Prologue

In his eyes, there was no servant more faithful than the night — it always came on time, departed on time, and never betrayed. The winds that passed through had nothing remarkable about them, but when they threaded between the pyramids of Giza, they became people who could fly, murmuring in your ear symbols buried for thousands of years, one after another of those tales eroded by wind and sand.

He was accustomed to standing atop the Sphinx on nights when the moon was a crescent — this colossal, prostrate mass of stone possessed a grandeur that connected heaven and earth. He knew this stone as intimately as he knew his own flesh and blood.

He could no longer remember the warmth or shape of sunlight. Only from the sparse moonlight could he dimly recall the memory of the last sunrise he had seen. He had stood on the Sphinx for several hours; his beige trench coat was lifted by the wind on both sides, like a pair of wings on the verge of spreading open. His body was utterly still, as though the immense block beneath his feet had transmitted its absolute rigidity to him, as if it intended to make him, bit by bit, a part of itself.

Beneath his feet, there was movement. Several stray cats appeared from nowhere, gathered in one spot, tilting their heads back and calling out softly, their cries rising and falling one after another. The lead cat — a black one — licked its injured front paw, regarding him where he stood high above with a strange, upward gaze.

He did no more than shift his eyelashes slightly, and extended his left hand with an air of casualness.

A drop of light, like a dewdrop, drifted from his fingertip down to the top of the black cat’s head, transforming into an adorable, round bubble that wrapped the small creature in a comical embrace. It rose from the ground and floated toward him like a hydrogen balloon. Those round cat eyes refracted the cool clarity of the moonlight, fixing their gaze on his face. The injured paw trembled faintly, and blood poured from a wound that had festered beyond all recognition.

He held the floating cat gently, his fingers sliding along the smooth, curved surface of the outer bubble.

“Does it hurt?” His lips parted slightly.

The black cat let out a meow.

“I understand.”

His eyes, which had held no expression of any kind, suddenly softened. The sliding fingers stopped. His fingertip pressed lightly against the bubble with a gentle pinch.

Pop. A quiet sound. One that required sharp ears to catch.

The black cat had ceased to breathe. Its still-warm body rested in his palm like the very last fallen leaf in the autumn wind.

“This is better,” he said, setting down its small corpse. “Death is another birth.”

Death is another birth.

This was something he often said.

In the wind, an ancient nursery rhyme sang softly —

The storehouse is packed full, grain spilling over the edges. The great boat is packed full too, grain overflowing its sides. Yet still we must carry, not one grain forgotten. For Anubis waits beneath the moon, to take away the lazy child. Anubis waits beneath the moon…

He closed his eyes and listened in silence.

I

The only creature that could have its “identity” stolen and still go on living in relative peace — that would probably be me.

Once I was the proprietress of “Bu Ting.” Now I am the proprietress of “Mu Sheng.” Once I was the tree demon Shaluo, with a thousand years of cultivation, capable of moving heaven and earth. Now I am simply an ordinary person living inside a body of flesh and blood, with less than one year left on my life line — if I cannot “reclaim myself” within that time. Once I was always surrounded by a crowd of demons, with plenty of gold as my reward. Now, aside from a part-time helper who makes cotton candy at my shop, all I have are the occasional human customers who come to me for divination.

That’s right — I currently make my living by selling cotton candy and doing tarot readings for people. A completely modest new venture, entirely self-sufficient. A fellow member of my kind — a tree demon girl called Mu — used a trick that was, in truth, not particularly clever, to steal my true form and my human appearance. In simple terms: she is now the proprietress of Bu Ting, she is the tree demon Shaluo, and she has taken over everything that was mine.

It remains, even now, deeply infuriating. I ache for all that gold that has fallen into someone else’s pocket, and every once in a while I even find myself missing Fatty and Skinny. Without those two idiots to order around and tease, life is indeed rather empty.

I have tried to analyze Mu’s psychology. She could take my life with one little finger right now, and yet she chooses not to. Instead she has chosen another way to keep me perfectly “preserved.” I think she must have come across some subversive philosophy along the lines of “letting a person die comfortably is far inferior to making them live miserably,” and has decided to put it into practice on me.

But do Mu and I truly have such a deep and bitter enmity?

All I did was extinguish the delusions of an immature little demon that had not yet come into its own.

I have retrieved all my memories concerning Mu.

It was back in the days when I had only just taken on human form and begun cultivating on Fulong Mountain.

Each year after the Mid-Autumn Festival, I would go down to a hollow at the foot of the mountain to search for a wild fruit called the mountain mang berry. It was not particularly pleasant to eat — extremely sour with a faint bitterness, the flesh coarse, like a handful of small thorns thrown into your mouth — but Zi Miao had insisted I eat one every day until the winter solstice, saying it was beneficial for harmonizing one’s aura and consolidating vital energy. Apart from the taste of that fruit, what I remember is the single, solitary locust tree that grew in the center of the hollow — short and thin and underdeveloped, every branch drooping limply, like a tangle of disheveled hair.

It was entirely unremarkable. Had there not been just this one tree in all the hollow, I might never have noticed it existed.

In those days I was still a young tree demon whose desire to play was greater than anything else. I loved to weave nets from the vines that grew around the hollow and then run to catch fish in the pool formed by a spring that bubbled out of some hidden cave. The fish in that pool were particularly beautiful — not only were they every color imaginable, but some of them even made lovely sounds. When caught in my net, some would let out cries like those of an infant, which I found, at that time, tremendously entertaining. I would repeatedly capture them and release them, capture them and release them, endlessly amused.

There were also many small animals in the hollow — beautiful orange-winged birds, nimble white foxes, crafty moles, too many to count. But my favorites were the three-eared rabbits: black-faced, white-bodied, fat as little furry balls, waddling to the edge of the pool with their young to nibble at the moss-like wild grass. I could never resist the urge to torment these pudgy little creatures. I would always conceal myself in the shadows and then spring out with my claws spread, sending them scattering in every direction in a panic, some nearly rolling into the pool. Then I would stand to one side and laugh until my sides ached.

I reveled fully in the freedom that came with having taken human form. My body and my spirit were intoxicated in the most primal, most pure joy.

But on that one day, when the little locust tree used its branches to bashfully hook onto my arm, called out my name, and earnestly begged me to ask Zi Miao to grant it human form as well — I refused without a moment’s hesitation.

“Why not? Sister Shaluo, I clearly saw the Immortal Zi Miao grant you human form that night!” Its branches clung to my arm very tightly, shaking with refusal to give up. “Sister, please ask the Immortal Zi Miao to grant me human form as well.”

How laughable! Were we close?

Faced with this member of my own kind who had appeared out of nowhere, faced with such an “impertinent” demand, I naturally felt a strong aversion, and was even less inclined to grant her wish. Zi Miao had told me that when he had granted me human form, it appeared effortless but had in fact drained a considerable amount of his vital energy and spiritual power — it had taken a full forty-nine days before he was fully restored. My human form had not come easily, and so he hoped I would cultivate diligently. Regarding this fact, what struck me was not what Zi Miao had said, but the pallor of his lips as he spoke. From that time on, I had discovered that what I cared about most was not how I myself cultivated, but whether Zi Miao was well.

How could I possibly go and trouble Zi Miao on account of some so-called member of my kind and her preposterous “ambition”? I and this locust tree had no real friendship to speak of. I had only, when I was tired of playing, occasionally leaned against its trunk to rest, and occasionally muttered a few idle words to it. Was that sufficient grounds for it to conclude we were bosom friends, willing to lay down our lives for one another? Truly laughable.

“Sister Shaluo, take me with you!” It continued to beg.

“That’s not possible. I and you are different.” I began to peel away the branches wrapped around me.

“How are we different? Were we not born in the same place?” It was confused, and seemed to be growing a little angry.

“I’ve already said it — we are different.”

I didn’t know myself why I kept insisting on this point. How were we different? One of us was born at the mountain top, the other at the mountain foot — no more than that.

“How are you different?! If you can, so can I! I want to live freely just like you, Sister!” The branches gripping my arm wound tighter and tighter.

“Staying here is better for you.” I could find no more persuasive reasoning, and could only keep repeating myself clumsily as I tore at the branches.

“Liar! You’re lying! You’re lying! You can do it — why can’t I?!”

The branches actually began creeping up toward my neck, seething with a fury that seemed to want to strangle me.

What a joke. How could such a weak little locust tree be a match for me? Even though at that time I was barely capable of three tricks, I was still a tree demon cultivated personally by Zi Miao, the Celestial Immortal and Four Seas Water God — the noble tree demon who existed in the role of his attendant.

Its branches were severed into several sections by my incantation.

I heard it crying behind me as I left.

“I want to be like you… I also want to eat wild fruit in the mountains, want to scare those fat little rabbits… I also want someone to talk to me, to take me riding on the wind, the way Zi Miao does with you…”

I ran away quickly. Her crying made me feel deeply uncomfortable. The me of that time had not yet learned to feel the sorrow of others.

III

After that, I never went back to that hollow again. And the locust tree’s weeping, its solitary silhouette, were quickly forgotten at the back of my mind.

Yet that which I believed had faded from my memory had, for the other party, not faded from her life for even a single moment.

This — I would not discover until a thousand years later.

I want to be like you…

Mu — your wish was at last fulfilled.

I took a sip of tea and walked to the shop’s doorway. The evening glow was floating over the unevenly scattered buildings across the way, and because of this layer of light, the quiet, unremarkable little street took on a faint air of grandeur and majesty.

Yet at the edge of the sky, I seemed to see a restless dark current — grayish-black waves of air slowly converging on the brightest spot at the center, devouring it gradually with an air of absolute certainty.

I rubbed my eyes and looked again. At the sky’s edge everything was normal: the evening glow remained, and it was still an ordinary, beautiful dusk.

Perhaps I was hungry. Already reduced to a mortal body, I had long since lost the ability to read the sky and the earth. What I had just seen must have been an illusion.

