Prologue

So, rather than go eat peaches, I’d rather teach that stupid brute of a monster a lesson.

1

A good mood really is contagious.

Even when it wasn’t her own smile lighting up so brightly, she’d still find herself growing happy alongside every one of the other person’s radiant expressions, her whole body turning light and buoyant, able to reach any height without needing anything to support her.

Last time, in Huangfu Qin’s memories, she had been an observer. But in this fish’s world, she was a participant, passively yet intimately living through every joy and sorrow. The two strands of hair didn’t just connect two hearts—they made them overlap closely, intimately.

From that early-summer evening onward, Tao Yao had stayed by her side like an unseen shadow. She even knew what a phoenix-tail fruit tasted like—sweet with a touch of sourness, and a peculiar fragrance besides. And she knew that Ling Shuwang, in his younger years, had been truly good-looking—tall, valiant—perhaps even more handsome than Si Kuanglan.

As he carried the phoenix-tail fruit in one hand and pulled Fish Ball along with the other toward Green Cliff Stronghold, Tao Yao already sensed that this fish would never be able to go back. That mixture of fear and anticipation had decided her future long before she’d even said that one word—”yes”—to him.

A few days later, Fish Ball really did leave with him.

She didn’t say goodbye to anyone in Green Cliff Stronghold, didn’t pack anything—there wasn’t really anything worth packing anyway. She simply left a hand-copied score of music quietly on the little girl’s windowsill. There was no choosing how one was reincarnated—though her birth father was a bandit chief, he didn’t seem to want his daughter to inherit his trade. He was always quietly doing everything within his power to push her away from the life he himself was used to—insisting she study hard, keep up with her music, chess, calligraphy, and painting, and learn some martial arts too. She’d also heard the head of the stronghold say that once his daughter turned twelve, he intended to send her down the mountain, to grow up somewhere beyond Green Cliff Stronghold.

This was one reason why, even though she’d been captured and brought into this den of bandits, she held no ill will toward its leader—he loved his daughter.

The second reason was probably that they weren’t like true outlaws. They didn’t take lives, didn’t delight in tormenting others. Once, when they’d been ambushed by a rival gang out on a job, one of their men had been badly wounded, and they’d carried him all the way back rather than leave him to die alone in danger. Under their leader, they hadn’t given up being a devoted father, hadn’t given up on a wounded brother, hadn’t given up the baseline of being human.

So when Ling Shuwang told her his true identity and his real purpose in coming to Green Cliff Stronghold, her very first thought was that he mustn’t do it.

Green Cliff Stronghold had survived largely thanks to the natural shelter of the mountain—the dense, disorienting forest, the treacherous and ever-changing weather, the maze-like mountain paths, the various traps and mechanisms they’d set. Without a precise map, wiping out the stronghold entirely was nearly impossible.

Ling Shuwang had spent months drafting a map detailed enough to bring about the total destruction of Green Cliff Stronghold, down to exactly how each trap could be disarmed.

Once that map fell into the hands of the authorities… she suddenly couldn’t bear to imagine the scene.

A little nervous, she asked him whether he really meant to hand it over.

He said that originally he’d felt no hesitation about it whatsoever—after all, in his understanding at the time, bandits and outlaws committed endless evils and were a scourge upon the world, to be eliminated without mercy. But having actually come to Green Cliff Stronghold, he’d wavered, just a little, for reasons that matched her own view: this band of bandits wasn’t the unforgivable evil of legend. They robbed and plundered, true, but they’d also secretly send rice and clothing to poor, weak households, and had once pulled a drowning child from the river… Thinking of these things, he too had hesitated.

Once the map is handed over—they probably won’t survive it, she said, watching his back as he stood facing the window. She’d had a stomach full of things she wanted to say, but only that sentence made it out.

He was silent a long while, then said: they truly weren’t monstrous, unforgivable brutes, but the kidnapping and robbery were real crimes they’d genuinely committed. Their names posted at the government office weren’t fabricated either.

She felt a pang of regret, but what he said wasn’t wrong either.

Still, she’d lived in Green Cliff Stronghold for over a year—the longest she’d stayed anywhere in the mortal realm in these past several decades. The people there hadn’t treated her badly; in fact, they’d been good to her. The stronghold leader often punished her by making her copy scriptures, but he never forgot to buy her pretty, fun little things whenever he went out. The little girl treated her like an older sister—whenever she came for her music lessons, she’d always bring out treats she couldn’t bear to eat herself and share them with her. Most importantly, at some point they had let their guard down around her and “Little Blacksmith,” firmly labeling them as “one of us”… Perhaps to others these were trivial, unremarkable things. She had never responded to this ordinary care and trust with much fervor, but not responding didn’t mean she hadn’t kept the memory of it… She had even thought of staying at Green Cliff Stronghold indefinitely, until, one by one, they all left her instead.

She told herself she wasn’t attached. But in the days after she left without a word, she dreamed every night of herself still hollering after Fulu and Shuangquan’s backsides, phoenix-tail fruit raining down on her like rain, her favorite.

What she dreamed didn’t matter. What mattered was his response.

He turned around, smiling, and patted her head, telling her not to worry—he knew exactly what he was doing. Since that was so, she asked no more.

Three days later, he took the map to the government office first thing in the morning. She sat anxiously by the window of an inn in the city, waiting for him to come back.

By the time the sun set, he returned, carrying new clothes he’d bought for her and a colorful pinwheel. When she looked down from the window and saw him smiling and waving up at her, an inexplicable calm settled over her heart.

He told her that three days earlier, he’d slipped back to Green Cliff Stronghold, called Fulu out, and given it a gift to carry back—a cloth pouch tied to its body, containing a duplicate map of the stronghold’s terrain and two lines addressed to the leader: “The map is in my hands. In three days it goes to the authorities. You are no villain, so why play the bandit? Reflect on yourself.”

Afterward, he’d hidden nearby and watched until someone in the stronghold discovered what was on Fulu’s back and rushed off to find the leader—only then did he leave.

He laughed, saying Fulu really was the clever one—it came running the moment it heard his whistle, while that fool Shuangquan hadn’t stirred at all. He wondered what kind of scene it must have made when the leader saw the gift—his face probably turned the color of an eggplant, purple and green with rage.

She believed him, because he was always a man of his word.

But she still worried—even after they saw the map, given the leader’s temperament, what if he decided to fight the authorities to the death out of sheer fury? What if they lost that fight? She even had the urge to rush straight to Green Cliff Stronghold to check on them.

But in the end, she held herself back.

Compared to the many people who never even got a chance to choose, they were still fortunate—as long as they were willing to choose to keep living, they could keep living. And if they truly had to choose another path, that too would be a future of their own picking; even the worst outcome would at least be one without regrets.

He knew what was weighing on her heart just then. Taking her hand, he said he hadn’t done this to prove a point to anyone, nor to show off some youthful heroism, and certainly not to condemn the people of Green Cliff Stronghold to death. Perhaps this seemingly ruthless method was the only way to ensure the leader let his own daughter live a normal life, and not just talk about it.

She looked into his eyes—she only hoped they wouldn’t misunderstand his true intentions.

He shook his head and laughed—if they misunderstood, there was nothing to be done about it. Being a bandit was wrong no matter how you looked at it; he wouldn’t feel guilty over this.

She had no argument against that.

We can leave now, he said, stroking her smooth hair.

She didn’t understand. Go where?

He flicked her nose. To that lake with the delicious phoenix-back fish, of course. I have to prove I wasn’t lying to you.

Unmistakable anticipation lit up her eyes.

Still, at her request, they lingered in the city for another half month or so.

Word came that the authorities had sent a large force into the mountains to suppress the bandits. Everyone said Green Cliff Stronghold was notoriously difficult to deal with, and this time they’d finally found the right place—but unfortunately, someone had leaked word beforehand, and by the time the soldiers stormed in, there wasn’t even a dog left in Green Cliff Stronghold. The whole sprawling stronghold stood utterly empty.

She finally let her heart settle, and in the waning days of high summer, she left this place—one she was both willing and unwilling to leave—together with him.

She wondered whether the fish in that lake really tasted as good as he claimed. Even if she was a shore-fish, that was fine too—shore-fish ate fish as well; she’d never been picky. And really, it didn’t matter which lake they went to—with him beside her, it was all the same.

She suddenly realized that a color she’d never known before had appeared in her life—not any shade of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, or violet, but an indescribable brightness, joy, vitality—a possibility utterly cut off from the gloom that had always shadowed her.

2

This lake was just as beautiful as he’d described—even more so.

The scenery of all four seasons reflected on its surface, so that a single year yielded four distinct, equally wonderful worlds.

In the wooden cottage by the lakeshore, they lived together for three years. He truly hadn’t lied—whether it was the scenery of this place or the lake’s distinctive phoenix-back fish, both were the finest things in this world, or at least the finest things in her entire life up to that point.

He was skilled at fishing, and skilled at simmering fish soup too. When she offered to help, he always refused, saying that although this fish was delicious, its bones grew numerous and unruly, and cleaning it required special care. From catching the fish to serving up a bowl of delicious fish soup, all she had to do was sit there and eat—every bone picked perfectly clean from the flesh, so she could enjoy it without a worry.

It wasn’t just fishing—he took the initiative to handle every big or small trouble in their daily life, leaving her only the easy, simple chores. She loved watching him work with total focus, even if it was just fixing a stubborn door. He also built her a fun swing in the clearing behind the cottage. On fine days, she’d sit on it, and with every swaying arc she’d rise up toward the blue sky and white clouds—her hair, her skirts, her whole heart soaring in pure delight. She’d never imagined she could laugh and shout so freely, straight from the heart.

Sitting on the swing, she’d occasionally glance back, and there his smiling face would be, keeping watch over her safety from a distance that shifted near and far. She felt that even if she fell from the highest point the very next instant, he would catch her in time, and she’d never end up bloodied on the ground.

Much as she loved this life, she wasn’t willing to let herself become entirely useless. In winter, when the lake froze over, he usually couldn’t catch any fish—but she would dive fearlessly into the water and effortlessly pull out phoenix-back fish hiding beneath the surface. No matter how he tried to stop her, she’d just shake the water off her head and body, then shove the fish into his hands, insisting she wasn’t afraid of the cold—she’d even deliberately swim a few extra laps around the lake just to prove it. In summer, she occasionally showed off her own cooking, gathering colorful plants and strange bugs from the nearby mountains, then eagerly stir-frying them into several dishes and simmering a pot of soup… and he actually dared to eat it, even praising the flavor as delicious and unique, even though he then had diarrhea for three straight days afterward… For that, she apologized, saying she hadn’t known he couldn’t eat such things—after all, when she used to live alone in the mountains, this was how she’d always eaten. If she ever found herself somewhere truly barren, with no bugs or fruit to be found, she’d have to chew on leaves; once, after finally catching a plump one, a fox had stolen it from her, and she’d gone hungry the whole day.

She said all this quite naturally, without a trace of complaint.

Hearing it, though, his heart ached. He pulled her into his arms and said, from now on let’s just drink fish soup—I’ll make it.

He rarely asked about her past, seeming to deliberately overlook the fact that she was a demon—she was simply herself, a woman he’d happened upon and treasured. There had been no shortage of young women who’d fancied him before, and matchmakers had worn a path to his family’s door years earlier proposing marriages, but every young woman who’d appeared before him had been just that—a young woman. He’d been courteous to each and every one, and moved by none.

He’d never really thought carefully about what kind of person could “move” his heart—he simply felt that if it were that person, he’d recognize them the instant he saw them. That was a young man’s definition of “falling in love”—simple, with no concrete reasoning behind it, nothing more than entrusting everything to a heart still free and unspoiled.

Only, neither of them had yet realized that time would pass, and so would youth.

During those years by the lake, he would return to Iron Mirror Town every so often, saying that although his parents didn’t object to his traveling for extended periods, he still needed to go back and see them. Each visit ran anywhere from ten-odd days to a month or so, but he always calculated the timing precisely, returning before the day he’d promised her. One autumn, he even brought her along on one of these trips back to Iron Mirror Town, telling her that his home was there, only the time wasn’t right yet to bring her home properly—once he’d arranged everything, he’d bring her back openly and with dignity.

She gazed at that unfamiliar house from a distance and asked, puzzled, why he wanted to bring her there.

Now it was his turn to be surprised—didn’t she want to go home with him?

She blinked. That’s your home.

He couldn’t help laughing. Then it’ll be your home too, from now on.

She still didn’t understand.

He studied her seriously for a good while, then asked: “What would you say to marrying me?”

Along the autumn riverbank, a leisurely cool breeze blew past; a bird skimmed low across the rippling water; a few golden leaves drifted down from the treetops, tracing a dance-like path through the air.

She looked into those eyes she’d seen countless times, day and night, and confirmed they were as sincere as ever.

“I agree!”

He froze for a second, then laughed and took her hand. “Not even a little bit of playing hard to get…”

She looked up at his face, lit by the autumn sun. “Ling Shuwang, I’m so happy.”

That sentence was the whole of what she felt in that moment, and she wanted to say it exactly as it was, without changing a single word.

He hugged her tight.

Held in the full strength of his embrace, she couldn’t help but ask again: “Really me?”

“Who else would it be?” he laughed. “Is there room in my arms for anyone else?”

“I’m a demon,” she said, her face pressed against his chest. “I’ve never heard of a human man marrying a demon as his wife. And my lifespan isn’t like yours—you’ll grow old, and I’ll still be young; you’ll die, and I’ll still be here.”

