Prologue

His resting place sat at the highest point in all of Moon City — a tower built from discarded metal, glinting beneath a full, golden moon with the chaotic light of blades clashing in every direction.

Lying atop a crumbling billboard at the base of the tower, someone had written words in bright red paint — words no one could make sense of, with letters exaggerated and enormous, so vivid that even the night couldn’t steal their visibility. His face held no expression. Only his heart beat on slowly, waiting for a fate already written.

Earlier that morning, he had gone to visit an old friend. That woman — no, that female demon — was perhaps the only true friend he’d ever had in his entire life.

Had it been three hundred years they hadn’t seen each other, or five hundred? She was the same as ever — captivating and spirited, laughing and scolding with equal ease, running a little dessert shop in a narrow alley, hollering at two workers who looked thoroughly dim, wearing the serene air of someone who had shed all vanity and retreated into the world, entirely unbothered by its troubles.

Who could have imagined that once, in some distant dusk of a distant age, the two of them had stood together at the peak of Ink Mountain — where the very breath turned to ice — on the surface of Huangquan Lake, half frozen and half aflame, fighting side by side against a twin-headed crimson-finned serpent that had devoured countless lives?

She had been extraordinary then — her long hair like a blade of snow, a flip of her hand summoning rain, a turn of her palm calling forth wind, fleet as a leopard. That massive, fearsome creature had spat its red tongue and thrashed against the dying sun, its churning waves blocking out half the sky.

He had watched her sword trace a beautiful and steady arc in the pale golden light, precise and certain, driving cleanly into the scarlet serpent’s throat.

When that colossal beast crashed into the lake, its vivid blue blood spread rapidly across the entire surface — like a reflection of the rarest sky.

“You’re the most ruthless demon I’ve ever seen.” He glanced at her, drew his blade, split open the serpent’s spine, and pulled from within it a cord the thickness of a thumb, wound it into coils, and slipped it into his pocket.

She scooped up snow from the ground and cleaned her sword carefully, smiling: “Likewise.”

“Can we be friends?” He suddenly stopped in his tracks just before leaving.

Before that day, the word “friend” had never existed in his life.

“If you treat me to a good meal and throw in a crate of gold bars…” She rose, shrugged, stuck her tongue out at him. “I might consider it.”

In the days that followed, he and she became friends. Though they didn’t meet often, and when they did, it was only for a bout of carefree drinking until the world blurred — when drunk enough, he would watch her laugh and carry on recklessly in her own drunkenness, until at last she would slump to the floor and fall asleep leaning against his knee.

He knew he and she were different. The ruthlessness on her sword’s edge existed only to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves. His blade, though it carried the same power, was another matter entirely.

One day, he went to find her and placed his most precious possession in her hands.

“Keep this safe for me.” He clapped her on the shoulder.

She looked at what he’d given her, silent for a long moment, then said: “You should think carefully. You may never get the chance to come back and retrieve it.”

“If that’s how it turns out…” he winked at her, turned, and walked away without a backward glance or a trace of attachment.

Several hundred years passed — sometimes slow as dripping water, sometimes fleet as a white horse vanishing past a gap in the fence, not a moment yielding to anyone’s will.

Yesterday, he sat in her shop Bu Ting and drank the bitter, bitter tea she had brewed him, and asked with perfect calm: “Don’t you want to know why I’ve come to take that thing back?”

“I only want to know how much you plan to pay me in storage fees.” She raised an eyebrow.

“You really haven’t changed at all.” He laughed.

She said nothing. She looked at him, drew a long breath, then stepped forward and wrapped him in a large embrace, holding on for a long, long time without letting go.

When he left, he looked back: “If I come to find you tomorrow — shall we drink until we can’t stand?”

“That depends on how many gold bars you’re bringing.” She stuck her tongue out at him.

Standing in the doorway, she watched his retreating figure, and the brightness that always danced at the corners of her eyes gradually took on a shadow of quiet worry — I will drink with you until we’re both senseless, just like so many days before. As long as you appear before me tomorrow, safe and sound.

That was what she told herself, in the silence of her heart.

001

Finding Ku Yue wasn’t particularly difficult. He was either sleeping or in a bar. He would order a drink but never touch it, lounging lazily from the afternoon into the dusk, spending that time reading through a book. Sometimes a fashion magazine, sometimes a collection of Lorca’s poems, sometimes just a dull novel or a comic.