Going back inside, I grabbed a few biscuits to fill my stomach. The strange feeling in my heart still would not leave me. So I simply took out my tarot cards, shuffled them casually, cut the deck, fixed my thoughts on the “illusion” I had just seen, and drew the top card.

Looking at the card I had turned over, I paused briefly, then let out a long, slow breath. Perhaps, I thought, what I had seen just now was no illusion after all.

The card I had drawn was “The Devil.”

IV

My birthday was not far off, and I could smell the scent of winter. Outside the window, all the colors were quietly transitioning from brilliant to monochrome.

On the surface, I contentedly “enjoyed” my new life with its modest means. Privately, I thought of every possible method to turn defeat into victory.

Mu had made no major moves of any unusual nature during this period. She had only come to Mu Sheng once, still in the posture of a victor — looking at me with a bright smile, chatting in a casual, familiar tone about how Fatty and Skinny were truly idiots, their intelligence nearly zero outside of making desserts and chatting up women, fitting perfectly with Bu Ting’s style. And those demons that kept coming to her door for help were each funnier and more troublesome than the last.

“Oh.” I bit into the apple in my hand and talked as I chewed. “If they were truly intelligent, they wouldn’t have mistaken you for me. Hard work for you, having to manage that bunch of idiots on my behalf.”

“Heh.” Mu stroked that long black hair that did not rightfully belong to her and smiled. “I really do love your body. So beautiful, and with a thousand years of cultivation.”

I bit into the apple in large mouthfuls, not even glancing at her, and simply said: “I think my body is excellent as well. Only — with your own configuration as low as it is, aren’t you afraid of incompatibility? Ha.”

She gave a cold smile and stepped behind me, leaning down to speak in my ear: “Sister, one day you will certainly come to me crying and begging, just as I once did.”

I felt no inclination to respond.

“Oh, and those demons that keep appearing at the door — I’ll take good care of them for you,” she said, suddenly turning in the doorway to give me a playful wink. “Because I need them.”

Those two words — “need them” — were plainly each one a dose of poison.

“Everything you are doing now will demand its price in the future,” I said, throwing her only this one line.

“Are you not the finest example of that very principle?” She left, laughing loudly.

It would be false to say I felt no anger at how insufferably arrogant this woman had become — I am no saint. But the real point of our verbal sparring was not who had provoked whom. What mattered was that she had brought me a dangerous forewarning. I did not know why Mu had “lain dormant” during this period with no outwardly abnormal behavior, but I knew deeply that everything she was doing was not as simple as mere revenge against me.

She had said she had a master.

But what could I do right now? Could I go stand in front of Bu Ting’s entrance with a sign saying the current Shaluo proprietress is a counterfeit, and warning all humans and demons alike to stop going to her lest misfortune befall them?

No one would believe me. Not even Fatty and Skinny. They would at most think they had run into a woman suffering from a mental disturbance.

I am imprisoned within Mu’s human form. Unless someone recognizes my true identity and proactively calls out my name, I cannot help anyone — I cannot even protect myself.

But who now could recognize a “me” that is not me at all?

I had thought of many approaches. Not one of them was workable. I had once secretly tried to contact Jiu Jue, intending to tell him everything and bet he would believe me. If he came to my side, even if he couldn’t break Mu’s curse and restore me to my original appearance, at least he could do many things I am now unable to do. As a demon who has lost all her powers, a telephone is the only channel through which I could contact Jiu Jue. But his phone is always “out of service area.” Where on earth has this wretched old thing taken himself with his phone — has he run off back a hundred years to check on that rhinoceros disciple of his?! I could only abandon the idea of finding him. In the old days, one paper talisman would have been enough — even if he were buried in the deepest level of the underworld, I could have dragged him out and beaten him soundly.

A sigh.

The only thing sustaining me was probably that reversed Death card in my bedroom. The phrase “out of death comes life” was something I silently recited three times every night before sleep.

V

The weather today was poor — windy and rainy. I had fallen ill with a cold, and spent half the day lying listlessly in bed, wanting to sleep but unable to settle into it.

First time in my life taking medicine. Human pills taste genuinely awful.

“Boss… eat… eat.” At the doorway, my part-time helper — full name Zhang Daxia — rubbed his hands on his apron and called out to me with careful hesitation.

This solidly honest young man, as stocky and dependable as a wooden post, normally clocked out the moment he had finished ninety-nine cotton candy orders. Today, perhaps seeing that my cold was severe, he had not left after his shift, saying he would cook dinner for me before going. This fellow was unremarkable in appearance, said little, had a slight stutter, and whenever he spoke to me, he never dared to look at me directly. He would go red in the face after only a few sentences — quite amusing.

We sat across from each other in the front room. On the round table: two bowls of congee and a few refined little side dishes, all very light in flavor, with a slight touch of vinegar and sesame oil added — a pleasant taste on the palate, well-suited for someone like me who had no appetite due to a cold.

“Why aren’t you eating?” I noticed Zhang Daxia had not even touched his chopsticks. He just sat there blankly, hunched like his name, listless as a little shrimp, his eyes darting toward the door with a touch of anxiety, his nose working away at the air like a hunting dog, constantly sniffing.

“What are you doing?” I asked him directly. This fellow was behaving strangely today.

“Boss… can… can I sleep here in the shop tonight?” He was afraid I would refuse.

“Give me a reason.”

“I… I’m… scared!”

What an honest reason! I could indeed read a terror from the depths of the heart in Zhang Daxia’s evasive gaze.

“All right. Sleep in the front room tonight. I’ll get you a blanket in a moment.” I wiped my mouth, then turned my head and raised an eyebrow. “Did you borrow money from loan sharks? Are they coming to collect tonight?”

“No, no, no!” The more Zhang Daxia denied it, the more tense he became, the less he could get the words out. “It’s… it’s… strange, strange, stra—”

“All right, all right, I’m not asking anymore. It’s getting late. Good night.” Pressing an stutterer for answers is unkind.

I took another dose of medicine and turned in under the covers. Before long, I gradually drifted into sleep.

I had been asleep for an unknown amount of time when a commotion outside my door woke me — the sound of tables and chairs being overturned, mixed with Zhang Daxia’s sobbing, tear-choked cries for help.

I threw back the covers and burst out of my room barefoot — in the front room, every door and window that had been tightly shut was now wide open. Stools, tables, and every other object were spinning and flying through the air. Zhang Daxia, pitifully clinging to a table leg, was being stretched out like a rubber band by some force from beyond the front door, as though something were physically pulling him out of the shop.

Despite the enormity of the spectacle, there was not the slightest breath of wind. The fringe of hair at my forehead did not stir by even a fraction. The tornado-like force that had permeated the shop was clearly overwhelming, yet it existed in perfect silence, without shape or form.

I charged into the center of that “tornado” and seized Zhang Daxia’s wrist with both hands.

A feeling — alternately cold and hot, like blades sweeping past — clawed its way out from inside me. Every organ was being forcibly compressed together, as if they might be sucked right out of my body in the next moment.

I did not know what was happening. I only knew my strength was far too small. I could not hold onto Zhang Daxia.

As he slipped from my grasp and was dragged completely out the door, I could clearly see — this honest, solid man who had been my part-time helper for nearly a month — transform into a deep brown puppet. Only the eyes on his face could still move, and that mouth still stuttered and shouted for help.

I chased out the door. Beneath the dim, murky night, every street and building I could see was blanketed in a layer of sinister blue fog. A flock of black birds of prey — with beast heads, bird bodies, and bat wings — spread their translucent wings, emitting hissing sounds, flying rapidly through the blue fog. Each one gripped a small demon in its beak that had reverted to its original form.

One of the black birds dove down and bit Zhang Daxia by the neck, crying out as it shot upward into the sky. All of them were struggling. Several cat demons clawed desperately with their paws, screaming for help in sharp voices. An ancient turtle demon, still in his sleeping robe, was vomiting continuously from the speed of the flight. And there were countless little flower spirits, little insect demons — not a single one not crying out to heaven for rescue.

These monster birds seemed to have captured every demon in the vicinity.

Another of the birds shot toward me. I recoiled in fright, dodging to one side. The foul creature snatched up a rat demon hiding behind a dustbin in one bite.

It was only then that I saw clearly: the faces of these monster birds were plainly skulls wrapped in black and white feathers.

Wait — these things… I seemed to recall something, but these creatures were simply impossible to appear here!

Zhang Daxia had already been carried far away. I instinctively tried to give chase, but quickly discovered I could no longer run. A numbing sensation spread from my toes outward. The blue fog floating all around seeped out a faint, lingering fragrance that poured in endless streams into my body.

“Boss, help me, help me, help me!” Zhang Daxia screamed at me — for the first time without a stutter.

But my running was growing slower and slower, and Zhang Daxia was about to pass out of my line of sight.

Suddenly, two rather threatening cat cries rang close to my ear — one black, one white, two cats of robust build, with sharp light in their eyes, appeared in mid-air from nowhere. The white cat, in mid-air, actually spread open a vast pair of wings. Every white feather on those wings shimmered with golden, sand-like points of light — dazzling and breathtaking, regal and unmatched. Countless skull-birds that flung themselves at it were sent crashing away. Several flashes of white light passed, and that pack of foul creatures was shattered to pieces beneath the white cat’s claws and collapsed on the ground. On the other side, the black cat, though it had no wings to assist it, was in no way lacking in ferocity and valor. It tangled with numerous skull-birds at once, unleashing both claws and teeth, tearing these putrid birds to fragments.

The arrival of the two cats seemed to bring a different and powerful energy — not only did it rout the majority of the skull-birds, but even the blue poisonous fog all around instantly thinned.

A crowd of little demons who had escaped from the birds’ beaks with their lives scrambled frantically in every direction. Zhang Daxia, too weak-legged to stand, was seized by the arm by the white cat and thrown to land beside me. Zhang Daxia grabbed onto me with both arms and burst into loud wailing.

Feeling returned to my feet. I could walk again. Looking at those two cats, I felt they were intensely familiar.