He listened to her rambling, and laughed out loud. “So you’re already looking down on me now?”

“That’s not it.” She straightened up, gently touching his face, and said with great seriousness, “Besides, it doesn’t matter. I’ll find a way to make myself look as old as you. That way, when we go out together later, people won’t mistake me for your daughter, or your granddaughter.”

Ha, ha, ha—he laughed so hard his chest shook. What a farsighted, and utterly silly, plan.

But wasn’t this exactly what it looked like for a demon to hand over her entire future—following the years, growing old together?

“I’ll try to live as long as I can,” he said, stroking her head. “Isn’t there supposed to be a next life? I’ll come find you again in the next one. You’ll be around anyway.”

She nodded and buried her face deeper into his chest.

Who said autumn only carried the chill of decline? All things reach ripeness and bear fruit in this very season, don’t they? Fate had finally smiled on her, in this season.

Not long after, they returned to the lake.

He said that once he’d arranged a proper identity for her—complete with a family, parents, a background—so his parents could set their minds at ease, everything would fall naturally into place, and the Ling household in Iron Mirror Town would become her happy destination.

She said fine, no rush.

He said, I’m in a hurry.

Two more years slipped by in the blink of an eye. She never asked him how the arrangements were going—she knew he was a steady, dependable man, always keeping careful track of what needed doing.

Only, starting about a year earlier, the time he spent at the lake had grown shorter and shorter, and every time he returned he always carried a faint air of fatigue. On many late nights, she’d see him sitting alone in the yard, staring troubled at the glistening lake outside, occasionally letting out a sigh.

She thought about it, again and again, and finally asked him, the next time he said he needed to leave for a while.

“It’s just that business at home has gotten a bit busy,” he said, gently stroking her head. “It’s nothing, I can handle it.”

She kept looking into his eyes, neither smiling nor angry, refusing to look away.

Helpless, he could never keep from telling her the truth whenever she looked at him like that. “There’s a problem with the family business, and my father’s having trouble handling it for now, so I need to stay home more these days. You know I’m an only child—besides me, they have no one else to rely on. The Ling family’s reputation can’t collapse. As the Ling family’s son, I have to see this through with everything I’ve got. Don’t worry, it won’t be long before it’s resolved.”

She sighed softly and hugged him. “Whatever I can do, just tell me.”

He smiled. “Just stay here safe and sound, and go easy on the bug soup—that would be doing me a favor.”

She punched his arm. “I haven’t made soup since last year.”

That night, they sat by the lake, she leaning against him, softly humming a tune she loved to the quiet water. Her voice settled into the starlight on the lake’s surface, enough to hold all uneasiness at bay.

In the past, whenever he heard her singing, he’d always be lulled into closing his eyes. But tonight, he kept his eyes open the whole time, his gaze sinking deep, drifting somewhere across the lake that held no light.

More months passed. Waiting for him had become a kind of habit for her.

The swing behind the house needed new rope—the old one had gone rough and frayed, likely to snap after just a few more uses. And that door was broken again too, creaking endlessly, refusing to close properly.

She thought about fixing them herself, but worried that if she did, maybe he’d come back even later—as if, with these things still waiting to be mended, this “home” by the lake wasn’t quite her fighting this lonely battle all alone.

Not until the first snowfall of winter did he finally return.

He seemed to have grown thinner, reminding her of some bird or beast after a fierce battle—clearly defeated, yet stubbornly proud, weak yet still forcing itself to put on a good front for others.

He still smiled at her out of habit, still patted her head out of habit, only he spoke far less now, and sighed more often without meaning to.

She heard it with her own ears—while simmering the fish soup, he muttered to himself: “What should I do…”

That didn’t sound like him at all. He was such a confident, thoughtful man, someone who clearly possessed the ability and the resolve to solve any problem. She stood outside the kitchen and said nothing, didn’t go in to ask him anything.

When the familiar fish soup was set on the table, she picked up the ladle as she always did—one bowl for him, one for herself.

“You drink it. I don’t really have an appetite today.” He pushed his bowl toward her with a smile.

She said nothing, and drank both bowls down in one go. Strange… why did it have no flavor at all? Had five years of drinking it worn her taste for it out?

She wiped her mouth and looked into his eyes, trying to find an answer there. He avoided her gaze. Something inside her seemed to drop to the floor; she felt a flicker of panic.

After another long silence, she smiled. “Is business better now?”

He hesitated a moment, took a deep breath, and said: “I’m sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for?” Her smile stiffened slightly, and a fear she’d thought would never return began slowly crawling back up from the bottom of her heart.

He lowered his head, then forced himself to lift it again—he couldn’t even bring himself to look away from her.

“I’m getting married next month.”

Her lips pressed into a thin line. She said nothing, only ladled herself another bowl of fish soup and slowly drank it down.

“I only just found out, not long ago, that there was a betrothal arranged for me before birth.” He spoke slowly. “I didn’t tell you, because I thought I had a way to get out of it—I’d even worked out how I’d explain it to my parents, and to the other family’s parents.”

She set down her bowl, her gaze fixed on the half-bowl of soup remaining, and asked quietly, “Can she help you with this?”

He rubbed his forehead. “Not me—my father. It’s not just that our business has hit trouble—my father’s also gotten himself tangled up with someone dangerous, and her family happens to be able to resolve all of it. And… her leg isn’t quite right. My mother says it happened when we were children playing together, that I tricked her into climbing a tree and she fell. Funny thing is, I don’t remember any of it at all.” He laughed bitterly.

Fine. Understood. She smiled: “So you’ve chosen her after all.” Then she drank the rest of the fish soup, wiped her mouth, and stood to leave.

He caught her hand, his face twisted with a conflict and confusion she’d never seen on him before. “It’s not what you think. I just can’t stand by and watch my father, watch the Ling family, fall into ruin beyond recovery. My heart right now hurts worse than being cut with a knife.”

“Oh.” She nodded, then pulled her hand free with force. “The swing rope is about to snap, and the door won’t close again. I thought about fixing them, but I don’t think I can. Never mind. Let it be, then.”

She smiled at him and walked around him, out the door.

He remained rooted where he stood. The room was still filled with the smell of fish soup, and the familiar scent of her hair. He felt he deserved to be slapped hard across the face, or even stabbed—anything but this, where everything had happened and yet felt as though nothing had happened at all, everything simply cutting off abruptly.

What was he, really? Every word he’d said to her before, every promise he’d made, now worth less than the dregs left in a bowl.

Ling Shuwang, the man everyone—including himself—had always considered excellent. So this is all you really are.

Everything, once again, had fallen into cliché.

He stood stunned for a good while before suddenly snapping back to himself and dashing out the door after her.

But amid the flying snow, there was only the frozen surface of the lake—no trace of her anywhere. Her appearances and disappearances had always caught him off guard.

He knelt by the lake, staring blankly ahead. He didn’t call her name, didn’t beat his chest cursing himself—he simply sat still and silent as a corpse that still happened to be breathing, letting the snowflakes pile up on him, as if eager to bury something, or to freeze it to death completely.

Five years of time—still didn’t count for anything, after all. She sat on the swing, watching him drag his stiffened body away, step by step, out of her world.

The swing’s rope had gone nearly threadbare. If her weight had been even a fraction more, it would have collapsed pathetically.

She let her true form show—her blue tail strikingly beautiful against the night snow.

Tao Yao wanted to warn her to come down, or else the fall would look quite unbecoming. But before she could speak, the night sky vanished, the snow vanished, the lake and the cottage all disappeared. She felt as if she’d stepped straight into a void, and all she could hear in her ears were fragments of shattering sound…

3

Amid swirling clouds and mist, a vast sea of trees had just begun to show its treetops.

Every so often, something with a human body and a fish tail would leap out from the dense branches and leaves, vanishing again beneath the canopy in an instant. That had been her original home—the cloud-wreathed sea of trees, birthplace of shore-fish.

But her memory of that place ran shallow. Because it was the nature of shore-fish to raise only their strongest children.

She barely remembered her parents’ faces—only her mother’s gentle singing, and the day she fell from the top of the tree-sea into an unnamed wilderness, amid a faint sound of weeping.

She’d had a younger sister too—but she was the one who’d been abandoned.

That day, she woke from a sharp, stinging pain. She’d landed in a thicket overgrown with thorns, a place where, besides the thorns that tore into her tender flesh, there were also all manner of malicious eyes and howls lurking in the darkness, watching.

She’d still been young then, with no real understanding of danger or malice—only an instinctive fear.

She hadn’t even had the composure to cry, trying instead to shift her body, hoping to find some spot that hurt less. But every movement opened a few more cuts, the pain making her gasp.

She dared not try again, though her whole body and heart still ached miserably. She tried to think of anything that might ease her, and in the end all she could think of was the tune her mother used to hum.

After piecing it back together in her memory for a long while, she finally sang that tune aloud. Perhaps it was just her imagination, but singing seemed to dull the pain, at least a little.

But a gluttonous giant python—perhaps close to achieving demonic form, with a small horn just beginning to sprout on its forehead, its blood-red eyes far shrewder and more cunning than an ordinary python’s—was silently closing in on her through the darkness. It wasn’t necessarily hunger driving it; devouring other demons was a shortcut some impatient demon spirits used to hasten their cultivation.

A young shore-fish couldn’t add much to one’s cultivation, but it was better than nothing.

Just as she faced certain death, a white-faced old ape snatched her from right in front of the python’s jaws. Wind rushed past her ears as the old ape gripped her hand and carried her through the dense forest at a speed nearly like flight, leaving the giant python far behind.

Only once they’d entered a hidden mountain cave did the old ape let her go.

The cave inside was bright and dry, with round, moon-like beads placed in every corner, casting a soft, gentle light that never hurt the eyes. Thick vines hung down from the stone walls, forming, with uncanny artistry, something like a throne in the most prominent spot. The old ape climbed up and sat, looking down at her from above.

From the openings in the stone walls, various other heads poked out—a fox, a bird, a lizard, a leopard, a strange plant with hands and feet—all mountain spirits and demons.

She sat on the ground, gazing timidly at this unfamiliar place.

The old ape pointed upward. “Thrown down from up there?”

She nodded.

The old ape snorted. “There weren’t many of you left to begin with, and still they throw them away… a bunch of foolish fish.”

She hadn’t really understood it at the time. Only when she grew older did she learn that the shore-fish clan truly was scarce in number. Gentle demons though they were, their pride ran high, both proud and demanding—willing to discard unqualified offspring just to preserve the perfection of the whole clan, even if that “perfection” seemed utterly meaningless to outsiders. No matter how carefully they picked and chose, the shore-fish clan could never escape its fate of frail bodies and short lives; living to three or five hundred years already counted as exceptional.

As for exactly why she’d been judged an “unqualified” child and then abandoned without mercy, she never fully understood the reasons, and eventually stopped wanting to dig into it—she only vaguely remembered that she’d eaten less than her sister back then, that most of the food their parents brought home had been snatched away by her sister… And that was it? That was enough to get her thrown from that great height?

Then again, falling from that height didn’t necessarily mean death, either…

“From now on, stay here.”

The old ape had saved her, kept her in the cave, become her master, and she gained eight senior fellow disciples besides, along with a name—the old ape said its disciples were named in order of arrival: eldest senior brother was Leopard One, second senior sister was Fox Two… and when it came to her, she became Fish Nine.

Fish Nine… she didn’t mind what she was called. A demon rescued from the impossible probably had no capacity left for “minding” such things.

Life in the cave was decent enough. Her fellow disciples didn’t look down on her too much, even though, compared to their skills at scaling walls, riding the wind, and commanding fire, what she was good at wasn’t much to show off.

The old ape always treated her coldly and distantly, but was never stingy about teaching her what needed to be taught—only her aptitude was mediocre, and no matter how many times she was taught, she couldn’t grasp the trick of it, often making the old ape so furious its veins bulged, until finally it could only sigh and walk away helplessly, leaving her standing there awkwardly alone. In the blink of an eye, over forty years passed, and she remained a shore-fish with nothing but a good voice going for her—her only progress being that, by singing earnestly, she could now temporarily cure her fellow disciples’ insomnia. Though each of them was formidable in their own right, their master was so strict, and there was so much to learn every day, that both body and mind were constantly being worn down, and restless nights were common. In truth, she didn’t sleep well either—even after living there for decades, she still often dreamed of the python’s gaping jaws, and more often, of falling again and again from the clouds, jolting awake the instant she hit the ground, heart pounding like a war drum, unable to fall back asleep afterward. And her singing did nothing for herself.

If she had to point to one real improvement in herself… it would only be her appetite—from unable to eat, to forcing herself to eat, to actually enjoying food, she’d probably poured every last scrap of talent she had into that particular process. Her greatest hobby, day to day, was knowing exactly what delicious things could be found near the cave, and she often brought back what she considered delicacies to share with her fellow disciples, even though most of it didn’t suit their taste…

Her senior sisters used to tease her, saying that if they ever needed to compete with rivals from other schools and there happened to be an eating contest, they’d just send little Fish Nine—guaranteed win.

She’d always laugh, a little embarrassed, and say there wouldn’t be an eating contest.