He always chose a seat by the window, pulling the curtain halfway closed so the sunlight outside could fall into the room without quite reaching him. Nestled in the soft sofa, holding his book, his narrow eyes — violet irises — half-lidded, his dark chestnut hair lying soft against his forehead — he was indistinguishable from anyone else idling away a leisure afternoon. The more elite the bounty hunter, the simpler the daily life.

When the woman found him, he asked only his usual three questions: “Time? Location? Target?” In Ku Yue’s view, being a hired killer was no different from writing an essay — the only things that mattered were these three elements. Everything else, he didn’t care about.

Over the years, the number of demons he had killed was beyond counting, as was the wealth he’d earned in return — most of which he’d already spent buying properties across the world: apartments, villas, ordinary houses, like a child buying candy. He never lived in any of them. He simply let them sit there, gathering dust through the years.

“Once you have the box, kill him.” Beneath the wide brim of her black velvet hat, only half the woman’s face was visible — her beautiful lips painted in vivid lipstick. She pushed an entire bag of diamonds across to him. “This is half the payment.”

Location: Moon City, the SWORD District. Time: Within three months. Target: Ji Feiyu. Note: Before eliminating the target, obtain the peach-wood carved box in his possession — must be completely intact. (Additional fee applicable.)

Ku Yue jotted these points down in his notebook.

“When you kill those demons, do you ever feel sad?” The woman tilted her head slightly, revealing the fine, straight bridge of her nose and the deep curve of her smile.

“When you hire someone to kill them, do you?” he shot back.

“Heh.” She took a sip of her Lafite. “Why did you become a killer?”

“I deliver on time.” He didn’t even look up at her, turning pages in his book with a soft, continuous rustle.

The woman smiled, placed a banknote on the table, and said: “Well then. This drink’s on me. I’ll be waiting for good news.”

He nodded, listening as the sound of her heels on the floor gradually faded away. In the seat she had occupied, a faint, distinctive scent lingered in the air, winding through it, settling into the glimmering wine glass.

Ku Yue closed his book and left the bar.

Moon City — that remote border town — was still a very long distance from where he currently lived. Before he went there, he needed one good, proper sleep.

Only in dreams was he truly safe, truly at peace.

002

“Why are you sitting up so high?” Ku Yue stood in front of the bar called Butterfly Kisses, looking up at the person sitting on its rooftop.

The person shouted back: “Sunbathing!”

It was five-thirty in the afternoon, mid-summer, but the sky had already begun to dim — only a thin line of haze remained at the horizon. Moon City was so remote that it had even developed a time difference from the city he’d last lived in.

Every time he arrived in a new city, the first place he sought out was a bar. He needed ease — even manufactured ease. It had become a habit.

He looked in the direction the rooftop person was gazing, and saw only smokestacks belching black smoke between factories large and small, and the flickering, broken fragments of neon lights glimmering in the dusk. There were no grand buildings gleaming in neat rows, no clean and lavish nights fragrant with perfume. Every structure here was old — including the passing vehicles, and the people who lived here.

Every part of Moon City was as old as a photograph abandoned by time.

“Aren’t you hot?” He found himself curious about someone who liked to sit on a rooftop in midsummer and sunbathe while looking at this.

“Not at all!” the person answered with great enthusiasm.

In the distance, a few heavy, drawn-out bell tolls sounded. At the first peal, the rooftop figure shifted, as though about to come down.

Then, with a sharp whistle through the air, a stone shot out from an alley diagonally across from the bar — a prank — striking the person squarely on the backside. A shriek rang out, the figure swayed wildly, and tumbled off the rooftop.

Just as Ku Yue moved to catch the unfortunate soul, the person levitated less than a meter from the ground — arms spread wide like wings — and drifted gently down to land.

“You little dumpling, stop playing with that slingshot! Next time I’ll beat you to death!” The safely landed figure bellowed at a chubby boy — round as a steamed bun — hiding at the far end of the alley, while carefully tucking into a shoulder bag a small glass bottle that shimmered with a peculiar glow.

“Luo Ye-jie, I won’t dare do it again!” The little fatty brandished his slingshot, pulled a face at her, and bolted off with several giggling companions.

Ku Yue studied the girl — wearing a bleached-out white T-shirt and jeans frayed at the hems, a baseball cap with a hole in it pulled down over her head. She looked about sixteen or seventeen. Apart from her fair, delicate skin and petite frame, she looked nothing like a girl at all.

