury through the entire East Sea Dragon Clan. My grandfather issued an order — kill without mercy…”

His account was suddenly cut off by a long, quiet sigh.

Not mine, nor anyone else near me.

Ao Shuo’s voice.

This true “wayward dragon” of the East Sea Dragon Clan — an Anubis who materialized like a ghost — approached from somewhere we could not see. His footsteps had no fixed direction, at times descending from above, at times circling from the side.

“I had always assumed the one who would come for me would be someone else. Yet it was not. It was you.”

Ao Shuo’s silhouette came nearer, slowly sharpening in my vision — that man who was identical in every way to Ao Chi. Once, they had shared the same blood, unrivaled under heaven. Now they stood to wound each other in a life-or-death confrontation. I looked into those clear, still eyes — and truly, I could see no hatred, despite the grief he kept speaking of from that tragedy long ago.

I should not have been able to see Ao Shuo. Yet his presence required no eyes to confirm — he had simply dissolved himself into the entirety of the Marshlight Kingdom, seeping into our very consciousness. Every tendril of darkness that crept along, every current of air that brushed past us — all of it was his embodiment.

“Do you mean to force your way through with them?” He “came” to the place nearest us. “Why put yourself through this? You know it won’t work. This is my Marshlight Kingdom — and the power it possesses has surprised even me.”

“There is nothing surprising about it. You are simply using the lives of others in the most despicable way possible — including the one person Mu considers everything.” Ao Chi’s speed of ascent grew faster and faster. “You sacrificed a great many common minor demons to build this place I find so revolting, then lured me here with this group of fools on my back — letting this squalid kingdom feed on the vital essence of these great demons with their considerable cultivation, sustaining and fortifying this dark world. You truly know how to make use of every resource. But you didn’t even spare Mu, who is so utterly devoted to you.”

“Mu? What’s happened to Mu?” Strangely, I found myself concerned about that girl who was both vicious and foolish.

“Your body is deteriorating because the Marshlight Kingdom absorbs the vital essence of demons as nourishment — the more it absorbs, the longer it can sustain itself, the more impenetrable it becomes. As this kingdom expands, more and more demons will die. Mu, like you, is a tree demon. Whatever damage you have suffered — she has suffered no differently. Just like you — she is using her own vital essence to feed this black graveyard of demons.”

Impossible!

I could not believe that her body was enduring the same agony as mine, that she was enduring it with a superhuman composure, pretending everything was perfectly fine.

“I do so enjoy listening to you two talk. It brings to mind the old days. Whenever Father punished you, you would always come to me like this afterward and talk my ears off for half the day.” Ao Shuo’s shadow drifted through the void, multiplying from one into many, surrounding us on all sides. “Yet when you drove your blade into me — you were silent from beginning to end.”

I felt Ao Chi’s body jolt sharply, and some hazy, faded images — like old photographs — seeped through the blood, through the scales, and settled into my mind.

Part Six

It was a steep cliff face. A man holding a long blade stood silently before the body of a massive purple-scaled dragon.

Snow fell thickly all around, burying the great dragon’s horns beneath a mantle of white until they looked like silver, withered branches. The man’s legs, and the blade in his hand, were both buried deep in snow.

Lightning split the sky. Thunder rolled. Rain came down in torrents, pouring over everything. Water pooled on the ground in an instant, then froze.

How long had the man stood there? Three days and three nights, perhaps.

I watched as dawn and darkness exchanged places behind him three times, like a film playing in fast motion.

The rain lasted three days as well.

Only when he finally left did it stop, all at once — the clouds broke, the snow ceased.

Ao Chi had never wept. At least not once since I had known him.

But that rain that fell for three days and three nights — I understood. That was him weeping.

That deep, consuming grief had never scattered — not even now.

He had slain his own brother. The guilt had never left him.

This was the demon in his heart. This was why he had hidden himself away, unwilling to face Ao Shuo again. And it was precisely the wound that Ao Shuo had been striking at so relentlessly.

I suddenly understood — truly understood — this man who always seemed to look down upon the world from a height, who took no one and nothing seriously, who had once let himself drift into reckless living.

Every heart is made of flesh. Every heart has known softness.

In this instant of “understanding” between us, I pulled him tighter. The pain in my body became something I could no longer feel. The only thing I was worried about now — was him.

“Do you know — in truth, I never wanted to hurt anyone. I am a person of goodness. I hoped the world we of the East Sea Dragon Clan have guarded would become as perfect as I had always envisioned — everyone loving one another. This was my ideal.” Ao Shuo drifted like a shadow submerged in water, twisting and floating to Ao Chi’s ear. “And yet, the more I believed this, the more the problems that arose outnumbered the ones I solved. Brother — you should understand me better than anyone. We are the only twin brothers ever born in the East Sea Dragon Clan’s history. I hoped you would help me — help me eliminate the human parasites who have no right to exist in this world. I promise you — in the new world, there will be no disasters, no wars, no ugliness born of desire and greed. If we overturn this world as it is now, my ideal will be realized. For humans who have always disappointed me — death is a new beginning.”

“You madman! Madman! Madman! This world has never been as wretched as you claim!” I exploded — not only because of this devil’s obsessive ranting, but because he kept using the old bond between brothers to muddle Ao Chi’s mind. I shouted my refutation at him: “If you’ve read so many books, you should know the saying — ‘One who holds goodness in their heart sees goodness everywhere; one who holds evil sees only evil.’ You are the one with the twisted mind — and you want to drag innocents down with you. You even killed a blood relative. The one who ought to be eliminated is not anyone else — it is you! Your ideals? What ideals! You can’t even see the things closest to you, the things most worth cherishing, and you have the audacity to talk to others about ideals! You are short-sighted, and you deserve every punishment that awaits you!”