At first, she’d assumed her master was simply an unusually powerful demon—after all, it could take on disciples. Only later did she gradually learn from her fellow disciples that the old ape wasn’t a demon at all—long ago, it had already attained the status of a “Kunlun Half-Immortal.” A so-called half-immortal was just one step away from being formally registered among Kunlun’s true immortals. Kunlun had always looked favorably on outstanding individuals among demons—not only did it not discriminate against them, it was willing to offer them a chance to ascend to immortality. Demons selected into Kunlun, so long as they remained outstanding and abided by Kunlun’s rules, upholding righteousness and warding off evil, protecting all living things between heaven and earth, could in time rise—from demon attendant to demon immortal, to half-immortal, to true immortal, even into the ranks of gods—according to the scale of their merit, each following a bright, clear path forward, no longer needing to scrape by under the name of demon or evil spirit. And so, many demons regarded entry into Kunlun as the turning point of their fate, devoting their entire lives to that single goal.

As for Kunlun’s practice of “selecting talent without regard to rigid convention,” that too was entrusted to a portion of Kunlun’s “half-immortals” to carry out. Being just one step from true immortal status, their most important task was to select, on Kunlun’s behalf, the most suitable “demon talents” within the mortal realm to sit for the “Kunlun Trial,” held once every two hundred years. Any demon who successfully passed this trial would earn the right to become a Kunlun demon attendant, rewarded with five hundred additional years of life; and if they went on to be promoted further, reaching the rank of true immortal, they would gain not only a status commanding others’ reverence, but a lifespan measured in tens of thousands of years. For a “trial-sponsoring half-immortal” like the old ape, the sole measure toward ascending to true immortal status was how many disciples they’d successfully guided through the Kunlun Trial—how much useful talent they’d contributed to Kunlun.

Her fellow disciples told her their master had already labored in the mortal realm for eight hundred years. Now, if he could just send one more disciple through the Kunlun Trial, his merit would be complete, and he could become a true immortal—so they mustn’t disgrace their master, nor ruin their own futures. They had to work hard, had to pass the coming Kunlun Trial without fail.

So their master wasn’t a demon, or a monkey… but an immortal! She thought that was amazing.

Still, she didn’t quite understand, and asked one of her senior brothers: “Do all of Master’s disciples have to take the Kunlun Trial?”

“Of course,” her senior brothers laughed at her. “You think Master’s been teaching us all these years just so we could go figure out which fruits taste good?”

She pointed at herself. “Me too?”

“Aren’t you Master’s disciple?” A senior sister laughed, rapping her on the head. “You’re really quite lucky, you know—plenty of little demons don’t even live past two hundred, they never even get the chance to attend the Kunlun Trial. You’re still young, and you happen to have arrived just in time for it. Also, Master always takes exactly nine disciples, because the Kunlun Trial has nine test questions—we each have to take one. There’s no getting out of it for you.”

“What?” This was something she’d never once considered. She’d always assumed Master had simply taken pity on her, alone and pitiful, and had grudgingly given her the status of disciple so she could have a stable life in the cave. So she had to take the exam too?!

She asked her senior sister again: “What kind of test is it, then? Is it easy to pass?”

“How could it possibly be easy? It’s the Kunlun Trial—the shortcut to ascension so many demons dream of.” Her third senior brother said, “Never mind becoming a true immortal—even just becoming a lowly Kunlun demon attendant is a tremendous thing. Five hundred years of extra life! As long as you can get one foot through Kunlun’s gate, and don’t grow lazy, keep cultivating diligently, rising to demon immortal or half-immortal isn’t hard at all.”

Watching her fellow disciples’ faces light up with excitement, she felt a bit troubled. “I don’t know how to do anything… surely I’m not going to be tested on eating and singing?” The cave erupted in laughter.

She wasn’t afraid of the exam itself—she just felt that disgracing Master would be a shame… though, since only one of them needed to pass for Master to become a true immortal, and given how talented her senior brothers and sisters were, surely they’d all pass, wouldn’t they?! Thinking about it that way, since she wouldn’t even get the chance to disgrace Master, her heart settled.

Just then, Master returned from outside, still wearing that cold, even fierce expression, and upon seeing them laughing and playing around, snapped sharply: “Still fooling around? Don’t you know your big day is only half a year off?”

Everyone immediately stood at attention, not daring to breathe too loudly.

“The spell technique I taught you last time—have you all mastered it?” Master glared at them.

Everyone nodded except her. Those incantations were far too long; she’d cracked her head trying to memorize them and still couldn’t get them all, and when she did use them, the result was a chaotic mess, not fit to be seen.

Master looked at her, shook his head out of habit, then said to everyone: “This time, you must give it everything you have.”

“Yes!”

“Go and practice.”

“Yes!”

She hurried off after the others.

“Fish Nine!” Master suddenly called her back.

A chill ran down her spine. She turned around stiffly, bracing for another scolding.

Master walked up to her, was silent a moment, then said: “Learn what you can. Don’t push yourself too hard—but don’t be too lazy about it either.”

No reproach, no disdain. Master had never been this gentle before.

So Master didn’t actually dislike her the way she’d imagined. She felt as though a flower had bloomed inside her chest, and nodded vigorously, delighted: “Understood, Master.”

Over the following half year, she truly did try hard, though her gains were meager. There was no real pressure on her anyway, so she simply let things take their natural course.

During this period, besides being fed especially well, Master also went out of his way to find various strength-enhancing spirit medicines for all of them, including her, and they tasted quite good.

Only, deep in the night, the questions she never dared ask kept swaying back and forth in her heart—after the Kunlun Trial, when she inevitably failed, would she no longer have a Master, or fellow disciples…? If it were possible, could she keep living here? If it were possible, she wanted to keep staying in this home.

Right up until the day before the Kunlun Trial, she still hadn’t asked.

Master told them that the content of the Kunlun Trial was actually quite simple. The examination hall held nine mirrors, and each mirror represented a single question—except the “question” wasn’t a question at all, but rather a distinct world hidden within each mirror, endlessly varied and full of its own mysteries. Each candidate had to enter their mirror, then find the exit within the allotted time; that alone counted as passing, and made one eligible to become a Kunlun demon attendant. As for how to find the way out, that depended entirely on whatever skill each of them had accumulated. The world inside each mirror was different every time; some demons had failed three times in a row before. Master hoped they wouldn’t disappoint him.

Everyone listened, hearts a mix of excitement and unease.

Only she remained calm—she was certain she couldn’t do it; she got lost often enough just wandering the mountain forests, how could she hope to break through a testing ground set by Kunlun’s immortals themselves?… Well, since Master wanted her to take part, she’d just take part—filling out the numbers was fine too.

On the day of the exam, Master got up early and personally prepared breakfast for them. He offered no long speeches, only told them to do their best.

With no expectations weighing on her, she was the most relaxed of them all, spending the whole trip cheering on her fellow disciples, hoping every one of them would pass smoothly and go on to become the most formidable figures within Kunlun.

Master led all nine of them off through the clouds, until at last a mountain range wreathed in immortal mist came into view, and he brought the cloud down, landing them on a bustling stretch of grassland.

Many others who’d come to sit the Kunlun Trial were already there ahead of them, waiting—the arrangement was much the same everywhere: one master, nine disciples… She’d heard every Kunlun Trial was like this, half-immortals scattered across the four directions bringing their own carefully trained groups of nine disciples, one question each deciding pass or fail, simple and blunt. And on this day that came only once every two hundred years, gathered here were surely the most talented and most driven demons under heaven.

She was still a little excited, not because of the exam, but because she’d never seen so many kinds of demons in one place. The purple-mist-wreathed grassland showed no green at all—the grass that grew there was entirely transparent, as if carved from ice, both cold and beautiful. The demons around her murmured quietly to each other, or sat with eyes closed in meditation; some were even sparring right there on the spot, and just the varied, brilliant flashes of light from their spells alone were terrifying enough. And there were dragons dozens of feet long and enormous azure sparrows—just a single glance from them was enough to secure their place as kings among the crowd, clearly on the path to immortality. Compared to herself… ha, better to hurry through the exam and go home to eat.

But it seemed she wasn’t the only one who didn’t much care about this exam.

That was a team led by an old fox—of its nine disciples, eight were eagerly rolling up their sleeves, while only one lay sprawled at the back of the line, asleep.

Was that a cat? Eyes bright as gemstones, blue and green, long fur like black satin—truly a beautiful cat. If it held its head up high, it might look like a proud little lion.

Compared to her own master’s severity, that old fox seemed far gentler—watching its disciple sleep soundly, it showed no anger at all, instead speaking gently and coaxingly beside it, its posture almost pleading. She found it funny to watch—if she’d fallen asleep like that, Master would have thrown her out ages ago.

As she looked this way and that, the waiting line grew shorter and shorter.

At the end of the line, she saw only two smiling immortal officials standing there, and behind them floated nine carved crystal mirrors, each about the height of a person and a half, each marked from one to nine, all shimmering with an eerie, otherworldly light.

Facing each candidate as they arrived, one official would take a brush and paint a red line across the back of their hand, smiling as he said: “If the red line remains when you emerge, you have passed.” Then the other official would lead them to a mirror, likewise smiling: “Choose your own trial. Your safety is your own responsibility. We wish you well.” With that, the candidate would select a mirror and touch it with their hand, and in an instant, they would vanish, disappearing entirely in front of the mirror.

She suddenly wondered—what if she couldn’t get out within the allotted time, or couldn’t even find the way out at all? What would happen then? Would the mirror kick her out, or would the officials have to pull her out themselves? Surely Master wouldn’t have to go in personally to fetch her—that would be far too embarrassing…

Lost in these anxious thoughts, she realized her turn was nearly upon her when Master suddenly pulled her aside and said in a low voice: “Choose the ninth mirror.”

“What?” She froze.

Master frowned. “Every time, the easiest question is always in the ninth spot. Leave the hard ones for your senior brothers and sisters.”

She was suddenly moved—so even at this final, crucial moment, Master hadn’t given up on her.

“Alright!” She nodded.

Was it… was it possible that her fate, too, had earned the right to a turning point? Entering Kunlun was something she’d never even dared to dream of, an utterly unreachable goal.

But what if some god in charge of fate happened to soften for a moment, or blink, and let her slip through by luck—would her parents, if she ever encountered them one day, feel even the smallest twinge of regret over their choice back then? She didn’t dare think further down that path, and quickly pulled her thoughts back together—since Master had given her this chance, now was the time to give everything she had.

Soon it was her turn. By the rules of the Kunlun Trial, among each group of nine candidates, the one with the least seniority got first pick. Confidently, she chose the ninth mirror.

The official glanced at her, a flash of surprise and regret briefly crossing his eyes, then quickly resumed his smile and gestured for her to proceed.

Before touching the mirror, she turned to look back at her fellow disciples lined up behind her, and at Master’s grave expression, raising a fist. “You all have to win! I’ll do my best too!”

Master’s brow twitched faintly.

In the blink of an eye, she had vanished from in front of the mirror.

4

Behind a pile of black boulders, she huddled, hand clamped over her mouth, not daring to make a sound.

She’d looked into countless mirrors in her life, but only today did she learn just how vast and terrifying the world inside a mirror could be.

The trial really was simple, in principle—go in through the mirror, then find the way out. The red line marked on the hand served as the timer; as long as you got out before it vanished, you were no longer some insignificant little demon from the wilds, but a member with a place in Kunlun. That was Kunlun—an immortal mountain ranked alongside the heavens themselves, majestic and commanding.

Get out in time, and you won. And the difficulty she’d anticipated was simply that the world within the mirror would be a maze-like tangle of paths, that she’d have to find the correct exit among countless shifting routes—at worst, she’d have to try a few extra directions, spend a bit more time. If she truly couldn’t get out, well, so be it… it would only be embarrassing this once.

But the world before her eyes now was nothing so gentle as a maze. The consequences of failure she now had to face were probably not something as light as mere embarrassment.

She had never seen a sky this color before—black and red twisted together, pressing down heavily and eerily overhead. A city, nearly razed flat, spread endlessly toward a horizon with no end in sight; among the collapsed buildings, patches of disordered forest were interspersed, every single tree within them wrapped in raging flame, trunks and leaves charred a deep, carbonized black. Countless enormous boulders, as if hurled down from the sky, crushed down mercilessly on the various half-collapsed structures still clinging to survival. The whole scene was utter chaos—never mind finding an exit, just weaving through the ever-present, arrogant flames while trying to tell north from south would take a lifetime’s worth of effort…

And that wasn’t even the worst of it.

Amid the strange, sprawling ruins, the shrieks and wails of countless demons filled the air—those candidates who had entered before and after her, while scrambling to find a way out, also had to keep watch over their own lives, because there was a beast here unlike anything she’d ever seen: a snake-headed, leopard-bodied thing with purple eyes and blood-red fangs, its hard, crimson-glowing scales making it look utterly without weakness, its jagged black wings—whether folded or spread—looking like two blades blotting out sun and sky, showing no sign of granting anyone a path to survival. And its body was massive, so massive she had to crane her neck no matter what angle she looked at it from.

The monster’s mouth had just swallowed down a panicked hawk-demon that had gone in through the mirror—the hawk-demon had tried to sneak around behind the beast, assuming that something so enormous would surely be too slow to catch it, but the beast’s reaction speed had far exceeded its estimate. In the blink of an eye, all that remained of the hawk-demon was a few feathers, drifting weakly down from the corner of the beast’s mouth.

Flying was dangerous; staying grounded was more dangerous still. Corpses already littered the ground beneath the monster’s feet—those demons already dead, and those about to die, painted a scene of hell laid out vividly before her eyes.