One black, one white, wings on their backs… this was not…

“Cang Tongkai! Xuan!” I cried out involuntarily.

The white cat turned its head and glanced at me, a hint of puzzlement in an unfamiliar gaze.

“Deal with those skull-birds first!” I pointed urgently at those enemies still barely clinging to life. This was not the moment for recognition.

The white cat let out a low cry, spread its wings, and charged toward the remaining skull-birds. The clash of black and white, in the darkness of the night, was extraordinarily vivid.

But things quickly developed in the wrong direction — just when I thought victory was tilting toward our side.

The skull-birds that had been torn to pieces suddenly shuddered. Every fragment began to swell and mutate, like balloons being inflated, until each one was burst open by a fully formed, brand new skull-bird pushing its way out from within. In barely ten-odd seconds, not only had the skull-birds revived — their numbers had doubled.

The black and white cats, facing doubled attacks, began to show signs of weakness.

“Stop fighting — just run!” I screamed in urgency from below.

The black and white cats, sensing things turning bad, quickly withdrew from the battle and grabbed Zhang Daxia and me respectively, sprinting forward at full speed.

The enemy behind us gave relentless chase. The hissing grew louder and louder, closer and closer.

We retreated to the highest point in the city — the bell tower — and hid ourselves behind one of the hundred-year-old great bells, watching and waiting.

“Who are you? How do you know my name?” The white cat reverted to human form — a strikingly handsome young man in a white shirt.

I knew Xuan had suffered serious injuries and should not yet be able to take human form. He could only fix his cat eyes on me and look me over. The puppet Zhang Daxia had already been frightened into a near-faint, crossing himself repeatedly on his chest.

The truth was, I desperately wanted to throw myself at Cang Tongkai and hold on tight and kiss him soundly. This powerful feeling of encountering a familiar face in a foreign land, of seeing a cherished one after a long separation, made me want to burst into tears.

“I… I am the proprietress of Bu Ting — the tree demon Shaluo!” I could no longer hold back and blurted it out.

“Nonsense!” Cang Tongkai refused flatly. “How are you that tree demon?! Not only does your appearance not match — you don’t have even a trace of demonic energy!”

Xuan also said with certainty: “Who are you really? Why are you claiming to be Shaluo? I’ll tell you — I know that tree demon very, very well.”

“I am telling the truth — please believe me.” I shook my head helplessly and said to Cang Tongkai: “But I’m not lying. The flash drive you sent me related to that girl Tutu, along with the large bank draft — they are both still in Bu Ting’s safe.”

Cang Tongkai and Xuan looked at each other. The matter of the flash drive and the bank draft was known only to them and that tree demon.

Before we even had a chance to interrogate and explain things to each other, the sky in the distance was already blackening as a crowd of enemies bore down. It was a color darker than any night — had it been daytime, sunlight might not have been able to penetrate the dense mass of these skull-birds’ bodies. The blue fog thickened again, mingling with rolling layers of cloud, surging forward and bearing them aloft, advancing toward the bell tower in a formation that blotted out the sky.

They could track us by our demonic energy!

Inside the ancient bell tower, various mechanical parts turned slowly, producing a creaking sound — a sound that, if anything, resembled the anxious heartbeats of all of us.

“What are the chances of resolving this?” My gaze looked out through a gap in the bell tower.

“Near zero,” Cang Tongkai and Xuan answered honestly.

Zhang Daxia started crying again.

Before we had even finished speaking, the skull-birds’ speed suddenly changed — as if teleporting — and materialized outside the bell tower.

Sharp beaks and claws worked frantically at the outside of the bell tower, slicing the walls into fragments like cutting machines. The great bells’ components that stood in their way were bitten into actual separate parts, which fell chaotically from the air.

We were quickly exposed to their line of sight.

“You have no demonic energy on you — they shouldn’t be able to find you,” Cang Tongkai said to me. Then to Xuan: “Take the two of them and go. I’ll hold them here.”

Xuan shook his head: “There’s no retreat. The bell tower will collapse very soon.”

Every skull-bird’s beak was emitting excited sounds. Give it one more second, and we would become their freshest meal.

Cang Tongkai’s brow furrowed. He revealed his true form, spread his wings, and covered us behind him, shouting: “Fight to the end! If you get a chance, just run!”

I determined that Cang Tongkai was no match for this vast flock of skull-birds, no matter how hard he fought. Was it possible that tonight, all of us were going to die inexplicably atop this bell tower?

The skull-birds lunged at us in a jostling rush. I could even smell the foul, reeking odor of death emanating from their filthy beaks.

Between life and death, everyone suddenly heard a low yet fierce animal roar. Countless feather-like golden rays of light shot densely in from outside the bell tower, like a violent storm, piercing through the bodies of the skull-birds. These unbearably arrogant monsters each looked like monkeys whose backsides had been set on fire — leaping and contorting in a ridiculous and exaggerated manner, letting out strange cries and flapping their wings. The more they struggled, the more dazzling these densely raining golden threads became. In moments, with a few quiet, muffled sounds, countless skull-birds were “melted” into a large mass of golden liquid that flowed in every direction through the air like fog, quickly dissipating into wisps of vapor without leaving so much as a single feather behind.

All the noise subsided into silence. The sky beneath held no more abnormal sights. Everything was clean.

My eyes had been dazzled by all this brilliant light and could barely open. I strained to look outward, and behind the vapors and mists dispersing in the air, the faint outline of a great crimson-gold dragon was briefly visible — shifting from solid to nothing.

It was that dragon again — the one that had once helped me escape from Mu’s tarot illusion realm.

Still in a daze, a familiar tinkling sound rang out. A small, golden-glinting object traced a parabolic arc from the place where the dragon had disappeared, flying straight toward me.

Without even thinking, I reached out my hand and caught it precisely. I spread my palm and looked — the crimson-gold dragon-carved peace clasp that Ao Chi had given me lay quietly in my palm. Only the dragon pattern carved on it was much shallower than before, as though it were on the verge of fading.

I had thought it would go to someone else along with the body that Mu had seized. I had truly not expected it to come back.

“What is this?” Cang Tongkai and the others stared at this thing that had saved all our lives — Zhang Daxia in particular looked as though he wanted to burn incense and worship it as an offering.

I did not answer. I stood up, and suddenly pushed most of my upper body out of the bell tower, screaming into the pitch-black sky still without stars or moon: “Ao Chi — get the hell out here now!”

It was him, it had to be him!

The peace clasp in my hand radiated a warmth like body heat — not mine, but its own.

Twenty years. I had never been as certain as I was at this moment: this wretched, treacherous dragon who had left without a word of farewell was somewhere not far from me.

And yet — not a single response.

Truly wretched mortal body. Wretched cold. Wretched physical exhaustion. In short: I very wretchedly fainted. I toppled straight out of the bell tower, falling toward the ground like a withered leaf with no life left in it. For the first time I felt that my body and my soul had both lost all weight, and that the smallest gust of wind could scatter me into pieces.

Someone reached an arm around my waist. Perhaps it was only my imagination. Yet I caught that scent, so familiar, and was reminded of many, many years ago — the first time my life had faced collapse — when there had been a fellow who had held the sinking me with equal gentleness.

Ao Chi… I murmured his name.

Where in the world did you go and die…

I’ve been looking for you…

Looking for you all this time…

VI

“I’m sorry. If not for those two cat demons creating trouble, today’s harvest would not have been so meager.” Mu stood before him, looking apologetically at the deflated cloth pouch in her hand. “Only this much could be refined.”

“The descendants of the King of Cat Demons naturally have a few more abilities than others.” He gave a faint smile and continued to flip through various books on the tall bookshelves. Soft light fell from a ceiling decorated with spiral patterns, wrapping around his slender figure — yet it cast no shadow on the floor, wherever he walked.

His study was immeasurably wide, immeasurably tall — surpassing even a library. All the knowledge of the entire universe seemed to be concentrated here by him.

“Why… do you never look at me?” Mu followed his graceful, unhurried footsteps, and the longing hidden in her gaze could not be concealed. “Am I not good this way?”

His attention was not on her at all. He focused solely on the volume in his hands — Quantum Theory of Multi-Particle Systems — reading while shaking his head, then setting it back and taking out A Brief History of Time, reading again, again shaking his head. As for books such as On the Anomalous Variations of Earth’s Magnetic Field and The Present and Future of Life in the Universe, these were glanced at and then disdainfully flung back with a quiet utterance of: “Garbage.”

“Shuo…” She stepped closer, calling his name softly with persistent hope.

“Call me Master. Or the God Anubis.” His gaze did not shift in the slightest. He closed the book in his hand with cold composure. “What you look like right now is of no importance. Those vulgar questions that only stupid humans would ask — I do not wish to hear them from your lips again.”

The light in Mu’s eyes gradually dimmed. She set the cloth pouch on the ground and said in a low voice: “Yes, Master.”

“Go.” His left hand made a slight gesture; the cloth pouch flew into his hand. He weighed it, then said: “Continue to work hard. We still have a little time.” He walked to the globe standing beside the bookshelf and slowly rotated the great blue sphere. “Three kings in alignment… heh heh.”

“Master, rest assured.” Mu retreated to the doorway. As she turned to leave, she looked at his breathtaking profile — that face which had settled and turned in her heart for a thousand years — and could not help but murmur softly, her spirit darkening: “I thought you would like it…”

VII

I had been unconscious for the better part of a day and only came around the following evening. Cang Tongkai had sent for his personal chef, who brought me a magnificent, delicious invalid’s feast that reduced me to tears of gratitude. I praised this cat effusively for having both morals and conscience.

In the end, he and Xuan believed me — believed that this bedraggled, fallen woman before them was indeed that tree demon proprietress who had once been chivalrous-hearted and beautiful as a flower, composed yet with a streak of defiance, cool on the surface yet with warmth running underneath.

Cang Tongkai said that in all his life, he rarely remembered anyone’s eyes — with one exception: that tree demon who was even more full of herself, even more arrogant than he was. Although I now looked utterly different, the tone I spoke in, the look of disdain — these could still be matched to the right person.