After a long, dead silence, Ao Chi’s laughter rose from beneath me: “You haven’t cursed at anyone like this in a long while. This is wonderful. I’m seeing the you from when you were young again.”

“Ha — but you’re wrong again.” Ao Shuo regarded me with cold amusement. “Do you know what I intend to do when I reach the Time Axis?”

I blanked. All I knew was that he intended to destroy this world and exterminate all of humanity as his “ideal.” Was he planning to blow up the Time Axis and plunge the entire world into chaos?

“I don’t need to do anything at all.” He shrugged, and wrote a number in the air: 100. “I only need to advance the Time Axis by a hundred years. Given what humanity is doing right now — in a hundred years, nations will have crumbled, families will have ceased to exist. Everywhere, the ruins of war. Everywhere, earthquakes and floods. A completely destroyed ecology will leave them in despair. Humans have always believed themselves to be the saviors of this world. In truth, they are nothing more than ignorant cancer cells. A hundred years from now, they will certainly destroy themselves with their own hands. I am only helping to shorten the process. Tree demon — do you dare say this world has never once disappointed you? Since it is already a heap of rubbish — why not thoroughly clear it away?”

Going to all this effort, only to push the entire world forward by one hundred years…

But this time — I did not think he was raving.

The truth was, if humanity continued in so many of its ways without reflection or change, one hundred years from now, it might very well look like the end of the world.

“You still don’t understand me.” Ao Shuo’s shadow slowly drew back and grew faint. “You’re flying too fast. Ao Chi — the debt you owe me — why won’t you repay it?”

“You absolute wretch…” Ao Chi’s jaw was grinding with a sound of clenched teeth. He turned to me and said: “Hold on tight. I need to go faster. This place was only recently formed — there are still weak points. His power comes from darkness. If sunlight can enter — even a single faint beam — this accursed Marshlight Kingdom will shatter to pieces. If he has already merged himself entirely with this place — then I apologize, but he’s going to die a second time.”

The faster Ao Chi flew, the weaker the pain in my body became. Even my vision began to recover. And the half-dead figures around us showed signs of revival. I suspected that the luminous form within the spinning wheel was the collected vital essence of all the demons Ao Shuo and Mu had captured — the foundational energy source sustaining this accursed kingdom. The further we moved from that device, the better our condition would become.

But…

Too fast… too fast… ha, very good, very good…

Ao Shuo’s ghostly voice lingered on those words, repeating them like a tide — coming and going, circling around us.

The darkness around us was cleaved open by the light blazing from Ao Chi’s body. In our wake, a long, shining trail was left behind — shot through with purple and gold, brilliant and dazzling. If not for the color being so vivid and fierce, this trail would have looked just like a boundless river of stars to rival the Milky Way itself. And all along the way, countless “stars” wrapped in purple light dropped away as we moved, each one tracing a beautiful comet’s tail as it rubbed against the darkness, streaking into the far distance.

Such a sight — beautiful enough to make the heart tremble. Even if I were to die right now, I would have no regrets.

Only — could it rain in a place like this?

A few drops of something wet splashed onto my face. I touched my cheek — not an illusion. Rain was truly falling.

But why were the “raindrops” on my hand red?

I jolted upright in alarm, and looked down. The snow-white wedding dress I wore was already more than half soaked through to a vivid red — and that red glistened with a wet sheen and carried the warm, metallic scent of blood.

A thin trickle of blood seeped from beneath each of Ao Chi’s scales, staining his purple scales another color entirely. The faster he flew, the more violently his body scraped against everything around him. Those brilliant, purple-glowing “stars” trailing behind us in their beautiful comet tails — they were his scales, torn free one by one, drifting away into the void.

And Ao Chi said nothing. He only flew forward.

“Ao Chi… you…” I stared at my own hands, drenched in his blood, for a stunned moment — then cried out: “Stop! Stop right now!”

“Shut up,” Ao Chi cut me off bluntly. “If blood bothers you, close your eyes. Don’t disturb me right now.”

“Keep flying. Fly even faster. Let’s see if you can carry them out of here before your dragon blood runs dry. Ao Chi — you are as kind as I am. Not only are you flying at a speed that tears yourself apart — you must also channel your vital energy to shield those on your back from the enormous friction and tearing force. If every person in the world were as kind as our two brothers, why would I need to invoke the Time Axis at all?”

That voice — deserving of a thousand cuts — came from every direction at once, like an echo, repeating without end.

“Ao Chi!” I was frantic with anger. My fist struck against his body. “Stop! Stop, I said! At this rate, you’ll be reduced to shreds!”

“If I stop, the ones who become shreds will be you.” Ao Chi’s breathing had grown far more ragged than before. “I will not listen to your suggestion. If you hit me again… I will kill you. Now hold on!”

Nothing lay ahead but an endless expanse. I could not tell where the end might be. Yet Ao Chi pressed on with stubborn determination.

His blood flowed faster and faster. Beneath every scale that fell away was a sight of raw flesh and carnage. In this moment, the one in agony was not him — it was me.

“How far do you think you can carry me!” I was so desperate I was nearly weeping. “Stop! I’m begging you — will you please stop?”

“I’ll carry you until I die, and then drop you back somewhere with sunlight.” He was gasping for breath — and yet he laughed. “How wonderful. This is the first time in your life you’ve ever asked anything of me.”

Up ahead, faint and uncertain, a pale light the size of a fist appeared — flickering, unsteady, as fragile as a lamp flame that might gutter out at any moment.

Ao Chi’s voice suddenly rang with excitement: “That’s it! The weakest point of the Marshlight Kingdom! I’ve calculated the time — it’s exactly noon right now. If we break through there, we’ll see sunlight!”

The “lamp flame” slowly expanded as we drew closer. I saw a thin, membrane-like substance covering it, rising and falling as though it breathed.