She suddenly felt that this world, this monster, wasn’t merely an illusion staged to frighten the candidates. She could actually smell the heat and blood wafting off the beast, could feel the vast, tangible despair beneath its feet piercing genuinely into her own body, no illusion about it at all.

If this hell was real, if the monster was real, then those demons who’d died… had they truly died?

This… was the easiest of the nine questions?! Her heart raced in confusion and panic. She glanced down at the red line on the back of her hand—it looked like it had already shortened a little…

What in the world was going on?

Just then, a rustling sound beside her pulled her out of her daze. She looked over warily, only to find a short, small rabbit-headed, human-bodied demon—likely a rabbit spirit with some cultivation but not yet fully transformed into human shape—one eye covered by an eyepatch, its body decked out with all manner of strange blades and vials, carefully hiding behind the large rock beside her.

The rabbit-demon looked her over once, said nothing, and simply focused on steadying its breathing, preparing for its next attempt.

“Um… excuse me…” She edged a little closer to the rabbit-demon.

“Shh! Quiet down!” The rabbit-demon quickly signaled for silence, then lowered its voice further. “Do you want to die? That big thing’s ears are sharp as anything!”

She quickly clamped a hand over her own mouth and nodded, then carefully edged closer, whispering to it: “Senior… is this really the easiest of the nine trials? Something feels off to me…”

The rabbit-demon looked at her as if she were a fool. “Who told you that? This is the hardest question this year!”

“What?” She froze.

The rabbit-demon peered out again to check on the beast’s movements, and seeing it had wandered a little further off, finally relaxed a bit, ducking back down to explain: “Among the nine questions of the Kunlun Trial, there’s always one that’s the hardest and most dangerous, a near-impossible gauntlet—but if you manage to win, you come out a half-immortal on the spot, jumping two full ranks at once. Compared to those who work their way up honestly rank by rank, you’d have far better odds of being valued by Kunlun. Plenty of the great deities in Kunlun today clawed their way out of that very death trap. How could you possibly think this was the easiest one…”

Listening to the rabbit-demon, she suddenly sensed something was very wrong.

“You mean… which question is the hardest each time is announced beforehand?” She pressed a hand to her chest, more nervous than she’d ever been. Never before had there been an answer she both dreaded hearing and desperately wanted to hear at once—her heart felt ready to leap from her chest.

“Well, obviously.” The rabbit-demon nodded firmly. “Which question is hardest gets announced to all the sponsoring half-immortals three days in advance. After all, this is a matter of life and death—but the rules of the Kunlun Trial never change across the ages: once you commit to taking the exam, half-immortals must always bring exactly nine disciples, one question each. So no matter what, someone has to end up on this path. That’s why, well in advance, half-immortals usually pick one disciple from among their own who volunteers to take on the hardest question, and train that one up specially.” It looked her up and down. “Looking at you… you’re a shore-fish, aren’t you? Besides singing, I haven’t heard you people are good for much of anything. Why would your master pick you for this one?”

“I…” Cold sweat beaded on her forehead, her hand pressing so hard against her chest it hurt.

Yes—why had Master chosen her?

The rabbit-demon rolled its eyes. “Though, some half-immortals do pick their least talented disciple for it. After all, this question is so hard that even the most outstanding disciple has a real chance of stumbling. Better to settle for second-best—send the most talented disciple to tackle one of the other eight, easier questions instead. That way, even if it doesn’t earn them a full true-immortal ascension, as long as at least one disciple passes, they still get to add a mark to their cultivation record, even if it’s just as a lowly demon attendant. Some sponsoring half-immortals who are only a few spots away from promotion might choose that safer route.”

She was quiet for a moment, then laughed. “My senior brothers and sisters are all more capable than me… and Master told me this question was the easiest.”

“Well, there you go.” The rabbit-demon counted on its fingers. “If you’re the weakest one, and you’d fail even the other eight questions anyway, then the best outcome is for all your senior brothers and sisters to pass, and your master secures eight spots. If they’d sent you to one of the other eight instead, one of your senior brothers or sisters would have had to come here—and most likely lose, meaning your master would only get seven spots. Do the math further, and even if one of your senior siblings performed below expectations, at the very least the strongest among them should still pass, since those other questions are nowhere near as hard as this one. Put the worst horse on the worst track, save the best track for the best horse—foolproof. Tsk tsk, your master really wasn’t willing to take on even the tiniest bit of risk. Well, I suppose sponsoring half-immortals live and die by this kind of promotion. Is he just a few spots short of becoming a true immortal, then?”

She could barely follow what the other was saying anymore, her hands hanging limp, as if her very soul had been drained out of her, leaning dazedly against the rock.

So Master had given up on her from the very start.

So fate really does repeat itself. She laughed out loud.

The rabbit-demon panicked, quickly clamping a hand over her mouth. “Are you crazy? Laughing that loud!”

She pulled its hand away and asked, “What happens if I can’t get out?”

The rabbit-demon shrugged. “You’ve already seen what happens if you don’t get out. In here, we’re all prey.” It poked its head out carefully again, gesturing ahead with its chin. “The way out is behind that beast. If you can get around it, just run for it, head down, until you see a burst of colored light—that’s the exit.” It turned back to look at her, shaking its head. “But you’re definitely not going to make it.”

She smiled. “Have you been here before? Or did someone tell you?”

The rabbit-demon pointed to its damaged eye. “I came two hundred years ago. Unfortunately, I was a step too slow. By the time I got out, my red line was already gone.”

“You’re back again this year?” she asked, puzzled.

The rabbit-demon shot her a look. “Two hundred years ago I was just one step short. Two hundred years later, would I still be short?” It gestured toward the various treasures on its body. “This year I’ve got these to help me.”

“You really are an impressive rabbit,” she said sincerely. “I hope you succeed.”

The rabbit-demon nodded, checked the beast’s position and movements once more, and carefully stood up. “I’m going.”

She waved at it.

But just as the rabbit-demon was about to leave, it turned back and untied a vial from its body, offering it to her. “You look so pitiful, here, take this. If you can’t dodge it, splash this in the beast’s eyes—might buy you a chance.”

She didn’t take it, and smiled. “Something this good, you keep it for yourself. Don’t waste it on me.”

The rabbit-demon sighed and pulled the vial back. “Then take care of yourself.”

She had no need for any weapon to prolong an ending that was already certain. The forty extra years of life she’d earned—she could give them back now.

If she’d died when she fell from the cloud-sea, or been eaten by the python afterward, it probably wouldn’t have felt as bad as this. It wasn’t anger, and it wasn’t grief, and there was no fear either—just something like a piece being scooped out of her heart, a hollow growing larger and larger, wrapping around her until it became a thick, suffocating cocoon.

Voices rose and fell all around her—one after another, the demons who’d come in after her met much the same fate, either becoming food or a pile of remains under the beast’s arrogant, flawless onslaught.

She’d once thought the gods of Kunlun were all noble, kind beings who protected this world and wished to give demons a better chance. And for the most part, that was probably true—but in this one matter alone, the gods, too, were harsh and merciless. Perhaps they truly believed only those selected through this method could match Kunlun’s strength, could shoulder greater responsibility—and on this point, they never lowered their standards by even a fraction.

In truth, she wasn’t afraid of facing this hardest question alone. She believed the demons who’d charged in before her, one after another, hadn’t been afraid either—after all, it had been a choice they’d made willingly. They might scream and wail from death and pain, but in the true moment of falling, most of them probably had no regrets. Extraordinary goals demanded extraordinary sacrifice; they had fought, only failed to win that one-in-a-million chance. Their own choice—no one else to blame.

But she—she was only the one who’d been chosen for someone else.

She turned her head, checking through the gap in the rocks on the beast’s movements—it was currently chasing after a swift-fleeing rabbit-demon. She quickly ducked her head back down, not daring to look again.

What now? Stay here and wait to be found by the beast, or muster the fastest speed of her whole life and try to see if she could carve out a path to safety before everything fell apart?

Just as she was calculating amid the chaos, her gaze landed on a boulder diagonally across from her—one pressing down on a collapsed roof—where a big black cat lay perched atop it, eyes closed, sleeping soundly, snoring softly.

Was that the “little lion” she’d seen before entering?

She hadn’t even noticed when it had arrived nearby—it looked like it had been sitting there for quite a while already. She stared at it, thinking what a shame it would be if such a beautiful cat got eaten by the monster.

Why bother risking everything at all, really? Slowly working her way up from demon attendant to half-immortal—how much of a loss would that really be?

Well, maybe, like those humans who loved gambling—perfectly capable of earning and saving money honestly, and yet unable to resist the lure of striking it rich overnight, always thinking, what if this time I win?

So tired. Body and soul both.

She leaned back, eyes drifting half-closed. Might as well let it happen now—let the beast swallow her in one bite, quick and easy, gone into the void from here, no salvation needed, no next life needed, just let herself vanish like a speck of dust, with nothing left to hold onto.

The black cat opened its eyes, stood, stretched lazily, glanced at her once, and leapt unhurriedly down from the rock.

She sensed its movement but didn’t open her eyes, keeping her languid pose, only saying: “I think you’ll definitely make it out. I can already picture you as a Kunlun half-immortal. So impressive.”

Why she said this to it, she didn’t know herself—only that with her life reaching its end, she found herself wanting to say something kind instead, to finish her life wrapped in a blessing, without being too pitiful about it.

If this was to be her fate, then so be it.

The black cat licked its paw, then leapt away, as if it hadn’t heard a word, hadn’t even seen her at all—not a single word exchanged—and vanished into the ruins ahead.

She didn’t know how long had passed before she opened her eyes again, feeling the temperature around her climbing higher and higher. The demons who’d come in to take their chances kept coming, each one utterly resolute, rushing past her, all their attention fixed on that one monster.

The piercing shrieks and agonized wails grew more numerous, louder. The color of the sky deepened, grew more eerie still, as if the blood of the dying demons were somehow flowing upward.

She took a deep breath and, resolutely, stepped out from behind the rock, striding forward.

The dead, and those with only one last breath left to lose—all the demons who hadn’t escaped the monster’s jaws had piled up into something like a ruined little hill.

Only then did she realize just how many demons in this world longed to walk this path—perilous the whole way through, glorious only at the very end. Did they really have no regrets, right up to the last moment? Had they ever wondered whether it might be better to stay in some high mountain lake, a small demon who frightened humans and was scorned by immortals?

She made her way with difficulty through this “little hill,” and in a corner, found the rabbit-demon, barely clinging to life.

The rabbit-demon saw her too, and forced a grin. “Still a step too slow after all… it’s gotten stronger than it was two hundred years ago.”

She knelt before it, looking at the countless wounds covering its body, and asked, distressed: “Does it hurt?”

The rabbit-demon’s face crumpled. “Hurts like hell.”

She thought for a moment, then said with resolve: “Let me help you.”

“What could you possibly do? Don’t say such useless things, I’m almost done for.” The rabbit-demon shook its head, gathering its last strength. “Get going, quick—while the crowd rushing the beast is thickest, see if you can find an opening and get past it… there’s no time left, go!”

She looked down at the line on her hand—only a short stretch of it remained.

“I’m not going.”

She stood up, looking around at the hellish scene surrounding her, listening to the agonized moans of the dying, and suddenly found the thing she wanted to do.

Amid the blood and death, she climbed to the highest boulder and stood there, upright and unashamed—as though, for the first time since her birth, she was standing this straight, this brave. She had fallen from the highest point once, and now she would fall again, into an even deeper abyss—hell was only frightening because you feared falling into it; once you were truly inside, it turned out to be just this.

She closed her eyes, tilted her face upward. In this moment there was no longer a blood-red sky, no longer a ravenous monster—only herself, standing between heaven and earth. Never before had she felt her soul burn like this, wanting to use every still-living inch of her body to pour out, with everything she had, the song welling up in her heart.

No fear, no hesitation—her unique gift rose, layer upon layer, from a clear, bright melody, a gentle, resilient force determined to pierce through to the ends of heaven and earth.

If she had any resistance left in her at all, it was now.

The rabbit-demon, quickly recovering from its initial shock, gradually let a calm, even blissful light rise into its eyes—the tearing pain seeming, in that moment, to dissolve entirely, as though it had never been wounded at all, as though it had simply come to lie down in some soft meadow, the way it had as a child, comfortably waiting for a beautiful dream to arrive.

It closed its eyes, content.

She stood within the world she had created and sang out loud, like a god determined to share every last bit of grace with everyone around her. The world beneath her feet grew quiet; the suffering demons listened, rapt, to the song falling from the heavens, sinking in perfect peace and comfort into a sleep from which they would never wake.

What she could do, what she was willing to do, was to stay—to accompany every life about to vanish, so that their passing might hurt just a little less. Everything else, she no longer cared about.

Even as the monster, drawn by her song, closed the last few steps between them.

She wasn’t afraid. If death came, it came—she didn’t even bother opening her eyes.

A foul, rank wind rushed against her face; she knew that must be the monster’s gaping jaws. But she kept singing, singing to the very last moment, singing until she was reduced to nothing at all.

In the end, she never got that chance. A powerful force slammed into her from the side, sending her sprawling, and the monster’s jaws closed on empty air.

Only then did she open her eyes, to see the black cat that had vanished so long ago, standing languidly on a rock between her and the monster. How had it come back?!