Xuan was furious. He said he would absolutely kill that demon Mu and take everything back for me. Now that Cang Tongkai knew his true identity, they were working on a plan to gather every force at their disposal for a decisive battle against the demon in Bu Ting.

Yes — my “Bu Ting,” almost entirely without my knowledge, had transformed from a harmless and beneficial dessert shop into a graveyard for demons.

This was something no one had anticipated, including me. I had been so close to it, had even glanced at it from afar on occasion, yet I had not noticed any obvious abnormalities. Not until Cang Tongkai told me: starting ten days ago, every night after midnight, a strange blue fog along with a flock of monster birds would surge out from somewhere in great force and hunt demons indiscriminately. Even his own kind had not been spared — dozens of the cat demons with lower cultivation had already been taken. He and Xuan had tracked them and discovered that the blue fog and the skull-birds were “originating” from my Bu Ting.

This calamity that had arrived without warning caused every demon with even a slight measure of spiritual power to feel the terror of what was coming. Even Zhang Daxia, lurking by my side, had sensed the danger and had not dared to go out. Only I had noticed nothing at all.

“But that’s not your fault. You’re not particularly bright to begin with, and on top of that you’ve lost your powers.” Cang Tongkai had finally found his opportunity for “revenge.” This wretched child. I had no inclination to squabble with him. The most critical issue at present was what exactly that madwoman Mu had been doing inside my Bu Ting. If the calamity we had endured last night was entirely her doing, what was her objective?

Xuan, who had been silent the whole time, squatted on the table in a posture of deep thought. As a cat with a thinking mind, he suddenly turned his head toward me and said: “Before any action, should we first reclaim the real you? Right now you can’t even deal with a single skull-bird. This is extremely problematic.”

Cang Tongkai scratched his head vigorously and asked: “Think carefully — among the people you know, is there anyone who could recognize the current you and call out your name without any prompting from others?”

“If there were such a person, I’d have gone running to them long ago.” I sighed. Perhaps Jiu Jue was worth trying, but by the time this wandering fellow was found and brought back, Mu’s dark hand would likely have poisoned tens of thousands of innocents. And even Jiu Jue — I did not have tremendous confidence in him either. The kind of person who could see through a completely foreign appearance and perceive the real me: one had already vanished forever, and the other was nowhere to be found.

Stroking the crimson-gold dragon-carved peace clasp on my wrist — lost and found again, having twice pulled me from the brink of disaster — it still radiated that faint warmth. Ao Chi’s face, always haughty and disdainful but occasionally childish, the voice that was always ordering me around and quarreling with me, grew clearer and clearer in my mind.

If my memory served, three days after giving me that peace clasp, Ao Chi had disappeared from my life entirely. On the night before he vanished, we had the biggest quarrel of our acquaintance.

VIII

The truth was, Ao Chi and I were people who had met in the gunpowder-smelling atmosphere of direct opposition from the very start.

When we first encountered each other, he was still that untameable, troublemaking dragon who had brought disaster to the mortal world through his unbridled habits. I was still a newly transformed young tree demon, following at Zi Miao’s side — ignorant and willful. I laughed at his ugly looks; he cursed my stupidity. From the very beginning, we were in irreconcilable opposition. In those days, he could strike me across the face without a single scruple of tenderness, and the blow I returned was no less forceful. The looks we hurled at each other in mid-air could almost strike sparks. He said I was the first woman who had ever dared to lay hands on him, and that he would make me spend a lifetime repaying this slap.

How mysterious the workings of the world — I had not expected that his fierce words would prove true in the end. In the long years that followed, after the person who had once been branded into my very bones disappeared from my life, the one who truly stayed by my side was none other than Ao Chi. Even as his words declared his contempt for me, he pulled me back from the edge of death time and again, repairing my shattered soul in his own way. He frequently cursed me even as he taught me various useful techniques and the essentials of cultivation. Speaking fairly — for all the thousand years of cultivation I now possessed, Ao Chi deserved the lion’s share of credit. He was my teacher, my friend, my enemy — every manner of relationship tangled together, yet we could never cross that final line.

In the eyes of anyone who saw us, we should have been a couple. Yet in my heart, I always denied it, always resisted. This indefinable relationship stretched between him and me across countless centuries.

From some point I can no longer pinpoint, Ao Chi, following human custom, gave me a marriage proposal ring every year, saying one day I would put it on obediently. Those rings of every description accumulated in a basket, more and more of them, but I never wore a single one.

Yet Ao Chi kept to this habit. His character, it seemed, had never changed — he always followed only his own will and his own persistence, never caring whether I was willing or not. The arrogance and pride carved into his bones — I imagine these were owing to his innately noble origins.

Yes — Ao Chi was not truly a “treacherous dragon” regarded as a demon creature. The word “treacherous” in his description was only because his conduct was too outrageous, his personality too stubborn. He was in fact the direct grandson of the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea — of royal bloodline, looking down upon all under heaven with pride. And the Eastern Sea Dragon Clan was not only skilled in water and fire but could also subdue demons and vanquish monsters. As guardians of their realm, their status and dignity were no less than that of a Buddha or a god. Ao Chi could have ridden the clouds across the four seas and lived at ease throughout the world, yet he had been held in place by a tree demon of negligible standing — me.

A thousand years, I suppose — I can no longer count how long we have been together. When certain things become habit, even forgetting becomes habit. In those thousand years, we quarreled countless times and long maintained a stance of neither yielding to the other. And yet — how could I deny it — we had always depended on each other for life.

We dislike a person often because we are too similar to one another.

We like a person also because we are too similar to one another.

Yet certain words I could never bring myself to say aloud. He was the same.

I still remember that evening, when I was tidying out my wardrobe and found a garment missing — that green gauze dress I had always kept carefully in a lacquered box.

It was the first garment Zi Miao had given me, on the first occasion I appeared in this world in the form of a human.

However long a time had passed, every thread in that garment was still wound with remnants of those earlier days — memories that could not be erased, sad ones and beautiful ones alike.

In truth, I had no other meaning in keeping it. I only wished to preserve one memento connected to an old friend. Zi Miao is a person I cannot forget even until death — yet by now, the way I long for him has nothing to do with love or hate. Without Zi Miao, there would be no me. Without Zi Miao, Shaluo would still be that solitary tree growing at the summit of Fulong Mountain, keeping company with loneliness, without even a name. He is my most precious memory, and I am grateful to him.

Losing that garment was like losing the past. My life suddenly felt incomplete and fractured in that moment. That was how it felt.

I searched like a woman possessed — nearly took the rooms apart — yet could not find it. Until Ao Chi came back, and casually, offhandedly mentioned: he had bought me a heap of new clothes, found the wardrobe space insufficient, and so had thrown out all the old clothes for me — including that lacquered box.

He has always been this self-righteous. Always loved making decisions on my behalf.

I suppressed the fury blazing in my chest, kept my face cold, and told him to go find it and bring it back.

He said: what’s done is done, a worn-out old garment sitting there doing nothing but taking up space. What’s the point of finding it?

I said it again: go find it and bring it back. When I said those words, the look in my eyes returned to a thousand years before, to the moment of our first direct confrontation.

He stared, then simply dropped onto the sofa, shrugged with helpless indifference, and said carelessly: just a piece of rubbish, I forgot where I threw it, probably the bin downstairs — though the garbage truck came by just now, so you might want to go after it yourself.

Rubbish.

His words and manner finally pushed me over the edge completely.

We began to argue. Every word capable of striking the other in their most vulnerable spot erupted from the mouths of two people who have never known when to yield.

He mocked me for being unable to let go of the past — that man had been dead for so long, yet I still treated his possessions like treasure. Supremely foolish.

I cursed him for being nothing but a brute — shallow in understanding, incapable of comprehending feelings or respect. After so many years, not a scrap of improvement.

In astrological terms, I am a Sagittarius born in the depths of winter; he is a Leo born at the height of summer. Both being fire signs of explosive temper, any conflict between us was thunder meeting fire.

In the end, he pointed a finger at my nose and shouted: You just can’t forget that man!

So that was how he had always seen me, in his heart.

Suddenly, my heart froze solid.

All those wasted years he had spent by my side. All those days and nights lived together — truly lived in vain.

He had never truly understood me. Not once.

When I am most intensely furious, I become most quiet.

After a brief silence, I met his eyes — just as I had when we first clashed, a thousand years before — and said to him in the calmest voice: You disgust me.

He clearly still remembered that scene from before. Remembered the eyes that had been, in that moment, truthful and indifferent.

“Get out,” I said, turning and going back to my bedroom. Before closing the door, without looking back, I said: “I never want to see you again. Ever.”

The door closed. I did not hear any response from him, nor did I wish to.

I cannot bear to be willfully misunderstood. If others don’t understand me, I don’t mind. But how could you not know me?

The result of this confrontation was a private bout of tears on my part, and twenty years of his complete and utter absence.

I rarely cry. He had never left for more than forty-eight hours. Because of this quarrel — which, looking back, was supremely childish — we went our separate ways onto two parallel lines that could never intersect again.

For a demon, twenty years is no more than the snap of a finger. But in the twenty years I lost Ao Chi, every single day, every single month, felt to me like slow motion in a film.

Once I had settled down, I felt some measure of regret toward my behavior on that day. After all, his protection of me, his companionship, the tangible care he had shown — these should not have been entirely negated by a single garment.

I used many methods to find him. None worked. He had vanished as if evaporated.

I am so angry. Why were you so obedient this one time? I told you to get out, and you got out — and vanished so completely, as far as the eye can see, without limit.

What Ao Chi had left behind, besides a wardrobe full of clothes and a basket of diamond rings, was only this crimson-gold dragon-carved peace clasp.

I remember on the day of the quarrel, in my fury, I had yanked the cord of the peace clasp and thrown it out the window. Yet the next morning when I woke, the thing was tied neatly around my left wrist again.