“Ao Chi, you cannot fly any further!” The slightly-recovered Jiu Jue crawled up beside me and spoke to him with absolute firmness. “Moving away from that spinning wheel — our condition has improved. Let’s find another way out of here. This place contains nothing but yin energy. You are no demon — you won’t be ‘infected.’ But your East Sea Dragon Clan is the most purely yang and vigorous species in existence. Keep flying at this speed, with yin and yang in violent collision, and you will truly die!”

“Jiu Jue — you grow more long-winded with every passing year!” His speed did not slow. He only turned his head and said quietly to me: “I’m sorry. It was my cowardly evasion that implicated you. If I truly die — at least think of me occasionally. Ha.”

Die…

I had never once conceived of Ao Chi dying. This man who always looked down upon the world, full of life and fire — he, for whom sunlight and flames were the very substance of existence — this dragon who had always shown himself to the world as indomitable. How could someone like him have anything to do with death?

If he truly died…

When I faced demons stronger than myself, who would save me?

When I was bored, who would I bicker and quarrel with to pass the time?

When my mood was dark, who would there be to berate me for being useless with one breath and then, with the next, somehow produce strange and wondrous gifts from every corner of the world, just to make me smile?

If Ao Chi died — who else in all this world could walk beside me through the next thousand years?

I choked back my tears and said fiercely: “Good. Please die right now. The moment you’re dead, I’ll find another man and be married before your body is cold!”

“Don’t you dare!” Ao Chi shouted instinctively, entirely beyond his control.

“All this talk of dying — how gloomy. Proprietress, cool and fierce was the you I knew.” A lion with a great golden mane, its fur bristling and tawny, carrying a girl with wide, round eyes, strode upon a tide of flame-red cloud patterns, charging up from behind and drawing level with us.

Part Seven

“Kevin? A’Liao?”

All of us were dazzled by the golden lion’s blazing radiance.

“Forgive us for being a little late — we live rather far. Before we even reached where the wedding was being held, we could see the world had changed. I never imagined someone had truly managed to summon the Marshlight Kingdom to torment all the demons in the world.” Kevin’s lion face looked most displeased, then relaxed with a sigh of relief, turning to me. “But fortunately, we Golden Lions are renowned for our speed — otherwise there would have been no catching up with you.”

“You…”

Kevin gave me a wink. “Bu Ting is doing very well now. I owe you.”

“I don’t need you to repay me anything. You’ve already given fair compensation.” I had no idea what he planned to do, but I was terrified he would become another Ao Chi — someone who wouldn’t listen. Whatever the case — I was unwilling to see any of the people beside me come to harm. Though I was genuinely puzzled: why did Kevin seem entirely unaffected by the power of the Marshlight Kingdom, when he was clearly a demon himself?

The clever A’Liao read the worry and confusion in my eyes, and pointed to herself: “Not only that dragon — I’m also not a demon. My greatest gift as a ginkgo spirit is to sing in opposition to death. My cultivation isn’t very high, but I can at least protect this lion for forty-eight hours.” She smiled, lips pressed together. “They could create a Marshlight Kingdom — so we could try making… a Sunlight Kingdom.”

With that, A’Liao curled her body inward and transformed into a round ginkgo seed, leapt from Kevin’s back, and dropped into his open mouth.

“A’Liao, have you lost your mind?!” I was horrified.

“I have no intention of swallowing her. This is simply the best way to maximize the combined strength of our partnership.” Kevin carefully held the ginkgo seed in his mouth, drew a long breath, then lunged forward with his claws — two or three bounds and he had already overtaken Ao Chi, charging ahead. His entire body blazed with magnificent light. Racing through the darkness, he looked, in a dizzying flash, like another sun had been kindled.

At that very moment, the air pressure from all four directions suddenly began to churn like a boiling pot, and a massive tremor nearly knocked us all from the sky.

“My dear brother has always been a hero. Given that — why must you all insist on undermining his virtue? You self-important great demons — even if you’re unwilling to contribute even a little strength to my kingdom, you could at least behave yourselves and watch quietly.”

I saw Ao Shuo’s face — countless faces, densely packed, pressing together like walls of a vast and impenetrable fortress — appearing on every side, each face wearing the same expression, speaking the same words. Bizarre and terrifying. They bore down on us from above and below, left and right, from every angle I could see, squeezing inward. We were now as though sealed inside a closing room, all four walls and ceiling and floor contracting toward the center — no escape, and if we couldn’t break free, we would be crushed to paste.

The charging Kevin was forced to skid to a halt. The closing walls blocked his way forward.

“Out of the way!” Ao Chi caught up and let loose a torrent of blazing fire from his mouth, sending that wall of faces screaming in agony, then brought his tail around in a devastating swing against the burning section. Cracks split open in all directions — and another blow shattered it into a wide opening.

“Ao Shuo! For all your talk of not having the heart to strike me — you took the most circuitous path imaginable, making Shaluo, Jiu Jue, everyone into your own personal insurance. You used the lives of others to corner me into destroying myself. Twenty years, and you never once dared to face me directly. You are nothing but a coward too afraid to lose!”

Ao Chi roared, drawing the faces’ wall’s attention entirely onto himself.

Kevin lowered his head and broke through the opening.

But from the edges of the breach, a mass of spider-silk-thin white strands suddenly grew — like the desperate, bleached hair of a woman in mourning, they multiplied and proliferated without cease. Half coiled back toward Ao Chi’s throat; the other half pursued Kevin.

“Get back here!”

I don’t know where the brute force came from, but I launched off Ao Chi’s back, using his head as a stepping stone to leap out, and grabbed that great tangle of strands chasing Kevin, yanking hard to pull them back.

One surging forward, one hauling backward — pitted against each other, these steel-wire-tough strands cut deep into my flesh.

I felt no pain. My focus was not on myself, but on others.