Enraged, the monster stretched its neck and spat out a stream of blood-red flame.

The black cat dodged easily, and, with utter disregard for death, landed even closer to the beast, standing atop the bodies it had torn apart, staring it down provocatively.

With a furious roar, the monster’s wings snapped wide open, its blood-red mouth baring blade-sharp fangs as it lunged, jaws closing straight for the cat’s head.

The black cat sprang upward. A mysterious light flared, and in an instant, a massive cat with nine heads appeared in the air, majestic as a lion, landing lightly on the beast’s back. A few swift swipes of its claws and one of the monster’s wings was severed clean off, purple blood spraying out.

Wracked with pain, the beast whipped its head back instinctively—before it could even open its mouth, the giant cat’s nine heads had already sunk their teeth savagely into its skull. There came a sound like bone shattering… and the beast’s heart-rending howl.

It thrashed and flailed madly. The giant cat leapt down and stood aside, waiting for it to come seeking revenge. But instead, the beast chose to flee—in this world where it had always reigned as king, it had lost, utterly and completely.

The giant cat snorted, gave its nine heads a shake, and in the blink of an eye returned to its original form—once again just that same imposing black cat.

She stared, stunned.

“Come out with me.” The black cat walked up to her—and spoke in a girl’s voice.

“You…” She was too astonished to speak.

The black cat shook its head. “Once that big fool comes to its senses and comes back, I won’t be looking out for you anymore.” With that, it started walking forward.

She patted her still-pounding chest and hurried to catch up.

But then… she suddenly noticed the line on her hand had completely vanished. Something occurred to her, and she quickly hurried forward a few steps, scooping the black cat up into her arms, turning it over and inspecting it all over.

The black cat squirmed unhappily in her arms. “What are you looking at? The line’s gone! We’re both over time!”

Sure enough, she found no trace of a red line on it either. She let go, stunned, and said: “You have such incredible skill… you should have gotten out long ago…”

“Yeah, I was almost at the exit,” the black cat said, displeased. “I just wanted to see what fool was singing in a place like that, so I came back.”

She froze, then laughed bitterly: “You didn’t need to throw away your own future for a demon like me.”

“None of your business whether I come back or not!” The black cat grew even more irritated, rolling its eyes. “It’s my leg, I’ll go back if I want to!”

“But… a Kunlun half-immortal position! You’re giving that up?” she said helplessly. “Look behind us—all those creatures who left their lives back there, that’s what it was all for.”

“So what if I give it up.” The black cat sniffed disdainfully. “I was just doing that old fox a favor, coming to fill out its numbers, paying back a debt I owed it. That old fox is a fool too, couldn’t even round up nine disciples after all these years, and still wants to be promoted to true immortal.”

“What?” She was astonished. “You came to a place this dangerous just to repay a favor?”

“I don’t like owing people. Of course I have to pay it back.” The black cat said impatiently. “Are you coming or not?”

For one fleeting moment, she found she didn’t want to leave. She was the one who’d been abandoned here—what was there to go back out for?

But after a moment’s hesitation, she nodded anyway. She had imagined countless ways she might die, but never once had she imagined she’d end up walking, led by a cat, into that burst of colored light so many demons dreamed of.

Had some god really softened, just for a moment…

5

The Kunlun Trial had, perhaps, become one of her recurring nightmares.

She didn’t want to remember any of the details of that experience.

But no matter how composed she tried to stay, she still remembered, clear as day, walking out of the mirror that day to see Master’s astonished old face, and her eight fellow disciples, all of whom had passed cleanly through, each one thrilled, dancing with joy. Their group had achieved the best results of that year’s Kunlun Trial by far—the other sponsoring half-immortals present and the proctoring officials all came to congratulate her master, not only for having trained such outstanding disciples, but for the true-immortal position now practically within his grasp. Passing three or four out of nine disciples already counted as remarkable; passing eight, so far, only he had managed.

The most disappointed of all was the old fox, which circled around the black cat, muttering and beating its chest, saying who knew what. Even the two proctoring officials, upon seeing the black cat had no red line left on it, wore looks of deep regret, as if they’d let slip something precious beyond measure.

The black cat didn’t care in the slightest about its own “failure,” only tossing a single line at the old fox: “Debt repaid. Don’t come bothering me again.”

“You wretched thing…” The old fox, furious and desperate, stamped its foot at the cat’s retreating back. “Such a golden opportunity! Such a golden opportunity!! You think I did this only for myself? It was for you too!”

The black cat didn’t even turn its head, tail swishing as it walked straight ahead.

She walked up to Master and her fellow disciples and said only: “Congratulations.”

Then, without giving them a moment to respond, she turned and walked, without looking back, in the direction the black cat had gone, ignoring her fellow disciples calling after her.

Let this be goodbye, then. From now on, let’s not meet again.

She hadn’t expected that, win or lose, she would never be able to go home again either way.

She caught up to the black cat, and without a word, walked quietly alongside it. The purple-mist-shrouded grassland slowly fell behind them, and ordinary grass and mountain paths came into view ahead.

“My name is… Fish Nine,” she finally spoke. “Thank you for saving me.”

“Don’t go telling anyone about this—me, a cat, saving a fish, that just sounds wrong.” The black cat snorted.

She smiled. “Alright, I won’t say anything. But can I ask why you’re so powerful? You don’t seem like an ordinary cat demon.”

“None of your business what I am.” The black cat sat down on a roadside rock. “I go where I want, do what I want. Why are you following me?”

“Alright, I won’t ask, then.” She sat down too, resigned. “But I’m not really following you—I just don’t know where else to go, so it happens I’m heading the same way as you.”

The black cat sized her up. “I’m heading to where humans live. You’re coming that way too?”

“Where humans live…” She frowned slightly. “I’ve only been there once or twice, with my senior sisters. Master didn’t let us go down the mountain often, said humans were dangerous to demons.”

The black cat gave a short laugh. “How much more dangerous could they be than that old monkey? Humans, at least, wouldn’t send you somewhere like that.”

Her chest tightened; a familiar, dull ache seeped back in.

The black cat seemed to sense it had said something it shouldn’t have, and rolled its eyes, staring instead at her tail. “Can that turn into legs?”

She nodded immediately. “Yes! Whenever I went out with my senior sisters, I always turned it into legs—can’t let humans see, after all.”

“Fine, use legs from now on, then.” The black cat looked at the pretty fish tail, licking its lips. “Shame. Having saved you, I can’t very well eat you now.”

She froze, then burst out laughing.

Was fate’s turning point always this unpredictable? Was the rest of her life going to be spent with this cat?

Sadly, her bond with this cat only lasted ten years.

In the ten years after leaving the deep mountains, she followed the cat through one big city and small town after another. The cat taught her all sorts of skills and know-how for living among humans, and in the end she found that learning instruments came easiest to her of all—she could glance once at any sheet of music and memorize it completely, and she made a living playing music and singing on the street, living more and more like an ordinary human girl. Only, most of what she earned went to buying the cat good food—all manner of dried fish and dried meat, never sparingly—and sometimes she’d go into the water herself to catch fresh fish for it. This was the only way she had to express her gratitude.

She’d once thought she would sink forever into that abyss, but as it turned out, aside from the occasional nightmare, everything else was actually fine. Away from the cave, without a master, without fellow disciples—the life could still be lived, after all. Most importantly, she had the cat.

Though the cat never revealed anything about its background, she’d already come to think of it as her best friend—where to go next, she’d let it choose; what to eat today, she’d let it choose; buying clothes at the market, she’d let it pick for her; even out gathering flowers in the wild, she’d ask it what colors it liked.

The cat was always impatient about it, but would help her decide anyway.

That Lantern Festival night, she’d spent the whole day busy in the little house they lived in, and while preparing the rice-flour dumplings, she asked it, out of habit, whether it wanted sweet filling or savory.

The cat crouched by the window, watching the scattered snowflakes fall, and said: “Fish Ball, why do you always make me choose?”

Long before, the cat had stopped calling her Fish Nine and started calling her Fish Ball instead. It always said she was as dim as a ball with no hands or feet—wherever someone gave her a push, that’s the way she’d roll—might as well just call her Fish Ball instead of Fish Nine.

She hadn’t minded at all, in fact she’d laughed out loud—Fish Ball it was, she didn’t mind.

“I think whatever you pick will be what you like,” she said, kneading the sticky rice flour. “You’re my best friend. I want you to be happy.”

“Who says we’re best friends.” The cat rolled its eyes. “What about what you like, then?”

She thought about it, and smiled. “Every day now, I like.”

The cat fell silent.

Someone who had walked through hell might, whether out of gratitude for a lucky escape or numbness after half a heart had already died, come to be easily satisfied with very little.

The cat never discussed these soul-deep matters with her—it was a clean, decisive, free-spirited cat, one that never let itself be tied down by any so-called relationship, uninterested in any of that sentimental, seasonal melancholy. Since she said she was happy, then let her be happy; one’s own feelings were one’s own business to sort out.

That day, they ate a bowl of sweet tangyuan.

And that Lantern Festival turned out to be the last holiday they ever spent together.

A few nights later, the cat got into a fight with someone.

A man in a black robe came looking for it directly. The cat, apparently wary of something, didn’t fight as fiercely as it had against the monster, only fending off a few blows before quickly whisking her away.

Out in the wilderness, the cat licked its paw and said flatly: “We can’t be together anymore.”

She was still catching her breath. “Wh… what?”

“An enemy just showed up at our door, didn’t you notice?” The cat glared at her. “Staying with me will only drag you down.”

She froze, uneasy. “Did you do something frightening?”

When they’d been together, the cat had always come and gone as it pleased, never telling her where it was going or what it was doing, sometimes not even coming home at night—truly a cat with quite the temper, though given its strength, it could certainly back up that attitude.

“I was always a frightening cat, to begin with.” The cat deliberately huffed out a breath, baring its snow-white fangs. “Anything I don’t like the look of, I’ll bite its head clean off.”

She knew it was formidable, but still worried: “Is the other side strong too? Will they hurt you?”

“Tch, if it weren’t for the fact I can’t just eat people whenever I like, these types wouldn’t have the nerve to come looking for trouble with me.” The black cat snorted coldly. “Anyway, from now on you’ll have to look after yourself. When I say I’m leaving, I’m leaving.”

She was silent a long while, then nodded. “Alright.”

The cat turned to go, then looked back. “Choose your own future. Stop bothering other people so much.”

She said nothing.

“Did you hear me!” The cat’s tone sharpened.

“I heard you.” She stood in the chilly night air, awkwardly smoothing the hem of her clothes, then lifted her face and smiled. “I’ll live well. You too.”

The cat pursed its lips, turned, and leapt into the dense wild grass.

She stood there until dawn broke, and only when the morning light fell over her did she finally accept that the cat truly wasn’t coming back.

Her partings seemed to be coming closer and closer together each time.

Forty years, then ten years… would the next one be even shorter?

That day, staring at the white frost clinging to the wild grass, she suddenly felt that hollow, wrapped-up feeling return again.

No master, no fellow disciples, no cat—where should she go now?

She spent nearly twenty years pondering that question, and never found an answer.

So she wandered without any fixed home. Without the cat by her side, she found herself increasingly reluctant to stay anywhere crowded, spending most of her time in the deep mountains and wild forests, finding some sturdy, dense tree to settle into for long stretches, only coming down when truly hungry to find some fruit or bugs to eat, then drifting on indefinitely through solitary years. Until one day, she suddenly thought—really, it didn’t matter where she went. What mattered was what kind of remaining life she wanted for herself. She probably still had a few hundred years left to live—was it really right to spend it all up a tree?

She came down from the tree and wandered freely, hoping to find somewhere she could build the life she wanted. Still, she was never particularly drawn to making friends, whether human or demon—the seat of “best friend” was reserved for the cat, if it ever chose to come back.

Nor did she look forward to many more moments of joy and excitement. As long as nothing came along to hurt her, or perhaps just a few fewer nightmares, that would be enough.

No sorrow, no joy—a peaceful remainder of a life.

She felt she’d found her answer, and believed in it. The restlessness and confusion that occasionally stirred in her heart finally settled. She seemed to genuinely live out those slow-passing years as a demon with no desires, no ambitions, barely a presence at all.

In truth, if only she hadn’t met him, it would have been fine.

Not meeting, not lingering—free as the cat—might have spared her most of the suffering yet to come.

But why did they have to meet at all?

It was almost funny—heaven itself seemed determined to tie her, bound and struggling, right back in front of that man.

The snow kept falling harder. She sat on the swing about to snap, and the tears she’d been holding back for so long finally spilled out.

This time, it was five years.

Leaving behind that lake that carried far too many emotions and memories, she returned once more to those years without answers.

For the next several years, she stayed far, far away from him, hardly setting foot in the mortal world again, only finding some tree that didn’t belong to her in the most remote mountains and forests, staying up there, watching the sun rise and set, letting time waste away.

Some say out of sight, out of mind—that once you stop looking, you’ll soon let go.

But after waking from yet another dream about him, she suddenly wanted to see him, even if just from a distance, just once. She couldn’t fight the urge any longer, and finally climbed down from the tree.

She still remembered where his home was.

Late autumn in Iron Mirror Town was still as beautiful as a painting.

She hid her form and walked to the gate of his house.

Just then, the front door opened, and he stepped out—still striking in appearance, radiant with spirit, only a certain bright, decisive youthfulness had faded from between his brows.