I threw it away again, and it came back again.

It must be one of Ao Chi’s tricks — who knows what sort of technique he put on this peace clasp. I had no choice but to let it jingle against my wrist.

Now, at last, I understand why he gave me this thing.

He had once said: his greatest fear was that this idiot of mine would get eaten by some other demon when he was not around — which would be a tremendous disgrace!

I had thought that with a thousand years of cultivation, I was at least a capable figure among demons. There were almost no creatures capable of threatening my safety, and his worries would never become reality. I had never imagined that now, of all times, it would still be Ao Chi — in another form — who pulled this “idiot” back from the brink.

Thinking this far, my eyes grew red.

Cang Tongkai and Xuan did not understand my momentary loss of composure, and even less did they know for whose sake I had been briefly absent from myself. Xuan extended his cat paw and waved it before my eyes, bringing my wandering spirit back.

“I need to go to Bu Ting.” I rubbed my eyes and suddenly stood up.

“What could you do there? Someone’s already been sent to gather information.” Cang Tongkai glanced out the window. “They should be back soon, I’d think.”

Very shortly, a black butterfly fluttered its beautiful wings — which bore dark blue patterns — and settled lightly on my shoulder.

“I’m sorry — I have no way to break the curse on you either. If they hadn’t told me, I never would have recognized you.” The butterfly said to me helplessly. “You really are unlucky, ending up in such a state.”

This butterfly — if not Ku Yue, then who?

“You came…” I suddenly did not know what to say.

“I told you long ago that woman had tampered with the area around this building. See — every phone call out goes to ‘out of service area.'”

“No wonder I could never get through to her, and whenever I went to Bu Ting to find her, she was never in the shop.”

“The one in Bu Ting now isn’t her, all right!”

“You can’t entirely say it’s not — her human form at least is still hers.”

“Someone should peel that woman’s skin off!”

“Wouldn’t that make her the same as your kind?”

“There’s no one among bone demons who uses tricks to harm others like this! Don’t lump us together!”

A tall, large-framed man wrapped up like a mummy in a hat, dark glasses, a face mask, and a long trench coat walked in through the door with a loud voice. Following him was another tall, slender figure, and a sweep of eye-catching lake-blue hair.

“Oh, you’re awake?” Jiu Jue came over and sat beside me, ignoring my astonished expression. He casually touched my forehead. “Hmm — no fever. You little tree demon — you really never let me have any peace of mind.”

The simple gesture, the familiar tone — no trace of distance or awkwardness in his manner. My soul, which had been adrift all this time without any place to land, suddenly felt solid ground beneath it.

“I tell you, tree demon — you don’t need to worry! That woman who stole your skin won’t be insufferably arrogant for much longer!” Gu Wuming pulled off his dark glasses and slapped the table. From those two hollow, dark skull-eyes blazed a fury burning with indignation on my behalf. His temper was still this explosive.

“You all…” I tried my utmost to be as calm as I used to be, yet looking at all these figures gathered around me, my nose stung. That feeling — gratitude and relief churning a thousand times over in my heart — slowly brought my blood to a boil.

I knew it. I knew I would not be alone.

“She’s actually about to cry…” Cang Tongkai watched me with wide eyes and said softly: “Before, she always wore that irritating, cunning smile. That was the only expression on her face.”

“She looks rather nice like this…” Xuan tilted his head to look at me. “At least she seems like a normal person with some range of emotions.”

Several of the others expressed agreement in turn.

“You lot…” I quickly wiped my eyes and, seizing the moment, punched the nearest person — Jiu Jue — giving him a fist, and said, flushing with mortification: “Laugh at me again and I’ll chop you all up!”

“At this point your only option is to chop people with a kitchen knife — you have not one drop of spiritual power. Disgraceful!” Jiu Jue was never afraid to be sharp-tongued in my presence. But before I could explode, he shifted direction and said to everyone: “Has it occurred to any of you that the more people passively recognize Shaluo, the fewer people will actively recognize her, and the lower the possibility of her curse being broken?”

At these words, everyone in the room froze.

I suddenly thought of something, and asked them all: “How did you all end up appearing by my side without any prior arrangement? You are all customers of Bu Ting, but you don’t know each other. And you said Mu Sheng had been tampered with — any information about me could not be transmitted outside. So…” I looked at Cang Tongkai and Xuan. “You were the first to learn my identity. During the time I was unconscious — what exactly happened?”

Cang Tongkai shook his head firmly: “We didn’t notify anyone. We don’t know any of the miscellaneous associates you have at all!”

Before he had even finished, Gu Wuming punched him, and grabbed his ear, saying: “Little cat demon — everyone here is your elder. Watch what you say!”

Ku Yue fluttered his wings, and from the empty air shook loose a festively red envelope. “We received this,” he said.

Jiu Jue and Gu Wuming also produced the same thing.

I opened the envelope — inside was, of all things, a wedding invitation.

Why a wedding invitation? I opened the card that gave off a sweet fragrance, reading the characters carved into the red background line by line.

I did not take in anything else. What I saw was only —

Groom: Ao Chi. Bride: Shaluo — respectfully invite your presence.

What a glaring set of characters.

I was getting married — and apparently, I myself did not know.

Of course, that was not even the most important part. What was important was the person I was “being married off to” — Ao Chi!

That name, at this moment, was enough for emotion to utterly defeat reason.

The time and place of the wedding indicated on the invitation: tomorrow evening, midnight, at the foot of Fulong Mountain, the Eastern Sea Villa.

At the very end, one more line of small text: Guests are requested to arrive by noon on the day before the wedding at No. 179, XX Street, XX City, “Mu Sheng,” where they will be received by: Cang Tongkai, Xuan.

“I swear — we were all quite baffled by this,” Cang Tongkai said. “You were being married off, and Xuan and I inexplicably became the reception hosts. A big crowd showed up at Mu Sheng around noon, everyone asking all sorts of questions. Then when we compared notes, we realized someone had played a trick on all of us without us knowing.”

The situation was developing in ways more and more beyond anyone’s expectations. I could not help but think of the card I had drawn that day — the Devil card.

Perhaps the Devil who had never shown himself was indeed already drawing closer — not only to us, but to the entire world we inhabited — step by step.

I looked out the window at the darkening sky and saw again that vision-like sight: those grayish-black dark currents, thicker now than before, reached out their claws and swallowed the remaining light, yet were still not satisfied, greedily without end.

IX

My heart suddenly lurched with unease. The wedding invitation in my hand was crumpled into a ball.

“This sky looks… truly indescribably ominous.” Ku Yue hovered at the window, then flew back. “I seem to have a strange premonition that tomorrow I won’t see the sun rise.” He was not alone in this feeling. Everyone else felt it too. Even I, a temporary “mortal,” could feel that something was wrong — to say nothing of this group of demons with their considerable cultivation.

After a pause, Ku Yue added: “I just went to Bu Ting. I didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. Those strange things originating from the shop seem to be completely dormant in the daytime. I didn’t see that woman — only Fatty and Skinny fighting over food. Last night’s slaughter left no trace behind in the daylight.”

Everyone looked at each other.

“Is there somewhere I could go and hide? Your circle of acquaintances is truly… far too chaotic!” Zhang Daxia the puppet, who had been cowering in the corner the whole time, listening and not daring to speak, cautiously shuffled over with a sorrowful expression and asked.

Ah — now that I thought of it, I still hadn’t questioned Zhang Daxia about his origins. Earlier, when I needed to keep afloat, I had gone looking for a part-time helper who could make cotton candy on a try-it-and-see basis. I had thought my luck was good — barely two streets out and I had spotted Zhang Daxia selling cotton candy on a street corner. At that time he had still been human, or at least I assumed he was. What had pleased me most was that right beside his feet sat a sign that said “Seeking part-time work.” We had immediately hit it off — and crucially, the wage he asked for was small enough that I could entirely afford it.

At that time, his appearance had felt like a miraculous gift of warmth in the snow for someone who had just fallen on hard times as I had. In my joy, I had never stopped to think that Zhang Daxia’s appearance had been a little too conveniently coincidental.

I grabbed Zhang Daxia and said sharply: “Tell me the truth — was your appearance a coincidence or deliberate? Speak! Otherwise I’ll let them take you apart and use you for firewood!”

At these words, everyone’s eyebrows shot up. Jiu Jue in particular let out a snort of laughter and gave me a thumbs-up: “Tsk tsk — now that’s more like you.”

“I… I… I don’t know…” Zhang Daxia grew even more flustered, his deep brown wooden face nearly sweating. “I was sleeping in the ground… someone dragged me out and turned me into a human… told me to pretend to be a cotton candy vendor and wait for you to come… told me to look after your daily needs…”

It truly had been premeditated!

“Who sent you!” I grabbed Zhang Daxia’s shoulders and shook vigorously.

“I really don’t know!” Zhang Daxia pleaded tearfully for mercy. “Please spare me… I only know he was far more powerful than me… his spiritual power… very strong… he was invisible… said if I didn’t cooperate, he’d take me apart and use me for firewood…” He extended his rigid wooden palm, pressed it to his belly, and a small hidden compartment opened at his ribs. He then took out a bead the size of a pigeon’s egg and handed it over trembling with fear, saying: “Th-this is the payment he gave me… I don’t dare keep it anymore… I’ll give it all to you! Please let me go… while it’s still daytime… I’m scared!”

Jiu Jue took the bead to examine it and said: “Isn’t this the Eastern Sea thousand-year clam pearl? Worth a fortune.”

The Eastern Sea? I slammed the table. Ao Chi… this fellow must be nearby!

But Jiu Jue and the others all said they had not sensed any aura in the vicinity connected to the Eastern Sea Dragon Clan — a species of such powerful nature.

Had my instincts been wrong?

“Go,” I said, releasing Zhang Daxia, upon which he scrambled out of Mu Sheng as fast as his legs would carry him.

I stood, pressed the crumpled wedding invitation flat against the table with my hand, raised my head and said: “For such an important wedding, how could I bear not to attend?”