He glanced left and right, then stepped up and stared at her. “Excuse me — this is the SWORD District, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” She turned her head and looked accurately toward where he stood.

The last light at the horizon and the light from the bar’s entrance intertwined and fell across her face. Ku Yue noticed then that she had extraordinarily beautiful eyes — large and striking — but across those eyes that should have rivaled the stars lay a layer of dull, clouded shadow.

He reached out experimentally and waved a hand in front of her face. No reaction. Her gaze remained fixed on some imagined direction.

“Did you grow up here?” He withdrew his hand.

“I think so.” She nodded, then immediately took a wary step back. “Are you from outside?”

“I am.” Ku Yue asked with curiosity: “How did you know? Do I have an accent?”

“You don’t carry the scent of the people who live here.” She took another step back.

“Since you lost your sight, your sense of smell became this sharp?” He smiled, sniffing his own arm — nothing there but a faint, natural fragrance that was simply part of him.

“How did you get into Moon City?” As she retreated, both hands began searching for something that could serve as a weapon, finally picking up an iron dustpan from beside the trash bin at the bar’s entrance and gripping it tightly. From her posture, it seemed she might at any moment raise a shout about suspicious characters.

“Miss, I came here only to visit an old friend — with no ill intentions whatsoever.” Her manner made Ku Yue want to laugh. “I approached you simply to ask for directions.”

She clutched her “weapon” tighter, her sightless eyes locking with precise accuracy onto his position. Then, in the next instant, her long, dense lashes gave a sudden, subtle tremble.

Bang! A hard, cold object slammed into the back of Ku Yue’s head. Amid the spinning chaos of figures, he dropped to the ground.

003

“Release him.”

The dark, cold underground room was suffused with a pale and peculiar smell. A dim light swayed overhead. Four or five figures stood half-hidden in the rocking shadows, and the middle-aged man at the forefront looked at the bound-and-trussed Ku Yue and gave the order.

The younger men exchanged glances. A tall figure wearing a red headscarf and limping on his left leg spoke up: “Is that all right? We haven’t confirmed this fellow’s identity, and there’s less than two months left to the deadline. What if he was sent by the other side — any small slip could cause us to—”

“No one sends someone who gets knocked out that easily as a spy.” The middle-aged man said calmly. “Did you find anything suspicious on him?”

“Not really.” The red-scarved man grumbled. “Still, I’m not entirely at ease…”

“Release him.” The middle-aged man repeated. “Is my word no longer law?”

The group scrambled. Red Scarf hurried: “No, no, King — we’ll let him go at once.” Ku Yue rubbed his numb hands and feet, stood up from the floor, and was led out of the underground room.

“My apologies — a misunderstanding.” The middle-aged man had someone retrieve Ku Yue’s backpack and handed it back to him. “You may go.”

Above the underground room was Butterfly Kisses itself. Through the windows, the first light of dawn was already visible outside — no way to tell the exact time. A handful of scattered customers sat at their tables, some laughing softly, some murmuring under the effect of alcohol. A song sharing the bar’s name — “Butterfly Kisses” — drifted gently through the space.

“Thank you.” Ku Yue rubbed the back of his head and took the backpack. “I don’t know why you knocked me out, but I genuinely did come here to find a friend.”

“What’s his name?” the middle-aged man asked.

“A’Long.” Ku Yue sighed. “A childhood companion. We lost touch, and it took me considerable effort to learn he’d come to Moon City, to the SWORD District. So I came specifically to look for him.”

“Do you have any idea how many boys named A’Long there are in this entire city?” Red Scarf jumped in, frowning loudly.

Ku Yue smiled ruefully. “I do. It doesn’t matter — I’ll go door to door if I have to. As long as you don’t treat me like a suspicious citizen and hit me over the head again without warning.”

“Do you have a photo?” A bright, clear voice came from behind the bar counter. Ku Yue saw her again — the girl from the rooftop. She had removed her cap; her long hair hung straight and neat down her back, removing any possibility of mistaking her for a boy.

“Yes.” Ku Yue drew a worn and incomplete photograph from his wallet. Two boys of six or seven grinned brilliantly at the camera. “The one on the left — that’s A’Long.”

Everyone crowded over to look. Red Scarf shook his head: “Pfft. What’s the use of just this photo? Who knows what he looks like grown up.”