The Ling family estate looked well-off. He looked well too, she thought—clearly the troubles of those years had been resolved satisfactorily.

She couldn’t bear to leave, wanting to look at him a little longer.

But then a slightly limping woman came out after him, leading a fair, chubby little child by the hand.

“Papa, don’t go!” the child wailed, reaching out toward him.

The woman said helplessly, “He saw you were about to leave and insisted on following you out, I don’t know why.”

He smiled, picking up the child, tapping his nose. “Papa will be back soon. I’ll buy you a candy figure when I come back, okay?”

The little one wiped his tears and nodded.

He kissed him once more, then handed the child back to the woman, adding: “I’ll be back within two days at most. Don’t forget to take your medicine on time. The physician said your constitution is weak, and this prescription will do you a great deal of good—absolutely don’t skip it.”

The woman smiled. “I know. Go on, don’t worry about things at home.”

“Alright.” He gently squeezed her hand. “I’m off.”

“Travel safe, come back soon.”

“Alright.”

The door closed. The old acquaintance walked away.

His warmth, his smile, just as they’d always been—none of it had anything to do with her anymore.

She still stood there, something pressing over her heart, her breathing outwardly even, and yet each breath she drew never seemed to fill her body, growing more and more suffocating.

She finally fled from in front of his house.

That great tree by the riverside still stretched its beautiful autumn silhouette, yellow leaves spread beneath it in a stunning carpet of gold.

She stood beneath the tree. Everything they’d once said to each other seemed to still linger among these rustling leaves.

Fate’s smile, in the end, had never truly been meant for her.

She lowered her head, smiled, and turned to leave.

6

She had never felt this light before, her body as if hollowed out entirely, as though she could take flight at any moment.

She walked in a random direction, not knowing how long she’d walked, losing track of how many times the sun and moon had cycled overhead, only aware that the sounds around her grew more numerous, the people passing by increasingly more frequent.

She stopped trying to control her body, let it go wherever it wanted. Perhaps it liked the bustle, since it had brought her to this magnificently prosperous city. She’d heard the emperor himself lived here, that grand, magnificent palace his home. So big—how could one person possibly live in all those rooms? The common people’s homes were lovely too, whether grand or humble, all lively with the smoke of cooking fires and the fragrance of food, laughter and chatter no matter how late—windows still lit no matter the hour.

She liked to sit up on the rooftops, taking in this city that had nothing to do with her from the broadest possible vantage point. Day or night, she couldn’t help counting how many couples she saw pass by, how many fathers and sons, mothers and children, how many laughing friends walking together.

She couldn’t remember how long it had been since she’d slept. She knew she was doing something entirely pointless, but she just wanted to keep counting—her empty mind filling up each day with ever-changing numbers.

But why did her chest ache more, the fuller her mind got?

At first she paid it no mind—what was a little pain, after all?

But when she finally lost her balance and fell from the rooftop, the sensation in her chest—being torn open layer by layer, then crumpled back together—gradually left her breathless.

She thought she might be sick.

But even if she was, so what? The city had so many clinics—which one would treat a demon?

She’d heard there was a formidable physician in the distant Peach Capital, but she had no idea where that even was.

She struggled to her feet and made her way slowly through the night market streets.

The road ahead seemed to sway; she could barely tell straight from curved. The lights beneath the eaves and doorways flickered on and off, like eyes carrying different emotions—some pitying her, some mocking her, some simply watching, cold.

Someone seemed to pass by nearby, a young man and woman deep in affection.

“Wait for me to come back, and I’ll marry you.”

“But your parents…”

“Even if the Heavenly King himself showed up, I’d still choose to be with you!”

Even if the Heavenly King himself showed up, I’d still choose to be with you—she couldn’t make out their faces, but the words repeated over and over in her mind as if under a spell.

The sweet couple drifted further away, thinking only of their own bright future, entirely unaware they’d just passed a gravely ill demon.

Her body felt emptier and emptier, her legs growing heavier and heavier, as if the upper and lower halves of herself were about to split apart entirely.

She might not make it to the end of this road.

She pressed a hand to her chest, staggered on a few more steps, and finally collapsed to the ground.

The moonlight above seemed to have fallen into a pond, swaying uneasily; the houses around her dissolved into a boundless void; no one passed by, no one would find her, no one would come near.

Time had lost all meaning. She lay motionless on the cold ground, no fear, no hope.

But then, the flutter of wings disturbed her stillness.

A palm-sized white paper crane landed in front of her.

“Sick?” The paper crane tilted its head nimbly, looking at her pale face, its voice like that of a child of indeterminate gender.

A demon?

She had no interest even in asking what it was, only murmuring dreamily: “It hurts so much…”

“Then you’re sick, all right. I already knew that,” the paper crane said, circling around her once. “Get up. I can see you can still walk. I’ll take you to see the physician.”

This must be a dream, on the verge of death…

“Get up, get up, come on!” the paper crane urged.

The shrill, repeating voice sounded almost like an incantation. She listened, drew a breath, and slowly climbed to her feet—she really could still walk, since it was her chest that hurt, not her legs.

The paper crane rose leisurely into the air, leading the way ahead, urging her to follow.

She looked at that bright patch of white in the night, feeling not the slightest wish to refuse—wanting, even, to follow it of her own accord. Perhaps this was the last spark of her will to survive.

The scenery around her never quite came into focus; the road stretched longer than she’d expected. Whenever she glanced back, the stretch she’d already walked seemed to vanish into gray, chaotic mist.

Further on, a white palanquin waited ahead, a white lantern marked with the character “Medicine” hanging from its pole, a faint white glow standing out starkly in the darkness, lending the palanquin an air of eerie, elevated menace—it hardly seemed like something that belonged to this world.

A breeze passed by, carrying with it a faint scent of medicinal herbs.

The paper crane flew up and landed on the palanquin’s pole. “Sire, the sick demon has arrived.”

She stopped ten paces from the palanquin, staring blankly at this bizarre, inexplicable thing, saying weakly: “Are you physicians?”

Just then, several more paper cranes flew out from somewhere, and, servant-like, lifted the curtain of the palanquin slightly from outside.

She looked up and, from the limited angle, could only make out half a face inside the palanquin—though perhaps it wasn’t even a face at all, just a wooden mask. A single visible eye through the mask shone brighter than even the lantern’s glow, carrying a sharp, penetrating confidence that seemed to see through everything.

Soon, the curtain fell back down, and the figure inside vanished behind pure white once more.

She felt lost, uncertain—was this a dream, or was it real?

A soft, gentle voice drifted out from within the palanquin: “Since we’ve met, tell me where it hurts.”

The voice was less forceful than a man’s, yet carried more depth than a woman’s—hard to place either way, but pleasant to the ear nonetheless.

She stared blankly ahead, feeling as though it had been a very long time since anyone had asked whether she was cold, or hungry, or hurting anywhere…

Though she couldn’t detect any particular emotion in the voice, it stirred in her a long-forgotten sense of being cared for, and she found herself, almost against her will, wanting to pour out every bit of her sorrow.

“My chest hurts. It hurts a lot,” she said.

A thin white thread flew out from the palanquin, wrapping gently around her left wrist, cool and squirming faintly, as though it might melt into her flesh at any moment.

A moment later, the thread flew back.

“Well, you won’t die from it,” said the figure in the palanquin. “It’s nothing but a heartsickness that needs a heart-medicine.”

She froze.

“Clearly full of resentment and unwillingness, yet forcing a smile all the same, mistaking numbness for having no desires—in truth, ten thousand unresolved thoughts, all blocked up in the chest. No wonder it hurts.” The figure in the palanquin seemed to chuckle softly. “You’ve always known exactly what you want most. You know it, and yet you won’t go get it. Naturally, that makes you sick.”

Hearing this, her heart sank; her body swayed, and she sat down weakly on the ground, unable to hold herself up.

Know it, and yet not go get it…

Did she know? No, no—what more could she possibly go and get? Between his family’s future and her, he still hadn’t chosen her. He’d married another woman, and had a child with her too—he did love them, and the warmth and care he showed them wasn’t false in the slightest. Perhaps every sincerity she’d once read in his eyes before that had been real too, but what did it matter now—from this point on, there would be no trace of her left in his world. Every season they’d spent together, every promise he’d made her, would all scatter away like ash.

She cried.

She hadn’t meant to think about it, but once she did, it came surging back like a wave, impossible to hold back.

“I thought he was different from other humans… I thought he’d choose a future with me in it.” She wiped away her tears, then laughed. “But his heart, in the end, wasn’t firm enough after all.”

“That, then, is your cure,” the figure in the palanquin said, chuckling again. “Give him a heart as firm and unshakable as stone, and let him choose again.”

She laughed bitterly. “That’s impossible… he’s a man who never changes his mind once he’s decided. It’s too late for anything now.”

“Take three living petrified-stone spirits, consume them, refine one drop of medicinal broth using the power of your life-pearl, and feed it to the mortal—one drop every thirty days. After three drops, his mortal heart will be unshakably firm, and for the rest of his life he will think only of the one who administered the cure. No outside force can divide them. This can grant you what you wish for,” the figure in the palanquin said slowly. “This is the prescription I offer you. Have you committed it to memory?”

For the rest of his life, thinking only of the one who administered the cure. No outside force can divide them… could grant her what she wished for.

Every smile he’d ever given her, every act that had once made her heart flutter, came rushing back over her all at once, and what little reason she had left was on the verge of shattering entirely.

She had never wanted to admit just how much she missed him, how wonderful it would be if those joyful years they’d shared could come back.

Hadn’t he said he’d marry her? How could he not?! How could he possibly not?!

She let out a long breath and stood up, saying to the figure in the palanquin: “Thank you.” Then, remembering something, she hesitated: “But… where would I even find living petrified-stone spirits? I’ve only ever heard of that kind of demon—they seem very hard to find.”

Just then, a blank sheet of white paper slipped out from the palanquin, and the paper crane quickly caught it in its beak and set it down before her.

The white paper had nothing written on it—only a small sketch in the bottom left corner of what looked like an herb.

“This is…” She was puzzled.

“Petrified-stone spirits aren’t hard to find, actually,” said the figure in the palanquin. “If you’re willing to pay my consultation fee, I’ll give you the method for capturing them.”

She looked down at herself. “But I don’t have any money on me—not even a single valuable piece of jewelry…”

“My consultation fee isn’t paid in silver,” the figure in the palanquin said with a laugh. “The finest thing about your kind is what I want as payment.”

“The finest thing about my kind?” She didn’t quite understand.

“You are a shore-fish. Naturally, the finest thing about you is your voice,” the figure in the palanquin said with a light laugh. “If you agree to give me your voice as payment, press your palm onto that paper. If you don’t agree, we’ll simply pretend we never met—you’re welcome to go capture the petrified-stone spirits yourself. Though I should warn you, your demonic power isn’t strong, and your cultivation is still shallow. If you exhaust too much of your vital energy capturing them, and your life-pearl weakens as a result, even if you succeed in catching them, you won’t have the strength to refine them, and thus won’t be able to become the mortal’s cure-giver at all. The longer this drags on, the more limited the mortal’s remaining time grows, and your own illness will only worsen.”

Hearing this, panic surged through her, and she instinctively reached for her own throat. Give up her voice as the fee?! Wouldn’t that mean she could never sing again—might not even be able to speak at all?

Seeing her frozen, unable to decide for a long while, the figure in the palanquin continued: “If you lose him forever, who will you sing your songs to? Who will you speak your words to?”

Her brow furrowed.

“I am only a physician. Though I do collect fees, I’ve never made a habit of forcing anyone’s hand. If you can’t bear to part with it, so be it.” The figure in the palanquin seemed about to leave, and the palanquin actually began to float up off the ground.

“No, I agree!” she suddenly cried out.

It was true—what use was this voice of hers, carried with her all these years, anyway? What good had beautiful singing ever done her—it hadn’t stopped her from falling out of the cloud-sea, hadn’t gotten Master to send her into a different mirror, the cat hadn’t even cared for it. He had loved it, but what had that mattered, in the end—he’d still chosen a different world altogether…

If giving up this voice meant her fate could be chosen anew, then so be it—give it up!

Without waiting for the figure in the palanquin to respond, she took a deep breath and resolutely pressed her left palm onto the white paper.

In that instant, the white paper transformed into a beam of light and melted into her body through her palm.

She suddenly clutched her throat in alarm—it felt as though something like an insect had crawled up inside, itching and numbing, followed by a searing, piercing pain, as though that formless insect had cut something out of her throat, then shot out from her palm in a flash and dropped into the palanquin.

The pain lasted only that single instant. What followed was total numbness, total powerlessness.

“Take this. Everything about how to use it is written inside.”

A brocade pouch was passed out; the paper crane quickly delivered it to her.

She hurriedly opened the pouch—inside was a black ring.

“Wishing you a swift recovery.”

With those words, the palanquin vanished from before her eyes in an instant.

The scenery around her gradually returned to normal in that same moment—still the same night sky, the same street, one or two late travelers hurrying past.

She clutched the pouch, tried to make a sound, and found she could only produce a broken, ugly rasp.

She stood stunned for a long while, then laughed—so it really hadn’t been a dream after all.

She turned and looked in the direction of Iron Mirror Town, the brocade pouch in her hand giving off a faint, eerie glow.

Well then—hadn’t the cat once said to choose her own future? She’d finally chosen.