I knew there was no villa called “Eastern Sea” at the foot of Fulong Mountain. I also knew that this so-called wedding more closely resembled a trap at the feast. I further knew that once I went, I would have no road back.

Even so, I must attend “my” wedding.

Mu — and your master — was our confrontation not about to begin?

And you, Ao Chi — if you’ve truly returned, why won’t you come and find me?

“If we’re going to Fulong Mountain, we’ll need to set off fairly soon. The place is quite far,” Ku Yue reminded us.

“Good. That’s what we’ll do — eat something first, then depart for Fulong Mountain.” I drew a deep breath, my expression carrying a touch of the solemnity of one resigned to facing death.

X

“If you ever truly get married someday, promise me — never choose to hold the wedding in the middle of the night in early winter!” Jiu Jue stood at the summit of Fulong Mountain, breathing into his hands and rubbing them together, saying this very seriously.

It was still early morning. Jiu Jue had brought me up to the mountain summit.

Standing in this place I knew as well as a part of my own body, with the increasingly bone-chilling mountain wind blowing around me, looking down at the scenery below and the distant sea of clouds, my thoughts were clean and tranquil as a lake without a ripple.

I was always running from place to place, forgetting what it meant to belong somewhere — until I came back here.

The cave where I once lived with Zi Miao: the colorless flowers were still in their old spot, leaves and branches swaying, unchanged. My fingers traced over thirty marks carved into the stone wall outside the cave.

I had carved these myself — my way of marking time.

My first thirty years after taking human form and coming into this world were spent here. In those days, this place had warm sunlight, changing seasons, my happy laughter, and Zi Miao’s gentle presence. And, of course, Ao Chi’s unwavering companionship.

The peach blossoms are still here; the faces I knew are utterly changed.

The loneliness I had as a tree ended here, and the solitude I have as Shaluo began here anew.

Is this what they call a cycle?

“Your expression doesn’t look like someone going to a wedding — it looks like someone going to a funeral,” Jiu Jue said lightly from behind me, with a smile. “The person I know is not a pessimist. Has your appearance changed along with your personality?”

I did not even bicker with him. I only said: “Just take me this far. You don’t need to accompany me tonight.”

The meal we ate before leaving — I had quietly tampered with it. With Jiu Jue’s assistance, something conducive to sleep had been added to the food and drink of Cang Tongkai’s group.

If something bad was truly going to happen, I hoped it would involve only me.

Jiu Jue said nothing. He turned and walked to the highest point of the mountain summit, stretched lazily, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. He only checked his watch and said: “It’s almost ten o’clock — why is the sky still as dark as before dawn?”

“Already ten o’clock?” I had thought it was still very early.

The sea of clouds I had observed for a thousand years — without sunlight to illuminate them, each layer resembled the sea surface under a night sky, rolling with black and white intertwined waves. The hushed sounds of the wind and the dim, murky light all around were evidently misleading every person’s sense of time, turning black and white upside down.

Why, at this hour, had it still not grown light?

A solar eclipse? It could not last this long.

“Deeply wrong.” Jiu Jue murmured, then turned to give me a smile. “Little tree demon — whether you agree to it or not, tonight I’m coming to drink your wedding wine.”

The sound of the wind turned strange — a moaning sound spiraling up from the foot of the mountain, one gust stronger than the last. It began like a child crying softly, and became the wailing of a multitude. Those who heard it could not suppress a shudder.

I peered down at the base of the mountain that could not be seen to its bottom, and suddenly said to Jiu Jue: “You know — many people died wrongful deaths here in those early years. They regarded me as a divine tree that could fulfill their wishes, and without any regard for their own lives, sought to climb up and worship me, hoping I would bestow happiness on them. I — who was lonely to the point of boredom — greatly enjoyed being treated as a god, relishing the feeling of being adored, while watching countless men and women, young and old, slip and fall in the course of their climbing.”

“I know. Zi Miao told me. It was also his reason for keeping you close to cultivate. But there is no need for you to be troubled by it. Those you have saved already far outnumber those who perished because of you.” Jiu Jue patted my head and said this.

We sat side by side on that large flat rock, my head resting on Jiu Jue’s shoulder. The two of us looked at the scene before us — comparable to the end of the world — as though admiring the most beautiful scenery in existence.

The sky showed absolutely no sign of brightening. The wind and the moon grew more and more fierce. The sand and stone at the mountaintop were blown every direction, clattering down the mountainside in a continuous cascade, making cracking sounds like countless people having their necks twisted, their bones shattered to pieces.

The closer to evening it came, the heavier the smell of death grew.

I reached into my coat pocket, took out the Death card, looked at it, and put it back.

I would carry it with me always.

XI

When Jiu Jue’s watch hands pointed to midnight, he and I stood before the massive three-story villa and looked at the four characters reading “Eastern Sea Villa” on the great door. We could not help but exchange a smile.

When we had come here in the morning, this patch of ground had been a desolate, uninhabited hollow. In a mere ten-odd hours, a great building had risen from the level ground.

White marble covered the entire structure. At this moment — when day and night were completely confounded — it stood here conspicuous and jarring, like a great pile of accumulated white bones: cold and hard. The two “double happiness” characters affixed on the left and right stone columns flanking the great door were gaudy enough but fell short of festive, always calling to mind the image of a woman with a pale complexion who wore lips painted an excessively vivid red.

The door suddenly opened, sliding slowly to both sides. The people within seemed to know that “guests” were standing outside.

Several young women, all looking exactly alike, all wearing exactly the same scarlet qipao, smiled warmly at Jiu Jue and me — their faces and voices identical: “Guests have arrived — this way please! The wedding is about to begin!”

The moment we stepped inside, the great door slowly closed behind us. The sound of two thick slabs of stone meeting together was enough to make one’s heart sink several inches.

The young women who served as our guides each moved with extraordinary lightness, threading through a corridor lined on both sides with flowers, emitting peals of light laughter as they walked. Exquisite wall lamps were spaced every two meters, their pale blue lampshades carved with spinning wheels and feathers. The light that seeped from beneath them came not from bulbs, but from white candles standing upright one by one.

The qipao-clad women were not walking — they were gliding across the floor, or rather, floating. Those slender, beautiful little feet in their red high heels were slightly tiptoed, the heels never once touching the ground.

They walked for nearly five minutes before stopping before a tall set of doors in the Baroque style.

“Distinguished guests have arrived!” They split into two rows, pushed the doors open for us, and cried out in high, sharp voices.

I must confess — no matter how I heard this cry of “Distinguished guests have arrived!”, it sounded to me exactly like “Mourners have come!” as called out at a funeral rite.

What Jiu Jue’s ill-omened mouth had said was actually rather apt — I looked nothing at all like someone attending a wedding. It was, indeed, a funeral.

Beyond the great doors: ablaze with light, every piece of furniture against the white floor was red — red tables, red chairs, red vases, even the wine bottles and glasses were translucent red glass. On the semicircular stage at the far end of the hall, a band was performing: cellos and Chinese flutes, East and West combined, lively and grand. Every musician without exception wore red formal dress and held a red instrument.

My gaze was nearly drowned in a sea of crimson.

Yes — my first impression was not red. It was blood-colored.

Countless “distinguished guests” who had arrived before us danced in the center of the hall — men and women, young and old, every one dressed in finery, radiant and brilliant. Everyone was deeply absorbed, enormously happy, every face glowing with broad smiles, their dance steps graceful. No one spared an extra glance at Jiu Jue or me. Everyone was completely immersed in the ocean of happiness.

Along both sides of the hall, the long banquet tables were covered with a sumptuous, almost extravagant spread of richly colored food and drink. Young attendants — all with identical faces — dressed in small red waistcoats with red bow ties, added food to guests’ bowls with practiced attentiveness.

Every window bore a “double happiness” character, each stroke entirely at odds with this place that was neither Eastern nor Western, neither new nor old, neither human nor demon. On the wall to the west, a screen nearly as large as the wall itself displayed a live feed of the entire hall — the flaring hems of dresses, the floating music and laughter — all weaving together in the camera’s constant shifts into a strange composition.

My gaze dropped to the lower left corner of the screen, and I felt a sudden inward start.

Adjacent to the stage stood a great spinning wheel reaching the height of two people — half golden, half black, with an arrow-shaped pointer at its center. At the heart of the wheel, a brilliant crystal-like multi-colored gem flowed with wonderful colored light that radiated outward in ring after ring, spreading through the entire hall. Directly beneath the wheel stood an intricately crafted set of scales, the weighing pans and stand carved with strange pictographic characters. From my innate sensitivity to gold, I could judge that these scales were made of solid gold throughout — and from their structure and ornamentation, they were ancient, not a newly made decoration.

“Such a thick demonic energy…” Jiu Jue looked at the luminous body within the wheel and coughed in some discomfort, then said in a low voice with a smile: “This is the most un-wedding-like wedding I have ever seen.”

“Demonic energy…” I naturally could not sense it, and only gestured toward the guests and said: “They presumably aren’t all human.”

Jiu Jue shook his head: “They are precisely all human.” He glanced at the attendants, and at the qipao-clad women who passed through the hall from time to time. “These, however, are not — you blunt tree demon.”

“Of course I know those aren’t,” I said, glancing at him. “No human walks with their heels never touching the ground.” Then I paused at my own words — not human, and heels never touching the ground… I suddenly recalled a certain legend. Looking again at the towering spinning wheel and scales, they possessed none of the aesthetic appeal of mere “decorations.” They radiated only a severity bordering on cruelty — an absolute fairness, and an immense pressure. Standing before them, one instinctively placed oneself on the invisible bench of judgment, awaiting a verdict.

What a vivid, strange sensation.

In this hall, though magnificent furnishings could be seen everywhere — dazzling to the eye, many of them ten times more gorgeous in appearance than these two objects — anyone with even a measure of discernment should recognize who the true protagonists of this place were.