“It’s all I have.” Ku Yue put the photo away. “However it has to happen, I will find him. His mother is waiting for him to come home. She doesn’t have much time left.”

“I see…” The middle-aged man was briefly thoughtful, then said to Red Scarf: “Seven, arrange a place for him to stay, and get some people to help him look.”

“Understood.” Red Scarf nodded with some reluctance and walked out, limping.

“Stay here for now.” The middle-aged man reached behind the bar counter and brought out a half-finished bottle of red wine, pouring a glass each for himself and Ku Yue. “But whatever you do, don’t go out at night — I cannot guarantee your personal safety if you do. By the way, what’s your name?”

“Ku Yue.” He took a small sip. A dry, astringent taste moved across his tongue. “And you? Any name will do.”

“Ji Feiyu. But everyone calls me King — simpler that way.” He smiled at Ku Yue, swirled his glass, and drank it down.

“A pleasure.” Ku Yue extended his hand to Ji Feiyu with a bright smile.

004

“Target acquired. Box pending.”

Ku Yue typed these words into RMAIL and sent them. This was his arrangement with the client — every step of the operation had to be reported.

He closed the laptop and settled comfortably onto the moderately soft bed. That Seven fellow had placed him in a small inn across from Butterfly Kisses; on his way out, Ku Yue had clearly noticed Seven whispering something to the innkeeper, who had shot a few guarded glances at Ku Yue and given a quiet nod.

A careful subordinate. Ku Yue didn’t like Seven, but he appreciated his work ethic.

After settling in, for several consecutive days, Ku Yue went out punctually every morning and wandered through every street and alley — expression suitably urgent, brandishing the old photograph and asking everyone he met about A’Long.

If one was going to perform, one performed with professional dedication — including concealing his skills as a hired killer, allowing Seven to knock him out from behind, and obligingly passing out.

That afternoon, dragging his “exhausted” body, he walked into Butterfly Kisses, took his usual seat by the window, and ordered a glass of red wine.

“No luck?” Luo Ye walked to the seat across from him, holding a glass of juice, and sat down.

“Not yet.” Ku Yue shook his head. He looked up at the girl before him — the light from outside filtered through the glass and fell upon her skin, translucent as glass itself, delicate enough to seem it might break at a touch.

Luo Ye was Ji Feiyu’s daughter — though not by blood. Long ago, he had rescued the young Luo Ye from the jaws of a Ghost-Face Spider. Her parents had both become that old demon’s meal. Her eyes, having been struck by the toxic spray the demon spat, had lost all sight forever. And because of rescuing her, Ji Feiyu had nearly lost an arm — to this day, a large scar remained on his right arm.

Ji Feiyu was the head of all of Moon City. Every resident of this place followed his lead without question. From Ku Yue’s observations over these past days, their deference to Ji Feiyu came not from fear, but from genuine respect — a true reverence. They honored this man and willingly let his word guide the direction of their lives. Naturally, the reasons behind this phenomenon were not something a hired killer ought to investigate. His task was only to find the peach-wood box the client wanted, and then — kill Ji Feiyu.

“You shouldn’t have come to Moon City at this time.” She bit down on her straw and drank a large mouthful. “If I were you, I’d leave as soon as possible. You don’t belong here.”

“Aside from the lack of a big city’s glamour, everything here is quite pleasant — the people too.” Ku Yue leaned slightly forward and studied her face. “Still, I’m curious — the first day I met you, you said you were sunbathing?”

Luo Ye laughed and said: “Every day with sunshine, I sit on the rooftop to enjoy the view and soak up the sun. That day you asked from down below, and I just answered without thinking.”

“You can enjoy the view?” He was puzzled.

“Sunlight, houses, trees and flowers — I can see all of it.” She pointed to her own head. “All in here.” She paused, a faint blush creeping across both cheeks. “And… I can also see what King looks like.”

“Oh?” Ku Yue affected surprise. “Don’t tell me you have feelings for King?”

“Shh, shh!” The color on Luo Ye’s face instantly spread all the way to the tips of her ears, her small face red as a ripe tomato. She flung herself forward in a panic to cover Ku Yue’s mouth, nearly upending her juice glass.

“All right, all right — I’ll keep it secret, absolutely secret!” Ku Yue swore solemnly. “If I say a word to anyone, may your juice choke me to death!”