I gripped the strands in my arms and refused to let go. Yes — I was a tree demon of a thousand years’ cultivation. I had walked through the human world, unmatched under heaven. Even now, barely clinging to life, I was still that ferocious Shaluo, still the invincible proprietress. A few strands of hair — what could they do to me?

Mental fortitude is effective. Eyes clenched shut. Jaw set tight. Hold on — hold on. I will not allow them to harm any of my friends!

Several slicing sounds reached me — I heard the strands snap.

Behind me, Cang Tongkai and Xuan were tearing and biting at the strands, their nails breaking, their fingers bleeding, a chunk bitten out of Xuan’s tongue — yet they didn’t care in the slightest. They were working with me in perfect, earnest unity.

Ao Chi, using his own body to block the opening — refusing to let more strands pour through to cause mayhem — was in far worse shape than I was. His entire body was swarmed in white, like venomous snakes maddened with fury, every one of them trying to tear a chunk out of him.

I saw Jiu Jue beside him — still ashen-faced, his vital essence still leaking in halos from his body — yet the sword in his hand blazed with razor-sharp light, reducing countless strands to flying ash. Beside him, Gu Wuming had lost an arm, and yet it did not stop him from battling the strands with the one he had left.

And Ku Yue — though a demon, stripped of his human form, he was barely different from an ordinary butterfly, so fragile that a breath of wind might carry him away. And yet he kept beating his thin wings, reaching out with his delicate antennae to seize a strand lunging at Ao Chi’s eyes, snapping it apart with all his strength.

In truth, every one of us should have fallen long ago. And yet not one of us would fall. Even when our bodies had reached their absolute limit.

Perhaps in the eyes of someone like Ao Shuo, surrender and perseverance lead to the same result. Yet I still chose the latter. Even if we lost. Even if we died. I would hold my head high.

I thought — there must be so many people in this world who are like us. Holding tight to their conviction and their courage, refusing to compromise, refusing to fall.

Mo Bai was like this. Liang Yudong was like this. Bai Li Wei Bu was like this. Li Huai was like this. Su Qiuchi was like this. And so many others who had passed through my life.

Demon or human — the reason I could point at Ao Shuo and tell him he was wrong, could say that this world still held its reason to exist and still held the hope of change, was precisely because there are still so many people like “Mo Bai” in this world. So many like “Bai Li Wei Bu.” So many like “us.”

Each of us has known disappointment. Each of us has been hurt. But that is simply what life is — perfection without flaw exists only in fairy tales. Yet every person has the chance to leave no regrets behind.

As long as you have lived earnestly. As long as you have fought with everything you had for the people who matter most to you. That in itself is a kind of perfection.

My strength was truly spent.

The strands grew more and more numerous, and one coiled savagely around my throat.

I was not afraid of dying. Only — I hoped that before I died, I could tell a certain person the words that had stayed unspoken for so long.

Those strands were so merciless… squeezing my throat until I thought my neck would break. My vision was going dark again. Faintly, Cang Tongkai and Xuan’s voices came and went, then Ao Shuo’s deranged laughter, then Ao Chi’s voice calling my name…

In the distance, a deep rumbling arose — but it was not thunder. It was a sound I had not heard in a long time: the roar of a lion. A force that pierced heaven and earth.

My eyes pushed through the darkness and found a single shaft of light — just as I had seen when I was first born on Fulong Mountain, when I opened my eyes for the very first time. Layer upon layer of cloud, pierced by golden, spiraling light that fell upon me. A snow squall had just subsided. All around me was only warmth, warmth, warmth…

Part Eight

“Open your mouth!”

I held up the spoon, filled with medicine.

Ao Chi turned his head away with haughty dignity. “I won’t!”

“All right then.” I set the bowl down and reached for a glass of vanilla milkshake from the table. “What about this?”

If not for the bandages wrapped from head to toe — making this man look like a mummy with a bit more breath in him — he would surely have leapt off the bed. His obsession with my handmade vanilla milkshake was nothing short of fanatical.

“I want it!” His eyes lit up with a wolf-like gleam of green.

“Then open your mouth!” I set the milkshake aside and picked up the bowl of tonics again. “Medicine first, then sweets. Non-negotiable.”

He glared at me with profound grievance, and reluctantly opened his mouth.

One glass of vanilla milkshake — and this willful, wayward dragon would obediently do as he was told. To capture a man’s heart, first capture his stomach. These words ring entirely true.

From within Bu Ting, the familiar sweet fragrance drifted out once again. The prized Eight Treasure Glutinous Rice Porridge that had been simmering on the stove all this while was bubbling and gurgling away in the pot. Now that there were no longer Fatty and Skinny to call upon, ever since we had returned to Bu Ting, every meal had been prepared by my own hands.

Honestly speaking — without those two helpers, I was not accustomed to it at all.

“Hurry, hurry — milkshake!” Ao Chi finished his medicine and began pressing me impatiently.

“Your spirits seem good today.” I scooped up a spoonful of milkshake, but held it without feeding it to him. “That means you can answer my questions.”

“What more is there you want to know? This woman—” Ao Chi’s eyes were fixed on my hand the entire time. “Feed me already!”

“First question — why did you leave without a word twenty years ago?” I waved the spoon deliberately in front of his face, just out of reach. “Answer me, and you get one spoonful.”