Spinning wheel, scales… women whose heels never touch the ground…

I suddenly thought of a person. But — could it be? Had he not always existed as someone belonging to “another world”?

I instinctively tightened my grip on Jiu Jue’s arm and was about to speak when I suddenly spotted, in the crowd, two figures I knew more intimately than I knew myself — Fatty and Skinny, carrying an enormously overloaded plate of food, eating and laughing. When a beautiful woman walked by, Skinny’s gaze still stuck to her like super glue.

What on earth were these two idiots doing here? Did they not know this was a dragon’s den?

Oh, right — today was “Shaluo’s” wedding. Their proprietress was getting married; their presence was entirely natural.

The two of them seemed to spot me as well, and hurried over happily, saying: “Proprietress invited Miss Mu too! Wonderful — finally a familiar face!”

With those two, any pretty woman was a familiar face — this I understood well. Only — you two truly don’t know you’re on the brink of death!

Skinny glanced at Jiu Jue beside me, then asked in a strange tone: “You’re Uncle Jiu Jue, aren’t you? Why aren’t you going in to find the proprietress? Surely you don’t worry about abandoning your new flame…” He pointed at me with an insinuating smile.

I slapped away Skinny’s grubby paw and said indignantly: “Why don’t you get back to Bu Ting this instant?!”

“Wow, why so fierce all of a sudden? Weren’t you always a perfectly refined young lady…” Skinny rubbed the hand I had slapped red, looking aggrieved.

At this moment, the wedding march suddenly rang out. A cheer erupted from the crowd. Several large beams of rose-colored light converged simultaneously on the stage that had so far been without its central figures.

The lights dazzled my eyes. The applause seized my heart. Every bit of my attention fell on that great door slowly opening on the left side of the stage.

Only now did I realize: a wedding dress truly is the most beautiful garment a woman wears in her lifetime.

I stood here in a daze, watching another “me” — led tenderly by the hand of the man who had remained beside me for a thousand years — appear and walk forward.

The white wedding dress had no elaborate ornamentation, simple and distinctive, with the only extravagance being a slender diamond-studded waist chain — exactly right to set off a brilliance that was eye-catching without being ostentatious. The graceful figure beneath the dress leaned shyly toward the man beside her, half a step behind him, in an attitude of complete willingness to follow wherever he led. Her manner led onlookers to feel, from the heart, that even if cliffs lay ahead, as long as this man was holding her hand, she would leap without hesitation.

Because of trust. Because of dependence.

That kind of feeling cannot be performed.

But that woman is Mu — could she truly have reached such a depth of skill that she could replicate even emotions convincingly?

Or… had something truly happened between her and Ao Chi that I knew nothing about?

About this, I felt both suspicious and something that stung like a needle.

His physique was still as tall and strong as ever — those broad shoulders always called to mind the most unassailable of mountain ranges. He still habitually held his head slightly raised, his gaze always looking somewhere higher than others. His power and arrogance he never concealed. That face, which I had always suspected could only have been carved by supernatural craft, remained as handsome as ever — untouched by time, showing no weathering, no signs of hardship.

The one thing that had changed was his warmth.

Standing so far from him, I still felt it instinctively — he had lost the warmth I remembered.

Yes. In my memories, that treacherous dragon was the second sun in my world. This comparison may not be beautiful enough, but I find it most apt. His being truly possessed every element belonging to that blazing disk in the sky — scorching heat, brilliance, even ferocity.

Warmth was Ao Chi’s defining mark.

In our years of daily companionship, I did not even need to open my eyes. From that onrushing tide — perceptible only to me and noticed by no one else — I knew he was drawing close to me.

In those days I did not understand, and assumed I simply disliked him so intensely that my body was having an “allergic reaction.”

Later, I came to understand: that was what they call a connection.

The person I lost twenty years ago is now right before me, holding another woman’s hand.

They stand side by side. They gaze at each other with deep feeling. They bloom with smiles toward one another.

He gives a toast to the assembled guests, welcoming everyone and asking them to witness the most important moment of their lives — his delivery high-profile and generous, yet refined and courteous, his emotions practiced and assured, as though rehearsed countless times, waiting only for this flawless public appearance.

I refuse to acknowledge that man as him. How terrified I am of hearing him make solemn vows to someone else.

A tree demon of a thousand years, thinking herself extraordinary, believing that having seen a thousand sails, she could watch the mortal world with a smile — that love, hate, joy, and sorrow were no more than fleeting wisps of smoke, the idle amusements of ordinary people.

Yet watching Ao Chi reach for someone else’s hand, I understand at last that all those years of “self-possession” were nothing but self-deception.

In the end, I am still a woman whose emotions have overpowered her reason — no different from anyone else. A woman just as “ordinary” as the next.

The gleaming ring, held between his long and slender fingers.

“I have waited for you to wear this ring for countless centuries.”

I hear his slightly hoarse voice. I see Mu — the woman impersonating me — bashfully extend her fingers.

Can you truly not tell that the person before you is not the Shaluo you seek?

The guests’ applause grew even more thunderous. The cheering drowned out everything. Even Fatty and Skinny rushed up to the front of the stage to join the commotion.

Clang!

The diamond ring in Ao Chi’s hand — just about to be slipped onto the “bride’s” finger — was knocked to the floor by a silver gleaming spoon. It rolled and rolled off the edge of the stage and disappeared from sight.

The entire room fell silent, then erupted into a clamor. Everyone turned their heads to see who had the audacity to ruin a ceremony in progress by using a spoon as a projectile.

For a period I was quite taken with darts and had even entered a world championship, placing in the top three. But that had nothing to do with spiritual power. I respect the spirit of athletics and believe in fair play. Though it has been a long time since I last played, my standards have dropped somewhat — but using a spoon to knock a ring to the floor is not difficult.

I had no intention of playing “who can stay calmer” with anyone any longer. The situation had long since been a web of dangerous undercurrents, every mystery on the verge of erupting. If one side must deliver the first declaration of war — fine. I would.

Faced with this whole sequence of encounters and upheavals, my patience had reached its absolute limit.

The bright table knife turned in practiced hands. I raised my head, met the searching and then confused gazes of everyone in the room, and said with a smile: “Yes. I did it.”

They began to buzz with murmurs. Many eyes showing obvious anger.

“Who is this madwoman?”

“Ruining someone’s wedding — what a strange creature!”

“Truly unpleasant — everything was going so well!”

I walked unhurriedly toward the stage. People parted automatically on both sides, as though making way for a plague.

“Who are you?” Ao Chi pulled his bride behind him, frowning at me.

I had expected him to say “Are you looking for death?” and then leap down and beat me soundly. That would have been like him.

“Why not beat me half to death first and interrogate me after? That really isn’t like you.” I tilted my chin and asked with a smile. “Has marriage truly made a person grow up? Even you, Ao Chi, couldn’t escape?”

“Who are you?” He stepped forward, looking down at me from above.

“Be careful…” The “Shaluo” reached up solicitously to grasp his arm, glanced at me, and said: “This woman is of unknown origin. She is not on my guest list.”

Ao Chi patted her hand, then turned to say to me: “Today is my wedding. I have no wish to raise my hand against anyone. Before I lose my temper, you had best leave. Someone — show this guest out!”

The qipao women and male attendants appeared immediately, as if apparitions. I couldn’t even make out where so many of them had come from.

Of course, Jiu Jue moved faster. He pulled me behind him in one motion, formed a hand seal, recited a silent chant, and called out lightly: “Scatter!”

A fierce wind, carrying its own distinctive scent of mellow wine, burst from his palms like the roar of a dragon and the howl of a tiger, sweeping toward the enemy. Not one of Ao Chi’s subordinates escaped. The entire hall was in an instant covered in black sand, murky and filthy.

Jiu Jue let out a breath and winked at me: “Mass deletion — for now, that kind of thing can only be left to me.”

“Good!” I gave him a rare thumbs-up, but unexpectedly caught a faint strangeness in his expression, and asked quietly: “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” He shook his head. “I may have overexerted just now. Feeling a bit dizzy. You know I haven’t fought a group battle in a long time.”

“That, by the way —” I suddenly asked: “Is that really Ao Chi?”

I could not rely on instinct alone. I needed factual confirmation.

“What radiates from him is indeed the ‘royal aura’ unique to the Eastern Sea Dragon Clan.” Jiu Jue furrowed his brow slightly. “Only — this ‘royal aura’ seems to be… ‘dead.'”

“Insolence!”

A soul-shaking roar. Ao Chi vaulted into the air, his forceful fist crashing downward from mid-air, aimed directly at the crown of Jiu Jue’s head.

I had never imagined a day would come when Ao Chi and Jiu Jue would come to blows. The two men tangled together. Two kinds of spiritual power drove their techniques into fierce collision in empty space. On the floor, on the walls, hole after hole and crack after crack appeared, innocent casualties of their battle.

I could see that Jiu Jue was attacking little and defending much, while Ao Chi’s every move aimed at Jiu Jue’s life.

“Oh dear, oh dear — Miss Mu the great beauty, what are you stirring things up for! It’s quite unnecessary!” Fatty and Skinny, seeing things turn bad, came to drag me off to one side, their faces panicked. “Look at this — a perfectly good wedding, reduced to this state? That’s our proprietress up there regardless — could you give her some face and let her finish getting married before settling scores?”

I could not stand these two idiots! I punched Skinny in the face and snapped: “What do you know?! She will not be getting married today — not a chance!”

“Are people who are good-looking always this bad-tempered?” Fatty was intimidated by my ferocity and retreated muttering behind Skinny’s back.

Jiu Jue was gradually losing ground. His movements grew slower and slower, each exchange more and more labored. Unable to dodge in time, he was struck by one of Ao Chi’s blows to the left ribs — his entire body crashed into the ornately carved marble column behind him, slamming a large chunk out of that thick pillar. Debris flew; the column teetered on the verge of collapse.

Jiu Jue’s face had gone pale. A bout of violent coughing shook him; he couldn’t even find the strength to stand. This was the most wretched state I had ever seen him in, utterly without precedent in his life.