“That’s more like it.” Luo Ye relaxed, caught her breath, sat back down — and then immediately stood back up, circled around the table to sit beside him, grabbed his collar, and said: “You absolutely must keep this secret!”

“My word is my bond!” He raised his hands in surrender, watching this girl who was as vivid as a rabbit. Ku Yue found it nearly impossible to believe she was someone who couldn’t see at all. That wild, rambunctious energy of hers reminded him of an old acquaintance — that tree spirit, who leaped about just the same way.

“The twenty-sixth of next month is King’s birthday — I’m making him a birthday gift.” The now-calmed Luo Ye told him in a hushed voice. “Once the Starlight Mallow blossoms, it’ll be finished!”

Her expression — excited and joyful — made Ku Yue feel, for a moment, as though the sun had decided to delay its descent below the horizon.

“Why are you telling me all this?” He watched her eyes. “I’m just a newly arrived outsider. Look at Seven and the rest of them — they still treat me like a suspicious character.”

Luo Ye gulped down a large mouthful of cold juice, chewing on a coconut jelly bit while she said breezily: “Because you’re not a bad person.”

He had long grown accustomed to reading whatever information he needed from an opponent’s eyes. But Luo Ye — from those eyes that remained, from beginning to end, as still as the surface of a deep, windless pond, he could find no thread of a clue. Usually that only happened with one of two types of people: those who were unfathomably guarded, and those who were as clear as a blank page.

“What if I were a bad person?” he asked, suddenly quite serious.

Luo Ye pursed her lips, set down her now-empty glass, and said: “A bad person wouldn’t have thought to catch me, when I fell off the roof.”

Ku Yue startled. “I have eyes — they’re just located here.” She pressed a hand to her own chest. “Ah, I have to go — Dumpling is sick, I need to check on him.”

“Wait.” Ku Yue caught her arm. “You’re going to see Dumpling? Let me walk you there.”

“Please. I could find every ant’s nest in Moon City with my eyes closed — what would I need you for! Just sit tight.” She pulled a face at him, then added a warning: “And remember what King said — absolutely do not go out at night. You don’t belong here.” She frowned a little. “Also — set yourself a deadline. If you still haven’t found your little A’Long by the time the Starlight Mallow blooms, then leave. I’m not joking.”

“I’ll think about it seriously.” He nodded.

005

“Today — no results.”

His emails were always simple. And for several consecutive days, they were the same single line.

This was unprecedented in all his previous “work experience.” As the highest-priced bounty hunter in his field, he had always been known for speed, precision, and ruthlessness — regardless of the size or nature of his target, no demon took more than seventy-two hours to dispatch. He was accustomed to — or perhaps already numb to — that kind of clean efficiency.

Something about this particular “job” was causing a vague unease to creep in.

He closed the laptop but didn’t lie down and sleep as he usually would.

He stepped out of his room. Through the hallway window, he could see a vast, featureless darkness where neither stars nor moon were visible. It was three in the morning.

This rundown two-floor inn held no other guests besides himself. He went quietly downstairs to find the innkeeper — that bald, heavyset man who always watched him so warily — now lying facedown on the counter. A pile of scattered newspapers had a half-eaten bag of potato chips tossed on top. The television nearby was still on, flickering with a static snowstorm of no signal.

During the day, the fat man could snore thunderously even through a light nap. But now, not even the faintest breath could be heard — his bulky body lay like a heap of mud, utterly motionless.

Ku Yue stepped forward and pressed two fingers to his neck. No pulse.

He turned the innkeeper over and looked at a face white as a sheet, lips dark violet. The man’s body showed no trace of life.

Ku Yue lifted the innkeeper’s shirt. On his chest was a hole the size of a fist — no blood, only an impenetrable blackness inside, dotted with faint, fluorescent-like specks. He walked quickly out of the inn.

The entirety of Moon City seemed to be submerged beneath endless, oppressive silence. On every street and alley, not a single figure was visible — not even a stray cat or dog. Only scattered lights blinked on and off intermittently, as if reminding Ku Yue that this was still, technically, a city built for people to inhabit.

But in Ku Yue’s eyes, this place had already become a silent tomb.

He now had a fairly clear idea of why Ji Feiyu had forbidden him to go out at night.

He drew a long breath and walked toward Butterfly Kisses.

006

“I knew you’d come looking for a drink with me some night.” Ji Feiyu sat comfortably in the innermost corner of the bar and raised his glass toward the approaching Ku Yue.