“You vicious woman!” He squirmed like a monkey afflicted with boundless energy, fuming as he twisted about on the bed. “The guardian of the Time Axis has a period of tenure like anything else — a new guardian must take over when the time comes. I am the old man’s direct grandson, and he sought someone out to find me, hoping to entrust me with this responsibility. And he told me in person — Ao Shuo had returned. In a completely different identity and with completely different power. This one had openly declared that this time he would get the key of the dragon’s heart no matter what. The old man said he had consulted the Grand Diviner of the clan, and the divination showed that Ao Shuo’s return was a catastrophe for the entire East Sea — indeed, for the whole world. The divination result showed that only I could handle it. The diviner also said something like — ‘seclude yourself from the world for twenty years, and act in anger for a woman’s sake; when the black clouds burn, friends come, and the sun emerges.’ I didn’t understand what it meant. But in any case, I was to succeed as the new guardian, and conceal myself in the world for twenty years, never crossing paths with Ao Shuo — and calamity could be averted. Though I found the old man insufferably long-winded, I knew the Grand Diviner’s mouth was a crow’s mouth — whatever he said came true. Besides, I had never actually done anything for the East Sea Dragon Clan, and after all I grew up eating the East Sea’s food. So I figured I’d pay back the full debt all at once. I agreed to the old man’s request — which meant that for the next twenty years, I could not appear as Ao Chi. So…”

“So you deliberately lost my green gauze robe and said all those terrible things to me — because you knew my temper. You were certain I would drive you away. That way, you could vanish cleanly, with perfectly good justification, and without making me suspicious. Ao Chi — you really are something. When did your acting become this convincing?” I seized upon the end of his sentence and spoke it myself, furiously pulling the spoon back out from under his nose and stuffing it into my own mouth — using the exaggerated display of eating it to cover the fact that I was about to cry.

All because of one dragon-heart key. One returning madman. And the two of us were separated for twenty years.

“You actually stole a patient’s milkshake! Truly, the most venomous thing is a woman’s heart! The most venomous…” He was beside himself with indignation, but the moment he saw my eyes redden, he fell still. He was silent for a long while, then said: “Actually… after agreeing to become a guardian, I was uneasy the entire time. I was afraid that I might never be able to return to your side again — as Ao Chi. If I truly couldn’t come back, I wanted you to hate me so thoroughly that you’d die before you thought of me again. And for someone you thoroughly hate — I knew you would always forget them quickly enough.”

A spoonful of milkshake was shoved ungently into his mouth. On my end, I kept my eyes red and said nothing.

He smacked his lips with satisfaction and resumed his habitual shameless expression, grinning broadly: “Oh! You were moved, weren’t you? You’re about to cry! I myself think I’m quite magnificent!”

“Second question — why did you later become Fatty and Skinny and plant yourself beside me? And fake your deaths so disgracefully, so perfectly, so without any crack showing?” I shot him a sideways glance and asked.

“Two questions equals two spoonfuls in exchange.” He licked his lips. “For the first nineteen years, I stayed within the barriers of the Time Axis almost the entire time — deadly boring. But every year, I came back to check on you. Sometimes as a mosquito, sometimes a pot of sunflowers — oh, I even became a computer mouse once. But I knew your sense of smell was sharp, so I never stayed too long each time. I was afraid you’d find me out. If I’m being honest — you did quite well in that period. Completely capable of looking after yourself. I hadn’t taught you in vain.”

“Wait!” I stared with wide eyes and abruptly cut him off. “Did you ever become a shower gel bottle or something of the sort? Tell me the truth!”

“Tch. I’ve had no interest in looking at female demons who are in better shape than you by a hundred miles.” He pursed his lips.

“Then why come back at all? You might as well have died inside your Time Axis, and I’d have had some peace and quiet!” I truly wanted to spoon the milkshake directly into his face!

“Because I missed you.”

He suddenly produced those words — words so utterly unremarkable, and yet so outrageously sentimental, that either one of us would sooner have died than ever spoken aloud, before now.

I was stunned. My face grew warm.

“Though one could search your entire person and find precious few redeeming qualities.” He added in a timely manner. “But I enjoy arguing with you. I enjoy watching you leap with fury when I’ve riled you up. I enjoy how reckless and careless you are — how cold-blooded and unfeeling you appear on the surface, while in reality you’re soft as cotton candy. In short — if you’re not around me, my life loses a great deal of entertainment. And since there was only one year left of the twenty anyway, I split my vital essence in two, hid the halves inside two earthworm demons, and became Fatty and Skinny. Not only could I irritate you every single day, I got to live an entirely different, carefree life in a completely different body — how entertaining! You know, earthworm demons are also called earth dragons. They are born beneath the soil and spend their entire lives absorbing the essence of the earth — the density of their demonic aura is second to none among demons, and is more than sufficient to completely mask the scent of my two halves so that no one would detect me. As long as I didn’t expose my identity, I hadn’t technically broken my promise. If it weren’t for Mu truly intending to kill you — I could have stayed as Fatty and Skinny indefinitely, living an easy life without a care.” As he spoke, a look of genuine nostalgia for those days spread across his face — then he bellowed: “Hey! Milkshake!”

“Eat, eat — eat yourself to death!” I loaded two great spoonfuls and tossed them into his mouth. “You infuriating wretch — clearly you saw everything, and yet when Mu stole my body and took my true form, you pretended you knew nothing? You watched as I sat over on Mu’s side with nothing to eat or drink, reading tarot cards for money just to survive, and you just… kept living your easy life. You waited until I had half a life left in me before you deigned to appear?”

“Don’t you dare accuse me falsely. The peace charm I left you saved your life twice! Do you know what was inside it — that golden dragon? A full century of my cultivation! I stored it there specifically for your use in emergencies! And the puppet called Master Zhang the Prawn — I paid him out of my own pocket to let you boss him around. Without me, you wouldn’t have earned enough to buy instant noodles!” Ao Chi defended himself with great displeasure, then let out a sigh. “Though I admit — I had a coward’s heart. If I could have, I would never have faced Ao Shuo again. The memory of him dying at my blade — I have never been able to forget it. As long as I never appeared, we would never have to fight again.” He laughed bitterly, which was rare for him. “But I quickly realized that way of thinking was truly reprehensible. Some people — you simply cannot avoid them, no matter how much you try. The longer you refuse to face them, the more inevitable the confrontation becomes. He used you as bait, drove you into a desperate corner, all to force me to show myself. If anything had truly happened to you, I think I would have spent the rest of my life in guilt over my shameful evasion. Fortunately — you have nine lives!”