But… what color was the cat again? White, she thought—no, wait, yellow?! Why was it suddenly growing blurry? Huh, why was she suddenly thinking about the cat? What did the cat have to do with any of this… never mind, don’t think about it. All that mattered now was the petrified-stone spirits—catch them, and he would have a truly firm heart once more, would choose her without the slightest hesitation, and her illness would be cured too. So, hurry, go—nothing else mattered.

She pressed the pouch tightly to her chest and broke into a run.

She ran faster and faster, never noticing that another version of herself had fallen away from her body—this other self, haggard-faced, eyes empty of light, remained behind like a walking corpse, watching helplessly as the self clutching her “miracle cure” ran swiftly away into the distance.

She wanted to call that self back, but no sound would come; she could only watch helplessly as that other self vanished into the depths of the night.

The houses around her faded away again, dissolving into drifting patches of color.

She stood there powerlessly as silk-like threads slowly emerged from her chest, wrapping around and around her body until they’d wound her entirely into a large cocoon—the feeling she’d carried in her heart countless times before had finally become reality.

A sigh.

Tao Yao stepped out from behind her, her expression deep and grave as she looked at this motionless cocoon.

“So this is where you are.”

She thought for a moment, then reached out and knocked on the cocoon, as if knocking on a door.

“Fish Nine? Fish Ball?” she called loudly. “Open up, we need to go back.”

The cocoon showed no response.

“Your cat has already come back. It’s waiting for you to return,” Tao Yao continued. “And also—if you keep hiding in here, Ling Shuwang is going to die. The prescription you were given was wrong. It can’t cure your illness, and it can’t give Ling Shuwang a firm heart either—all it can do is turn him into a corpse as hard as stone.” She sighed. “You were tricked by an unscrupulous quack! Do you hear me? Get out here now!”

The cocoon swayed slightly.

She quickly went on: “Go back now, and there might still be a chance to fix this. Do you really want to watch Ling Shuwang turn into a block of stone? Or, for the sake of how far I’ve chased after you across all these places, at least take some pity on me—come out and say hello, at least?”

The threads on the cocoon began to loosen, unraveling layer by layer.

Soon, her body was revealed—first looking, puzzled, at Tao Yao’s face, then a look of deep worry crossing her features.

“Let’s go.” Tao Yao held out a hand to her. “I’ve been looking for you for a long time.”

She hesitated a moment, then finally, slowly, reached out and took the offered hand.

Tao Yao smiled and gripped that hand tightly—a hand that had long since lost all warmth, one that had been alone for far too long.

7

Today was another clear day.

The morning light of spring carried the fragrance of flowers and grass in through the window.

Even so, it couldn’t quite dissolve the faint tension in the room.

The shore-fish sat at the edge of the bed, quietly watching the still-unconscious Ling Shuwang, as though she hadn’t seen this man in hundreds, thousands of years.

Tao Yao sat nearby, watching the patient she’d finally managed to bring back, his mind now restored to normal. The cat crouched on a chair beside her, in a deliberately languid pose, occasionally sweeping a glance over the shore-fish. Young Master Liu sat furthest away, wearing the expression of someone about to transform back into his true form at any second and swallow every single one of these reckless fools who didn’t know when to quit risking their lives.

Not that he’d ever tell Tao Yao that the instant he’d seen her open her eyes, unharmed, he’d nearly cried—the most wonderful feeling of his entire life had been that nearly-snapped thread of his finally holding together… He’d been so afraid she’d die over a single strand of hair. How embarrassing would that have been to explain, honestly.

“That pouch you got back then—it was no good thing,” Tao Yao said. “Whoever that faceless creature was, it must have slipped something filthy into it. You were already in a scattered state of mind at the time, and once that thing touched you, your spirit fractured completely, and reason abandoned you entirely—you became, essentially, a madwoman clinging only to an obsession, with no memory of anything before it. The heart-linking technique I used to treat you wasn’t just to diagnose the root of your illness—it was also meant to bring back the part of yourself you’d lost.”

The moment Young Master Liu heard the words “heart-linking technique,” his whole body went uncomfortable, and he shot Tao Yao a fierce glare.

The shore-fish didn’t turn around, only lowered her head, seemingly unsure how to face any of this.

“So this is your idea of living well? Saying one thing and doing another—might as well have never run into you again.” The cat snorted coldly, not a trace of kindness in its tone.

She lowered her head even further.

“If you can’t speak, at least you can write!” The cat leapt onto the table, rapping the inkstone with a paw. “What are you doing curled up over there? You’re a fish, not a turtle!”

Tao Yao glanced sideways at the cat, thinking to herself that this creature was somehow even more short-tempered than she was—a textbook case of a sharp tongue hiding a soft heart.

The shore-fish shuffled slowly over, her eyes already brimming with tears, and sat carefully at the table, picking up the brush to write three characters: I’m sorry.

The cat kicked the paper aside with one paw, practically wanting to give her a beating. “You don’t owe me an apology—you owe yourself one. Is a voice something you just hand off to someone else? Do you not treasure anything that belongs to you at all!”

She wrote again: A useless thing.

The cat tore the paper to shreds in a fury, too angry to say another word.

She wrote again: Seeing you well and unharmed makes me very happy.

The cat glanced at it, then quickly turned its head away, refusing to look at her.

She set down the brush, stood, and suddenly knelt in front of Tao Yao, grasping her hand and squeezing it tight.

“Ling Shuwang was poisoned by the petrified-stone spirits’ demonic venom. That thing in the palanquin didn’t lie to you entirely—eat petrified-stone spirits, and of course his heart would turn firm as stone; his whole body’s practically turning to stone right now.” Tao Yao understood exactly what she meant, and pulled her back up, glancing over at the unconscious Ling Shuwang. “You refined the petrified-stone spirits using your life-pearl’s power—no wonder there are two distinct pulses detectable in his body. You’ve been poisoning him with your own life.”

She gripped her own hand tightly, and tears finally fell.

“Much as I dislike a man who says one thing and does another, he’s clearly suffered a great deal too. You might as well go ahead and save his life,” the cat said, head held high, reluctantly, to Tao Yao.

Her eyes immediately lit up, and she quickly nodded eagerly at Tao Yao as well.

Save him…

Tao Yao was silent a moment, then said: “Saving him is possible. The demonic poison in his body was refined through the power of a life-pearl, so the only antidote capable of countering it…” Her gaze settled on the shore-fish’s face, and she said plainly: “…requires taking your own life-pearl and feeding it to him.”

A cup fell to the floor and shattered.

The cat’s tail must not have been properly controlled.

“Aren’t you supposed to be the finest physician in Peach Capital?” The cat sounded genuinely alarmed now. “Is this the only wretched solution you can come up with?”

Tao Yao shrugged, stepping aside. “Would you like to try instead?”

Young Master Liu stood and walked between the two of them, sighing at the cat. “You already know she’s the finest physician there is—a physician bold enough to save someone’s life with a single strand of her own hair, no less. If there were any other way, don’t you think she’d use it?”

The cat’s whiskers trembled. “But… the life-pearl is her very life! Feed it to someone else, and won’t she just…”

Before it could finish, the shore-fish had already gently placed her hand on top of its head.

After all these years, its fur was still just as soft, still like some priceless bolt of silk.

Her fingers moved carefully over the crown of its head—she’d wanted to do this for years, but the cat was proud, and had never let her touch it before.

This time, the cat didn’t refuse.

She couldn’t speak, but every touch of her fingers carried what she wanted to say.

Don’t be angry, don’t worry, I’m not afraid, I’m willing…

It felt it understood every word, clear as day.

Decades apart, and this was the awkward, wretched sort of reunion they got.

A wave of helplessness and no small amount of anger finally surged up into its head; it suddenly jerked its head away from her hand, leaping in one bound onto the windowsill, then turning back to look at her startled face, saying coldly: “I didn’t pull you out of that mirror so you could throw your life away for some man.”

With that, it leapt out the window and vanished in an instant, leaving only a patch of grass swaying gently in its wake.

She fell silent, the rejection and disappointment from her only friend cutting into her already shattered heart like another knife.

How had she made such a mess of her own life…

Tao Yao glanced out the window a few times—it looked like, far off, atop the surrounding wall, there sat a small dark shape. The cat really was angry, but it hadn’t left.

Tao Yao smiled and turned back. “Did you also once hold something against it, for having left you too?”

She pressed her lips together, then finally nodded, gently.

“This creature was born with a terrible temper. Its decisive departure wasn’t out of fear of being dragged down by you—it’s that it didn’t want to drag you down.” Tao Yao turned her face slightly toward the window, where the still-furious but unwilling-to-leave cat was probably up on the wall, cursing under its breath.

Hearing this, she looked puzzled.

“You think it’s so powerful, how could you possibly drag it down?” Tao Yao smiled, picking up a brush and idly sketching on paper. “I did say its temper is terrible, and a bad temper usually means plenty of enemies. You’ve never known what it really is, have you.”

She pointed at herself—it was a demon too, like her, wasn’t it?

Tao Yao’s clumsy drawing skills produced, on the paper, a crude shape—something vaguely cat-like, topped with nine heads, not frightening at all, actually rather comical.

“It’s a Cat Kui.” Tao Yao held the paper up, waving it in front of her. “Among the beasts of this world—cat, dog, ox, sheep, whatever—when one is born under conditions of extreme inauspiciousness and deep yin, in a place of near-certain death, it may become a Kui. Its nature is fierce and violent, capricious in good and evil, born with nine heads, gifted with heaven-bestowed strength, unmatched by anything. It lives ninety-nine years. Not even once in a thousand years does one appear—a truly extraordinary demon.”

She stared at Tao Yao’s drawing for a long while, her mind surely drifting back to the moment it had revealed its true form amid that near-fatal ordeal in the mirror.

“Whether it’s a cat-Kui, dog-Kui, or any other kind of Kui, these creatures are monsters among monsters from birth.” Tao Yao looked at her own “masterpiece.” “They’re not even supposed to be able to survive being born at all, but sometimes, strangely enough, those unseen forces that govern fate are willing to grant a chance to the ones who face the hardest odds—a chance at life snatched from the jaws of death, and that’s what forges their extraordinary abilities. A monster that could leave you little demons strewn dead across the ground is, to a Kui, about as threatening as a sheet of paper.” She tore the drawing in half, laughing. “Kunlun holds a particular fondness for Kui. Born strong, born with presence. All those demons hoping to enter Kunlun scheme every which way to get themselves accepted as disciples under the sponsoring half-immortals—but a Kui is the one exception, where the half-immortals are the ones practically begging on their knees for the chance to take one on as a disciple, because they know only a Kui can breeze through the hardest trial question with ease. Securing a Kui as a disciple means their accumulated merit multiplies many times over. And once a Kui enters Kunlun, it’s usually groomed and trained as a future great deity from the start—no way around it, really, since the conditions required to be born a Kui in the first place are so exacting, no outside force could ever bring it about.” She paused, then added, “They have almost no weaknesses, except for their short lifespan—ninety-nine years, not much longer than a human’s. I suppose that’s the balance the universe strikes when creating things—never granting complete perfection.”

She listened carefully to every word Tao Yao said, and suddenly something important occurred to her—she tensed up all at once, unconsciously counting something on her fingers.

“No need to count. Because it came back to save you, it lost its chance to enter Kunlun. It only has ninety-nine years left to live, and the Kunlun Trial only happens once every two hundred years.” Tao Yao watched her face gradually stiffen, and said plainly: “It won’t get another chance to take part. No matter how powerful it becomes through further cultivation now, in its current status, nothing can change its predetermined lifespan.”

She felt something crash inside her head, and everything before her eyes began to spin.

She sank to the floor, tears pouring out in a torrent, a pained, choking sound rising from her throat, her hands gesturing wildly, incoherently.

Tao Yao crouched down, took hold of her hands, and said calmly: “I’m telling you this only so you’ll stop blaming yourself for its leaving. Whether it left because it didn’t want to drag you into the danger it had brought, or simply because it’s the kind of solitary creature that comes and goes on its own—its leaving was never the abandonment you thought it was.”

She cried, her whole body trembling.

Young Master Liu sighed, walked over, and patted Tao Yao’s shoulder. “I’m going to go check on the rest of the Ling family. The sleeping spell I cast can hold at most until tomorrow morning. That man doesn’t have much time left—you two figure out what to do.”

Tao Yao nodded.

After a good while longer, she finally calmed down, stood, walked to the table, and wrote: Could I have some time alone with him, just a little while.

“Alright.”

Tao Yao walked out of the room, closing the door behind them.

The shore-fish’s illness was, technically, cured now—she could go find that cat and collect her payment, delighted. And she really should have been especially happy, getting a Cat Kui to stamp its mark for her would be a tremendous win. So why didn’t she feel excited at all? There was something like a stone lodged in her heart, uncomfortable.

8

Tao Yao sat by the door the whole time, going nowhere.

At some point, without her noticing, something soft and furry had settled down beside her.

Tao Yao glanced at it and smiled without a word.

“I was thinking I still needed to come back and put my mark down properly, as agreed,” the cat said, speaking first.

“You really have no regrets at all?” Tao Yao propped her chin on her hand. “A position as a Kunlun half-immortal, practically handed to you, a lifespan of a thousand years, the shining path to the heavens—who knows, before too long you’d have been one of the true immortals invited to the Queen Mother’s Peach Banquet.” She recalled the scene she’d witnessed within the shore-fish’s memories. “All you had to do was not turn back, and it would all have been yours.”