“You know everything?” Ku Yue walked up to him without hurry and sat down. “Including… that I’m here to kill you?”

“Including that you need this.” From the shadows beside him, Ji Feiyu produced a square object and set it on the table. A deep brown peach-wood carved box, emanating a profound, ancient quality — the slowly rotating light overhead casting shifting, iridescent patterns across its surface.

Ku Yue’s expression didn’t change in the slightest.

“Tranquil as a chrysanthemum — that’s truly the finest description for someone who is genuinely at the top of the killing trade. I was happy to play along with your performance until now, not wanting your identity to frighten the residents here.” Dark red liquid fell from the bottle to the empty glass in perfect, unbroken drops. Ji Feiyu pushed the glass toward Ku Yue with a smile. “Ku Yue, you’re worthy of me buying you a drink.”

“Thank you.” Ku Yue drained it in one go. That dry, astringent taste lingered again across his tongue.

Soft, measured music drifted through the air around them — still “Butterfly Kisses” —

There’s two things I know for sure. She was sent here from heaven, and she’s Daddy’s little girl. As I drop to my knees by her bed at night, She talks to Jesus, and I close my eyes.

The man’s warm voice, again and again.

From the very first time Ku Yue had walked into this bar, it had been playing the same song — never changed, not once.

“You’re entirely unlike the others who came before you.” Ji Feiyu said.

Ku Yue said nothing. He turned the now-empty glass in his hands — Ji Feiyu’s smiling face reflected in it. He looked to be under forty, though his hair was an unusual silver-white. He wore a pair of well-chosen black-rimmed glasses, and when he smiled, faint lines had formed at the corners of his eyes — yet the clarity of his features, the brightness in his gaze, marked him as a deeply compelling man. That magnetism was something accumulated over many long years — the quiet accumulation of experience and time, a gradual settling of depth — understated, attached to him without ostentation.

A man like this was naturally not the kind anyone who had come before Ku Yue could have handled. His client had undoubtedly tried and failed countless times before finally being willing to pay a price large enough to reach him. His fee had always been more than a hundredfold that of an ordinary killer — a price not everyone could afford, or would consent to pay.

“Want to know what’s in here?” Ji Feiyu gave the box a light tap.

Ku Yue shook his head. “My responsibility is only to bring it to my client. Whatever is inside is no concern of mine.”

“You truly are different.” Ji Feiyu shook his head with a smile. “She chose the right person this time.” He looked at Ku Yue. “When do you plan to act?”

“When you finish that glass of wine.” Ku Yue answered honestly. There was still a little less than half a glass left in Ji Feiyu’s cup.

“If I asked you to wait until the last day of next month to fulfill your obligation — would you refuse?” Ji Feiyu asked with great sincerity.

Ku Yue’s brow shifted, ever so slightly. The twenty-sixth of next month is King’s birthday — I’m making him a birthday gift. Luo Ye’s joyful face from earlier that day suddenly drifted across his mind.

“All right.” He didn’t hesitate much. His agreement with the client allowed three months — acting next month wouldn’t breach the terms.

“Thank you.” Ji Feiyu poured him another glass. “Is she well?”

“She?” Ku Yue was briefly confused.

“Your client.”

Ku Yue recalled briefly and said: “A beautiful woman — one who should belong to those who live very well, I imagine. Though I never saw her full face.”

“A killer’s instincts are always accurate.” Ji Feiyu let out a quiet breath. “If she truly is living well, I can rest easy.”

Whether it was the wine taking a small effect, or whether the man before him was simply too unusual, or whether the surroundings were far more suited to conversation than to killing — Ku Yue found himself abandoning his long-held principle of asking only “the three essentials,” and broke precedent to ask a single word: “Crime of passion?”

He had seen too many women whose love had curdled into hatred. A man like Ji Feiyu — having one or even several such women appear in his life — wouldn’t be surprising in the least.

“Ha.” Ji Feiyu clinked his glass elegantly against Ku Yue’s. “She is my biological daughter.”

The two glasses met with a clear, ringing sound that lingered, and lingered, and did not fade.

007

“This is the highest point in all of Moon City.”

In the whispering wind, Ji Feiyu and Ku Yue stood side by side. Beneath their feet was the tower of accumulated scrap metal and construction debris.