His true thoughts matched exactly what I had guessed.

Though who knows whose heart is made of cotton candy. Hmph!

“I have no more questions.”

I realized — the answers I truly wanted to know had not really required him to say them at all. Because his thoughts — I already understood them.

When had this started?

“Ahh!” He opened his mouth theatrically wide, his eyes sliding toward the remaining milkshake.

What a child.

And from this overgrown child, I found myself thinking unexpectedly of that dragon who had raised his head and charged forward, who had said matter-of-factly that he would carry me until he died and then drop me somewhere with sunlight — that explosive, proud, willful and obstinate East Sea wayward dragon.

This man with his splintered personality. How could he so perfectly embody all the contradictions in the world that ought never to coexist.

I smiled despite myself, and with gentleness fed him, spoonful by spoonful, the thing he loved most.

From that life-and-death ordeal to now, more than a month had passed. Ao Chi was alive. I was alive. Those characters were all alive. Though all of us had been hurt — Ao Chi was hurt the worst. He had at least another half month of being a mummy ahead of him. During this time, Bu Ting had become a temporary infirmary and I a part-time nurse, having learned to prepare all manner of sweets and dishes. Every day I ran around in a state of cheerful mayhem looking after him. The more chaotic I was, the happier he seemed. And not only the vanilla milkshake — in truth, anything I prepared with my own hands, regardless of what it was or whether it tasted good or terrible, he ate with great enthusiasm.

Part Nine

It seemed Christmas was nearly upon us. Snowflakes drifted past the window. I leaned out and looked — the world outside was beautiful, though it was still the same small, quiet street, still the same people hurrying past.

Ao Chi slept contentedly, snoring at tremendous volume.

I pulled his blanket snug, and walked softly toward the door.

“Hey…”

Behind me, Ao Chi suddenly murmured something in his sleep.

I stopped.

“The best thing — has actually been right here all along. You just haven’t seen it.”

These nonsensical, rambling dreamwords… I smiled.

You fool. I’ve long since seen it — that’s what my heart was saying.

But the moment I stepped out the door, I found three great balls of fur locked in a tangle — fighting over a bag of cod chips. A small, round, dumpling-like ginkgo seed bounced beside them, watching the spectacle with gleeful curiosity.

White — Cang Tongkai. Black — Xuan. Gold — Kevin.

By now I had more or less grown accustomed to scenes like this.

All of their injuries had healed. They simply needed a bit more rest before they could resume human form, so they had all stayed on indefinitely at the shop, refusing to leave. Kevin was particularly unlucky — his body had shrunk to smaller than even those two cat demons, and it would take at least a year and a half before he could fully recover.

Of all of us, he was the one we owed the most.

Even I hadn’t known. It turned out the ancestors of the Golden Lion Clan were beings that had once lived upon the sun itself — children of the sun in the most literal sense. Even though later generations had migrated to earth, they still carried within them the ability to summon sunlight.

Kevin had spent half his life’s force, and with A’Liao’s ginkgo spirit life-force protecting him the entire way, they had broken through the Marshlight Kingdom’s countless layers of obstruction — summoning the sunlight that saved us all. Ao Shuo’s “ideal” had been shattered entirely, and his Marshlight Kingdom had burst like a broken bubble.

I still remembered, when that wretched place had dissolved, the sound of Ao Shuo’s despairing howl. And, it seemed — the sound of Mu’s weeping…

Sunlight — so ordinary a thing in daily life. Yet in that moment, it saved us. No — it saved the entire world.

To be someone who lives in this world — whether person or demon — we truly ought to cherish this most beautiful of all lights. We must not let it fail to rise again because of anyone’s human error.

Those three were reveling in their brawl, and their existence made Bu Ting feel like a menagerie.

Though noisy and chaotic — it was not unpleasant.

Out in the back courtyard, Gu Wuming with his iron shovel was engaged in an argument with a locust tree that had been planted not long ago. Jiu Jue sat in the chair beside them, not mediating in the slightest — listening and laughing with good cheer, one hand cradling a glass of red wine, the other a gossip magazine. Ku Yue was perched on the cover, reading with rapt attention.

“Let me go! I don’t want to stay here! You pack of wretches!” The tree’s voice sounded like an outraged girl.

You weren’t seeing things — that locust tree was Mu.

When the Marshlight Kingdom collapsed, Ao Shuo and the “ideal” he had failed to realize were burned together by the penetrating sunlight into a few wisps of black smoke. He had been a wandering spirit to begin with, a creature who feared sunlight — and even though he had become the god Anubis, the power of this exiled death god existed only in darkness. It dared not oppose the sun. And the Marshlight Kingdom itself feared sunlight most of all. The path Ao Shuo had chosen was, in every sense, one that was destroyed by the light.

When a person’s ideal degenerates into a grotesque obsession, it becomes a truly terrifying thing.

And when a person is always straining to fix their gaze on the so-called highest or farthest point — they end up unable even to see what is nearest to them.

Had Ao Shuo been able to see — his end would not have been this.

If this world was truly worthless in his eyes, then what was Ao Chi’s brotherly love for him — and what was Mu’s wholehearted devotion — worth?

A person who cannot see the precious things right beside him — how far can such a person’s “ideal” possibly reach?

For Ao Shuo, I can only say that he was a tragic madman.

But the greater tragedy is that someone still carried him in her heart, unable to let go.

Mu — who had done so many things for him, made so many mistakes for him, willingly offered up even her own vital essence to sustain his Marshlight Kingdom — still could not accept the fact that Ao Shuo was gone. She continued to lay all the blame at my feet.