But this was wrong. Jiu Jue’s cultivation surpassed mine. Even against an opponent of the Eastern Sea Dragon Clan, there was no certainty he would fall short — and he could not possibly have been defeated this quickly.

Jiu Jue was on the ground. The killing intent in Ao Chi’s eyes flared. He appeared before him in an instant’s movement. A blade, gleaming with cold light, appeared in his hand — I did not know when — and plunged straight for Jiu Jue’s throat.

At the critical moment, Jiu Jue shifted his body sideways. The blade plunged into the floor, nearly buried to the hilt.

“Stop!”

Before Ao Chi could pull the knife back out, I — like a fierce little beast — used this slight and slender body to slam into him, sending him stumbling, and he fell to the ground.

“Are you out of your mind? That’s Jiu Jue!” I charged in before he could get up. Heedless of everything, I pressed down on him, bracing my elbow against his neck, and gritted out: “Open your eyes and look clearly! Ao Chi — what curse has been put on you?”

“I’ll count to three. Get off me. I don’t attack women.” He looked at me coldly. “But if you continue to cause trouble, I will reduce you to ash and smoke.”

“You people are going too far!” From the stage, where she had shown no sign of movement, the bride at last spoke up, wearing the face of a victim.

On the face that was “mine,” I saw a twisted expression — not anger, not worry. It was a long-harbored satisfaction at a great undertaking nearing completion.

She stood alone on the stage, carefully and elegantly straightening her slightly disheveled skirt. The snow-white expanse of the wedding dress sketched out, in the swaying light, an isolated pride and yearning. Beneath her feet was no longer the floor scattered with flower petals, but that coarse and warm earth I remembered — at the foot of Fulong Mountain. She was still as she had always been: standing alone in the center, no matter how many people surrounded her. She was still that solitary, stunted little locust tree, yearning to become someone else.

If she were truly a bride, she did not shine brightly enough — no matter how happily she smiled.

“You people are going too far!”

“You people are going too far!”

The guests who had been cowering to one side suddenly began repeating her words, one after another. They repeated and repeated, in every conceivable pitch and tone — high, low, coarse, fine — forming in my ears a thoroughly unpleasant chorus. This chorus had only one melody, only one line of lyrics, and only one clear message: I was a monster, to be done away with as quickly as possible.

The guests pressed closer. Some reached down and picked up the knives and forks on the floor; some lifted up wine glasses with broken stems, letting the jagged edges sink deep into their palms, bleeding without concern.

The crowd moved at considerable speed — as though they were no longer people, but a school of piranhas collectively hunting in the sea.

I felt a surge of dread.

In a distracted moment, Ao Chi lifted me with a single sweep and planted his foot on my back, with a force that would have snapped my bones.

“Don’t hurt her!” Jiu Jue struggled to stand, and before reaching my side was struck by Ao Chi’s palm strike, sent flying backward like a sandbag — luckily Fatty appeared at just the right moment and served as a human cushion.

Skinny slipped through the crowd like a mole and sidled up to Ao Chi, wrapping himself around his legs: “Lord Ao Chi — just let them go. Disrupting a wedding is certainly terrible, but surely there’s no need to deal with them so forcefully! “

“Yes, yes, Lord Ao Chi — you’re practically the proprietress’s husband already! This person is the proprietress’s good friend. Give him a little face and let him go. Perhaps he had too much to drink today in his excitement and ended up doing these outrageous things!” Fatty supported the strength-drained Jiu Jue and pleaded with Ao Chi repeatedly, then turned his head to the “Shaluo” and called out loudly: “Proprietress, say something! You and Uncle Jiu Jue have always been on very good terms, haven’t you?”

“If he were truly my friend, he would not ruin my wedding.” She said only this one line.

In this moment, I felt genuine guilt toward having docked Fatty’s and Skinny’s wages all those times in the past. At a crucial moment, it was these two cowards who actually dared to stand up and speak.

“When did it become your turn to speak?!”

Ao Chi, with blood in his eyes, was further enraged by their “fearlessness.” He raised his palm toward Fatty and Skinny.

“No… don’t hurt them!” I struggled with all my strength beneath his foot, unable even to turn over.

A white light, wrapped in densely clustered blood-spot-like objects, burst from his palm into the hearts of Fatty and Skinny.

The two of them let out muffled groans. Their bodies immediately shrank and became two earthworms scrambling about on the ground in alarm — one fat, one thin.

Yes. Fatty and Skinny were two of the most ordinary worm demons imaginable, their cultivation modest, useless for everything outside of making desserts and eyeing pretty women.

Ao Chi cast a cold glance at me, suddenly removed his foot, and kicked me as one would kick a dead dog. The enormous force sent me sliding across the floor, knocking over several guests who were walking at the front of the pressing crowd.

I rolled my body in time to avoid a knife and fork that nearly went into my eye — yet a burst of severe pain still shot through my lower leg: a large-framed man had grabbed my left leg tightly, a dinner knife buried deep in my flesh.

“You people are going too far!” He gripped the knife handle and still repeated these words.

This body is not mine, but that did nothing whatsoever to interfere with the transmission of pain.

I kicked the man squarely in the face. The strength drawn out by the pain snapped his nasal bone in one blow. He fell backward with his hands over his nose, his face drenched in blood.

“You people are going too far!” These cries, higher than the last, converged above my head, seeming to cut off even the air available for me to breathe.

That kick from Ao Chi had delivered me perfectly into the midst of that crowd that had gone completely mad. I was surrounded on all sides by those pressing in. On the other side, Jiu Jue’s situation was no better — the attacking crowd had entirely engulfed him. People fell intermittently, knives, forks, or shards of glass protruding from their heads or chests. A stout middle-aged woman was flung into mid-air, and appearing alongside her was a great earthworm leaping high — striking her on the head with its tail. That was Fatty.

One pair of fists is no match for four hands — let alone more than four hundred. Jiu Jue’s abnormal weakness was more and more evident. Even with Fatty’s help, it was no more than a mantis trying to stop a chariot. They fought desperately, trying to work their way toward me, but with little effect.

I wove and dodged through this chaos of retreating people. The weapons in their hands came at me like a rain of blows. I punched, kicked, blocked — I used every trick I had — yet injuries accumulated on my body even so. My clothes were on the verge of turning as red as the “double happiness” characters on the wall. Had Skinny not resolved half the attacks directed at me, I should already have been turned into a dead porcupine.

On the stage, that pair of figures watched us fighting for our lives as though watching a show.

Almost every usable weapon had been taken up by those people. Skinny and I were like ants scrambling for our lives in a crevice — each of their attacks could be fatal. When we had just beaten back the ten-odd closest assailants, Skinny bit my collar with his teeth and slipped through a momentary gap in the battle ring, temporarily leaving that mob of lunatics behind.

On the other side, Fatty dragged Jiu Jue out of the siege as well. Both of them were already covered in wounds.

We sprinted toward the main door. The pursuers drew closer and closer behind us.

The tightly shut white doors were nearly within reach — but a small figure stood blocking the way before them.

A little girl with butterfly bows in her hair, four or five years old, both hands clenched tightly into fists, her body curled up small, whimpering continuously, calling out: “Mama I’m scared I’m scared!”

“A human…” Jiu Jue frowned and said. “The main door has been sealed with a boundary formation. Quickly move her out of the way, and I’ll open the door.”

This little girl was the only person in this entire place, that I had seen, who did not say “you people are going too far.” I quickly stepped forward, scooped her up, and retreated behind Jiu Jue.

“Step back a little further.” Jiu Jue turned his head, smiled at me palely. “If I exhaust everything I have and still cannot open this door — smash my true form. Inside is a core. Though it won’t be of great help to you, it will at least make you ten times stronger than you are now. Remember this!”

“Get out of here — what nonsense!” My heart sank, and I said loudly: “Focus on opening the door!”

Jiu Jue smiled, turned around, and drew a deep breath.

The small girl in my arms held on tightly, still trembling, crying and calling for her mama.

“Don’t cry — your mama will come find you in just a moment!” I patted her back clumsily.

“Liar!” The child suddenly stopped crying, raised her head, and slowly whispered in a childlike voice into my ear: “You people are going too far!”

A jolt ran through me, and I let go, setting the child down.

She looked up at me, giggling, then ran off, stopping at a distance from me. She shook the fist she had been clenching, then yanked it down hard.

A barely perceptible beam of light flashed from her hand. Only then did I see: the little girl’s fist was gripping a silver thread no thicker than a strand of hair.

From above my head came the sound of metal cracking and collapsing, followed by a rushing flood of water.

I looked up sharply. The three metal chains holding the great rose-colored bowl-shaped chandelier had — impossibly — just had two of them snap. The great “bowl” instantly toppled, and a massive stream of amber liquid, permeated with black vapor, poured downward from within, at a speed so fast that in the blink of an eye it was already above my head.

Within this waterfall of liquid, countless horrifying human faces pressed and tumbled against each other, tongues extending from their mouths like flicking snakes.

I would be dissolved. That was the only thought. And my feet seemed to be glued to the floor — another trick of the little girl — impossible to move.

At the critical moment, two shadows — serpent-like, dragon-like — radiating light so faint as to be almost imperceptible, shot at lightning speed from both sides of my body, crossing above me to form a great “cross” spinning rapidly. All the falling liquid was sucked into the center of the cross with a whooshing sound, not a drop reaching the floor, not a drop touching my body.

In less than five seconds, all was still overhead. I crouched with my hands over my head, and saw only two great earthworms — corroded to a deep red all over, not a scrap of unruined flesh from inside to outside — fall heavily before me. Black smoke rose from the two completely lifeless bodies.

Proprietress, I demand a raise! Proprietress, I didn’t eat it secretly! Proprietress, you really are like a demon! Proprietress… Proprietress…

Fatty’s and Skinny’s faces, and those voices that had always annoyed me so profoundly, suddenly crashed all at once into my mind.

Fatty and Skinny were dead.