The cat licked its paw. “Even without the Kunlun Trial, we manage to live just fine. Besides, I don’t even like eating peaches. I only like eating demon flesh.”

Tao Yao asked curiously, “That was your first time meeting her, wasn’t it? I’ve wondered—if I were you, what reason could possibly be strong enough to make me give up glory that was practically already in hand, and turn back for some little demon who meant absolutely nothing to me.”

The cat licked its lips and said, “I heard her talking with the rabbit-demon.”

“So you felt sorry for a child screwed over by her own master?”

“Sorry, my ass.” The cat rolled its eyes. “If you don’t even know your own worth, getting screwed over is just what you deserve. If it hadn’t been that old monkey, it would’ve been someone else.”

“Funny, that’s exactly the kind of thing I’d say. A cat with clarity, aren’t you.” Tao Yao laughed. “So, why, then?”

The cat was quiet a moment, its two eyes—one blue, one green—like two deep, distant worlds.

“I heard singing,” it said. “I’ve got no interest in music, can’t tell good from bad. But in a hellscape running with blood, a demon certain to die anyway climbed to the highest point and, with the one meager skill she had, tried to comfort dying souls. The instant I turned and saw her, this good-for-nothing demon looked so composed, so unshaken—that wasn’t a sound coming from her throat, it was light bursting out from her very life, wrapping around every dying, suffering body there.” It paused, and for once, something rare and gentle flickered in its eyes. “In that instant, I felt she was the only god in that hell, the one good thing in this whole world—something that shouldn’t be torn apart, shouldn’t be destroyed by some mediocre scheme. So, rather than go eat peaches, I’d rather teach that stupid brute of a monster a lesson.”

Tao Yao blinked, startled, then followed the thread of its words back through—looking back, through its eyes, at that same moment… and understood.

“A lot of affection starts as a moment’s impulse. Turns out you’re no different.” She turned, smiling at the cat’s feigned indifference. “I did say you were quite fond of her.”

“But she’s so hopeless.” The cat snorted, raising a paw to point at the door, its tone rising with agitation. “All for some man. Is he really that handsome? That impressive? Doesn’t seem like much to me… Not even afraid of a monster that could’ve swallowed her whole, yet afraid of parting ways with some ordinary human? If I’d known, better she’d just been eaten!”

“Calm down, would you.” Tao Yao patted its head. “You’re not her. You weren’t around for all those years apart from the ten you shared with her, either.”

“So what!” the cat said, displeased. “I don’t need to have been there to know how many foolish things she’s done!”

“You’ve probably done your own share of foolish things too—otherwise you wouldn’t have been friends with her for ten years.”

“Nonsense! How could I possibly…”

Before it could finish, a loud thud came from inside the room.

Tao Yao and the cat both leapt up at once, throwing the door open.

The shore-fish lay collapsed on the floor, every inch of her exposed skin turned nearly translucent white, even her tail no exception.

A softly glowing blue pearl lay quietly on Ling Shuwang’s chest.

Tao Yao frowned, went to her, and lifted her up, cradling her against herself.

The cat stood as close as it could get, its tail twitching restlessly.

Though it had known this outcome was inevitable, now that the moment had truly come, even with every ounce of detachment it could muster, it still couldn’t help the wave of desolation rising in its chest.

She slowly opened her eyes, saw Tao Yao’s face, and smiled, mouthing two words silently—though no sound came, the shape of her lips clearly said: thank you.

Then, gathering the last of her strength, she raised her hand and let it rest gently on the cat’s body, her fingers moving slowly through its shining fur—the cat suddenly realized she was writing something.

The cat held its breath, not daring to move an inch, terrified of missing a single stroke.

The room fell utterly silent, filled only with the sound of a heartbeat caught between strength and fading weakness.

When she finished writing, she touched the cat’s head once more, then cast one last glance toward Ling Shuwang—no resentment, no regret, only a small trace of wistfulness.

Tao Yao held her tighter still, hoping the extra warmth might make her passing a little more comfortable.

But she was so cold—colder even than a winter-frozen lake.

Finally, her hand slid down from the cat’s head.

A warm afternoon breeze drifted leisurely in through the window, sweeping across the table below—a sheet of paper with writing on it lifted and floated down, drifting gently to land in front of Tao Yao.

Tao Yao picked it up. It was her handwriting—

“That night, on the rooftop in the capital, I looked down at the prosperity spread beneath me, ten thousand households’ lamps lit, and it was truly beautiful. But in that very moment, I suddenly realized that among all those ten thousand lit lamps, not a single one was lit for me. In all that smoke rising from countless hearths, not one person was waiting for me to come home. From the moment I was born until now, I was never once chosen with certainty. Not even once.”

Just a few short lines, and yet something fragile in the air seemed to shatter.

The paper crumpled in Tao Yao’s grip.

The cat reached out a paw and placed it on that hand which would never rise again.

What she had gone through was never simply a story of a woman loved and then betrayed by a man. What had truly broken her was never, ultimately, just Ling Shuwang.

Tao Yao had never much cared for those who lived their whole lives as someone else’s second choice, always believing that handing your fate over to someone else’s decision was a particularly foolish, losing proposition. In her own worldview, there was no such thing as “one person abandoning another”—only two paths parting where fate had simply run its course. Whatever pain came in the moment should stay in that moment, never allowed to touch the future.

She’d always felt a certain contempt for those who let themselves be crushed flat by so-called “abandonment,” unable to get back up—nothing more, in her mind, than pitiful creatures who’d thrown away their own chance to choose.

But she couldn’t bring herself to blame the shore-fish.

After all, it hadn’t been Tao Yao who fell from the tree-sea above the clouds. It hadn’t been Tao Yao who’d faced death and despair alone inside that mirror. It hadn’t been Tao Yao, sitting on a swing about to break, watching that man walk away.

She had already wanted nothing at all—and yet, the one time she’d gathered every ounce of courage and strength to reach for something she’d never dared hope for, a cold voice had told her, sorry, this was never yours to have.

A demon’s shattered heart doesn’t always piece itself back together, every time.

What more was there to blame her for?

More and more fragments of light drifted out from the shore-fish’s body, floating between her and Ling Shuwang in a silent farewell.

Only met you on some ordinary day, and left you on some other ordinary day. No one’s fault—just a shallow fate.

The cat lifted its head, staring blankly at the light scattering and vanishing in the air.

The one it had brought out was, in the end, unwilling to remain in the world outside the mirror.

But it truly didn’t regret it.

At least it had given her one chance to come back.

Now, all that kept surfacing in its mind was the image of her standing atop that high rock, glowing within her own song.

There had been places for you to stand tall anywhere in the world, and yet you never did.

Such a shame.

“What did she write on you?” Tao Yao asked.

“The best ten years,” the cat said, turning its head away, secretly wiping at its eyes with a paw.

Tao Yao patted it, then stood, walking to the bedside and gently lifting the still-faintly-glowing pearl from Ling Shuwang’s chest.

Epilogue

By the riverside at dusk, Tao Yao leaned against that tree which had heard far too many stories, watching the sunset glow across the river.

“Everyone in the Ling family’s awake now,” Young Master Liu said, walking up beside her. “Ling Shuwang’s awake too. No need to worry about him turning into a stone statue anymore.”

Tao Yao smiled. “The medicine worked fast.”

“You’re really not going to tell that man anything?” Young Master Liu asked.

Tao Yao shook her head. “What’s there to say?”

“But… I can’t help feeling…” Young Master Liu frowned.

“Feeling he shouldn’t get to walk away from all this so easily, unscathed?” Tao Yao scratched her nose. “Though I’m not exactly fond of a man who says one thing and does another either, in the end it’s just an affair between a man and a woman. To call him utterly wicked would be a stretch—if there’s a debt to collect, it should be her collecting it from him, not us.”

Young Master Liu shook his head. “What’s left to collect? The fish is gone.”

“Not entirely gone.” Tao Yao smiled slyly. “After all, what he swallowed was her life-pearl. While I was saving his life, I slipped in a little something extra.”

“Not some medicine that makes him wake up and run around naked, is it?” Young Master Liu raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t underestimate me.” Tao Yao snorted, turning back to admire the sunset. “From now on, she’ll be in every dream he ever has.”

“Oh?”

“Whether he wants to forget her or not, I intend for him to remember, right up until the day he dies—even if he forgets his own name by then—that he once fell in love with a demon.” A patch of golden red light settled in Tao Yao’s eyes. “To remember the child named Fish Ball, remember that her favorite fruit was the phoenix-tail fruit, remember that it was right here, under this very tree, that he once said, with his own mouth, that he would marry her, that he would give her a future.”

Young Master Liu was silent a moment, then nodded. “Fair enough.”

The cat emerged from behind the tree, crouching down in front of Tao Yao, holding out a paw. “Stamp it, then.”

The corner of Tao Yao’s mouth curled up as she held out her own hand. “Though we already agreed on this, I’ll remind you once more—once you stamp this, it means you’re willingly agreeing to become my medicine. From now on, whatever part of your body I need, you’re to hand it over without the slightest hesitation.”

Smack!

The cat had already leapt up, one paw striking down firmly onto her palm.

“Enough nagging.” The cat landed back down, head held high. “I’ve always been a creature of my word.”

Tao Yao stroked her own palm with immense satisfaction, grinning as if she’d just eaten her favorite food.

“Matter’s settled. I’ll be taking my leave, then.” The cat turned to go.

“Leaving so soon? I was hoping to treat you to a meal—how about some fried little dried fish?” Tao Yao called after it. “We agreed before you came, remember—you still haven’t told us your background.”

The cat turned back. “Haven’t you already seen it all clearly enough?”

Tao Yao pouted. “I already knew you were a Cat Kui. But last night, right under this very tree, I heard you with my own ears say, ‘eating it would be fulfilling my duty’… That doesn’t add up, does it—a Cat Kui that values its freedom and pride above its own life shouldn’t say something like that.” She narrowed her eyes, smiling. “Whose duty are you fulfilling? What post are you keeping?”

The cat blinked. “Did I say that?”

“I heard it too.” Young Master Liu raised a hand.

“Oh… well, guess I said it, then. As it happens, I do have some official business at the moment.” The cat drawled the words out slowly, scratching its ear. Just as Tao Yao waited for more, it suddenly sprang into motion, leaping clean across the river in a single bound, then tossed back over its shoulder: “We’re all long-term residents of the capital anyway—we’ll run into each other again sometime, we can talk then.”

Tao Yao, caught entirely off guard by this move, watched it vanish without a trace, stamping her foot in frustration. “You wretched cat!”

“You seem awfully invested in this cat.” Young Master Liu smirked. “Better not tell Gungun you’ve got a cat on the side out here. I worry it’d be upset.”

“That’s a Cat Kui! If it lost its temper, it might even be more than you could handle! You think, if I managed to lure it back to Peach Capital and offer it up to him, would he treat me a little better for it?” Tao Yao rubbed her chin, looking thoroughly serious about the idea.

“You’ve had too much to drink, haven’t you—me, unable to beat a cat?” Young Master Liu scoffed. “With schemes like that on your mind, you’d do better to think about when you’re going to get the Compendium of a Hundred Demons back—otherwise, hand over ten cats and that person still won’t let you off the hook.”

“Ugh, I know, I know.” Tao Yao immediately dropped the subject. “Still, there’s something else worth paying attention to right now.”

Young Master Liu blurted out: “The one in the palanquin who gave the shore-fish that prescription?”

Tao Yao crossed her arms, watching the slowly flowing river. “Someone actually daring to muscle in on my business—isn’t that a bit much?”

“This whole matter really is strange. If we leave it unattended, I’m afraid there’ll only be more and more demons for you to treat from here on out,” Young Master Liu said, frowning. “That figure in the palanquin was clearly harming demons, not healing them.”

Tao Yao smiled coldly. “The shore-fish may be gone, but what was tricked out of her—I’ll get it back for her, sooner or later.”

“This will need careful investigating, don’t rush it,” Young Master Liu said, glancing at the sky. “Let’s head back. Moya must be worried sick.”

“Mm. Let’s find something to eat first, though—haven’t eaten in two days.”

“Hey, look! There’s a field mouse in the grass!!!”

“I don’t want to eat anymore… let’s just go back.”

Tonight’s moonlight was especially fine, gilding all of Iron Mirror Town in a dreamlike silver glow. No one was happier than the Ling household—gathered around the recovering Ling Shuwang, no one thought to question how he’d suddenly gotten better, simply taking it as heaven’s mercy, an immortal’s intervention, everyone moved to tears of joy.

Ling Shuwang sat up in bed, still a little weak, comforting his sobbing wife. His son buried his face in his chest, refusing to let go—young as he was, he seemed to sense how close he’d come to losing his father.

“It’s alright now, it’s alright.” He smiled.

But was it, really, all right?

Why did he feel as though she had been here? That familiar voice, that familiar scent—she’d been right beside him, saying she missed him so much.

A sharp pain stabbed through his chest.

Tears slipped from the corners of his eyes. He wiped them away quietly, then held his wife and child a little tighter.

Still that same great tree by the riverside, moonlight falling through its branches. High up in its boughs, it seemed a girl with a fish’s tail sat perched, humming a beautiful tune to the moon.

From one of the branches hung a lovely glass lantern.

The only imperfection: a few strands of black cat fur clinging to its shade.

In this world full of lamplight, there was still, after all, one lamp lit just for you.