When the Marshlight Kingdom dissolved, I found her on the slopes of Fulong Mountain, barely clinging to life. Too much of her vital essence had been drained away. Not only could she no longer maintain her human form — even staying alive was barely within reach.

I sealed her within her true form. Only like this did she have any chance of survival. With a few hundred years of quiet rest and healing, she should eventually be able to return to the beautiful girl she had once been.

She never stopped cursing me. I let her vent.

But I asked Gu Wuming to move her true form from Fulong Mountain to the back courtyard of Bu Ting.

In order not to damage this stubborn locust tree’s roots, Gu Wuming had spent an entire day digging carefully with his shovel.

“Shaluo — you are still this hypocritical! I’m someone who came to take your life, and you’re trying to save me! Let me out! Even if my soul scatters to nothing, I don’t care! I hate living! I hate living this alone!”

The locust tree’s branches and leaves trembled violently, and every leaf that fell was a piece of Mu’s despair.

“You don’t truly understand what loneliness means.” I smiled as I stood before her, lifting my watering can to give her a drink — not ordinary tap water, but spiritual dew that Ku Yue had gathered for me. “I admit — bringing you to my side is partly selfish. Because occasionally I’ll want to talk to someone about my past. About loneliness and despair. About what it felt like when the most important person left. You know how long-winded I can be, and the people around me may not always want to listen to my rambling — so I’ll share my stories with you from time to time. You have no hands, no feet, and nowhere to run. Ha.”

“The moment I get my freedom back, I’ll still kill you!” Mu’s fury was undiminished.

“Then you had better rest and heal properly — otherwise you still won’t beat me when the time comes.” I made a face at her and added: “Be yourself. Real love is not about overturning yourself to accommodate another. It is when both people can see, in each other’s eyes, the most authentic version of who they truly are.”

Mu was silent for a long time, then let out a “hmph” and stopped responding to me.

This girl and I — we were actually rather alike.

I wonder if a hundred years would be enough for me to “guide her back onto the right path.”

Considering we were not only the same kind of demon, but also from the same hometown — it was worth trying.

Having a tree in the courtyard that could answer back when you talked to it — actually rather entertaining.

All things considered, this was already the best possible outcome.

I allowed myself a quiet smile.

Part Ten

Once life grows lively, time flies.

Christmas, in a blink, had arrived.

In the early morning, I was jolted awake by a furious pounding on the door.

I shuffled to the door in a state of complete dishevelment and asked: “Who is it?”

“Me!” Ao Chi’s booming voice rang out from the other side.

“What do you want?” I utterly despised anything that disturbed my sleeping in.

“Let’s get married!”

Umm… what was happening?

I stood at the door, eyelids drooping, and pondered this for quite some time in my half-asleep stupor.

Let’s get married…

Let’s get married…

Let’s get married…

Good lord! Those three words were truly jolting — they not only drove away every trace of sleepiness, but came with a complimentary short circuit to the nervous system.

On both sides of the door, perfect silence.

“Give me three reasons,” I said, after a long while.

“First — no one else will have you. Second — no one else will have me either. Third — I love you.” Ao Chi’s words came rapid-fire, unhesitating and without a second’s pause.

These had to be the most exasperating and yet most candid proposal reasons in the history of the world…

I wanted to laugh. I wanted to cry. Tears were circling in my eyes. The smile at the corner of my mouth was twitching like a cramp, absolutely refusing to be suppressed.

“I’m kicking the door down if you don’t open it!” Ao Chi was running out of patience.

I took several deep breaths — too many to count — and with a darkened expression, yanked the door open.

A burst of gleeful cheering washed over me, accompanied by cascades of colorful ribbons raining down from above.

At the front of the group, all wearing Christmas hats, stood Ao Chi — holding a brocade box in one hand and pinching a ring in the other.

“This is your green gauze robe.” He placed the brocade box in my hands. “If you ever thought I would mind that, you’ve grossly underestimated me. My breadth of spirit is vaster than the universe. On the contrary — I have always been grateful to Zi Miao. Without him, I wouldn’t have a wife to marry today.”

“Did I say I agreed to marry you?” This fellow was still as self-important as ever — still loved making decisions for others without asking. Truly infuriating!

He suddenly seized my right hand and slid the diamond ring onto my ring finger without giving me any room to protest.

“Three seconds. If you don’t object, I’ll take it as consent. Everyone present can bear witness.” He announced this to me with great solemnity.

I stood there, turned entirely to stone…

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

What I was thinking, at this very moment, was — this man… how can he be so… adorable?

Yes — right now, nothing else mattered. What mattered was this: we had already lost twenty years. In all the days ahead, I no longer wanted to be parted from this wayward dragon. Every one of Shaluo the tree demon’s next thousand years — he had to be there beside me.

Did that need a reason?

Only one reason — everyone ought to be honest with themselves about their own feelings. Including me.

I burst out laughing — and rising onto my toes, I pressed a light kiss to Ao Chi’s cheek, and said: “All right. I consent.”

He was startled at first. Then he let out a long breath, pulled me into a bear hug with both arms, his eyes brimming with overwhelming emotion.

No one else’s embrace has ever felt this solid and reliable. His heartbeat truly merged into my blood vessels. I understood — from this moment on, there was no possible way I could ever cut him out of my life.

Astrology says — Leo and Sagittarius, fated companions across seven lifetimes. Were we a not-entirely-terrible example of that?

My sweet and scattered thoughts were pulled back by the finger that gently tilted my chin upward.

We looked into each other’s eyes. Those narrow, long eyes — I had looked into them for a thousand years and still found no fatigue in the looking. The depth of feeling in his gaze — the wordless, steady contemplation — was decisively enough to make my face flush red.

He broke into what had to be the most tender smile he had ever worn. His lips parted slightly.

My heart pounded wildly. Surely the proposal wasn’t about to have a second act?

But I quickly understood — he hadn’t opened his mouth for me at all. He turned back to the gossip-loving demons behind him and announced with great pride: “You see! I told you she’d agree! That bag of cod chips is mine! A bet’s a bet — pay up!”

A snack bag came sailing magnificently through the air and was caught by him with a grin of pure delight.

Jiu Jue shrugged: “Fair enough. The cod chips and the proprietress — both go to you!”

Cheers erupted again, ribbons flew through the air, and Cang Tongkai even produced a vuvuzela from somewhere and blew it at us with reckless abandon.

I was genuinely worried the roof of Bu Ting might be shaken off.

“Wonderful! Shaluo the proprietress is finally getting married!”

“The fierce tigress is going to cook and keep house from now on!”

“You’re all asking to die, aren’t you!”

Inside Bu Ting, everything descended into beautiful chaos.

After that, these demons spent a full week debating how the wedding of Ao Chi and I ought to be arranged — with tremendous enthusiasm and boundless nosiness.

Time flowed swift as water.

The wedding was tomorrow.

By evening, Bu Ting had been decorated by them into a pink world, heart-and-arrow motifs absolutely everywhere — everywhere!

After dinner, we all sat around the hearth and talked. Some of the group kept glancing at Ao Chi and me, whispering among themselves with occasional bursts of mischievous laughter.

After a while, Jiu Jue produced two slips of paper, handing one each to Ao Chi and me, and said: “The group’s opinion is this — given that the proprietress is the greatest woman any of us has ever encountered, her lifelong happiness is our greatest concern. Therefore, to verify whether the two of you are truly made for each other, please each write on your paper the one thing you most want to say to the other. If even one word overlaps — we give our blessing to the marriage. But if…”

“Shove off. Even if not a single word matched, what were you planning to do — steal the bride?” Ao Chi shot Jiu Jue a fierce glare.

“Come on, come on — write! No refusing!”

These mischievous, idle creatures.

Fine. Write it is.

What did I most want to say?

I thought for a moment, then put my brush to paper and wrote two characters. I handed the paper to Jiu Jue.

Ao Chi scratched impatiently at his slip and tossed it to Jiu Jue.

Jiu Jue read what we had both written and burst into laughter, nodding repeatedly: “Tsk tsk — truly of one mind!”

The group crowded around to look. The two slips of paper said exactly the same thing — two characters, identical:

Unrivaled.

Epilogue

On the day of the wedding, the sky was wide and clear, and even the birdsong of the morning felt filled with joy. However, the demons who had enthusiastically planned to cause havoc at the reception discovered a most serious problem — the groom was missing. The bride was missing.

On the table by the window in the main room — at the spot where I always used to sit — two cups of Fu Sheng tea sat still warm. Beneath the cups, a note was pinned. The contents were as follows:

Skipping the wedding. Proceeding directly to honeymoon. Mind the shop. Watch for fire. Do not disturb.

Signed: Dragon & Tree

The demons’ scheming, long-anticipated meddling was crushed without mercy by our complete indifference to their plans. Amen.

Now, let us move the camera away from those crestfallen faces.

In the Egyptian desert, Ao Chi led me by the hand, and I led a oblivious camel, strolling leisurely beneath a setting sun.

Golden, silken sand dunes rolled and swelled before us as far as the eye could see, composing the most magnificent of paintings from the simplest of colors.

Walking along, I suddenly decided to be lazy: “I can’t walk anymore! Carry me on your back…”

“What’s wrong with you! There’s a camel right there, and you want me to carry you?” He glared.

“Is the camel my husband, or are you?” I raised my voice.

“It’s me… ahem… fine.” He bent down and gestured toward his back. “Get on.”

I jumped on with great enthusiasm, smiling broadly.

“I have a question. When you were Fatty and Skinny, your cooking was excellent. Does that mean…”

“In all honesty — your husband here can hold his own in the sitting room and in the kitchen, fix a computer and deal with troublemakers alike. You simply never took me seriously before. All you ever did was play at defiance and resistance! Hmph!”

“I take you seriously now… hmm… in that case — the cooking rights are entirely yours from this day forward!”

“Not a chance! One day each — neither of us gets shortchanged!”

“Fine, fine… by the way — let’s open a shop in Cairo too! Selling ice cream, how about that?”

“Can you have a moment’s peace? This is the honeymoon! The second you open a shop, there’s no knowing what strange and unusual characters will turn up.”

“Oh… ah, right — there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while now.”

“What is it?”

The last light of the setting sun fell upon my face. My burning lips pressed against his burning ear, and I said:

“I’m sorry — I love you.”

These words had been kept too long. Far, far too long. I hoped they were still within their expiry date.

One last thing — that little shop called Bu Ting has permanently closed. Its proprietress, Shaluo by name, has vanished without trace. Rumor has it she was carried off by a man. The current Bu Ting has transformed into a waystation and gathering place for wandering demons. Passersby will sometimes catch a waft of sweetness drifting from within. Among its old customers, there are still those who tell others how wonderful the desserts there were, how beautiful and peculiar the proprietress, and what an idiotic and ridiculous pair of helpers the fat one and the thin one had been.

But the thing spoken of most — is a tea they served there. Extraordinarily bitter. But after the bitterness, a deep and lasting sweetness.

A most curious drink.

That tea had a strange name — Fu Sheng.

Floating Life.

Without tasting the bitter, how can there be the sweet?

Life is, by its nature, a journey of bittersweet mingled together.

The difference is only this — some people have a traveling companion, a true kindred spirit. And some do not.

The one who has no love — even surrounded by a clamorous crowd, finds the loneliness will not depart.

The one who has love — wandering to the ends of the earth, through wind and through snow, has never once been alone.

I think I no longer need to keep running from place to place. Because I have found the place where I most want to stop.

And smile. ^-^