Looking down, the entire city lay spread before them. Ku Yue looked through the intermittent lights and saw vast swathes of darkness swirling like deep water — and within the darkness, many unusual movements: things of varied shapes, wrapped in lights of different colors, moving like birds in the sky or fish in water, swimming freely.

Those were… demons filling the entire city. But all of them were low-level, minor demons with barely any spiritual power and nearly no destructive capacity.

“Moon City has had very few living humans for over a hundred years now.” Ji Feiyu’s clothing billowed in the wind like a pair of black wings. “A so-called research organization used this remote, backward little city as a secret experimental base. Their final accomplishment was a severe man-made plague. Most of the city’s residents died under terrible circumstances. The authorities covered up the truth, sealed Moon City completely, and decided that if the plague couldn’t be controlled within three months, the entire city would be buried — regardless of whether any survivors remained inside.”

Ku Yue’s brow creased slightly. Ji Feiyu opened the peach-wood box in his hands, and a refreshing, lung-clearing fragrance swept forward — sweet, and carrying a kind of warmth.

Ku Yue watched him draw out a handful of something as fine as sand from the box — it glimmered and sparkled, like dense clusters of bioluminescence, or like stars crushed to powder, so beautiful one couldn’t help but want to cup them carefully in one’s hands and observe them closely.

“Wouldn’t it be a shame if this place were buried?” Ji Feiyu turned to smile at Ku Yue. “If there were another way to save this city, I think we’d both be willing to try it — wouldn’t we?”

He raised his arm, and the star-dust-like powder scattered from his fingertips in a wide, floating fall — in the night air it became a shimmering, colorful mist, settling evenly into every corner of the city. The demons wandering in the darkness received this fragrant mist with joy and excitement, the halos around each of their bodies glowing noticeably brighter than before.

Beneath their feet, the ground became a swirling, multicolored sea — and from within it, clearly, came the delighted laughter of small demons, communicating in sounds only they could understand, weaving a particular kind of happiness through the dark.

With a single gesture, Ji Feiyu had breathed a different kind of life into this city of the dead.

“This…” Ku Yue’s eyes went briefly unfocused. He stared hard at Ji Feiyu’s peach-wood box. “This powder — is this the Juling Xingjing? The spiritual essence supplement that only the Xuedie clan — rulers among butterfly demons — can refine?”

Ji Feiyu closed the box and nodded. “In truth, most of the demons in Moon City are poor, discarded creatures rejected by their own kind. Like Seven — he’s just a wolf demon who lost a leg, unable to move freely, unable to hunt alongside his pack, and so inevitably scorned and abandoned. These small demons have far too little cultivation to even take human form, let alone endure sunlight. I took them in and brought them to Moon City, had them inhabit the bodies of the deceased residents — and so they gained not only a safe place to exist, but also human bodies, allowing them to live openly beneath the sun from then on.” He smiled. “And as for those humans intent on destroying the city — when they saw the residents of Moon City rise from the dead overnight, they were terrified out of their wits and fled without looking back.”

“A ‘miracle’ like that — surely they wouldn’t have let it go. They never came back to investigate the mystery of the resurrection?” Ku Yue asked in bewilderment. In all his years, Moon City had existed in his memory as nothing more than a remote border town rarely spoken of — with nothing worth noting.

“They naturally wanted to come back.” Ji Feiyu gazed into the distance. “Only, they could never find Moon City’s location again. I placed a defensive barrier around this city — anyone not permitted to enter cannot find it. A hundred years have passed; everyone who knew that history is long dead. Moon City has gradually normalized — it looks like a true city. These small demons have grown quite accustomed to life in human bodies, even coming to see themselves entirely as human. During the day they work, study, quarrel, fall in love. At night they step out of the physical body, consume Juling Xingjing to keep their spirit intact and their energy full, and repeat — year after year.”

“You’ve been feeding an entire city.” Ku Yue’s mouth curved, apparently teasing. “Quite the remarkable Xuedie demon. Refining Juling Xingjing depletes one’s spiritual essence severely — and yet you’ve kept this up for so many years.”

“Ha — you’re becoming more talkative.” Ji Feiyu laughed openly, the eyes behind his glasses gleaming with a distinctive light in the night. “If you were in my place, perhaps you would have made the same choice.”

“I only kill demons — I never save them.” Ku Yue reverted to his usual calm. “A killer has only money in his heart. Nothing else.”

Ji Feiyu fixed him with an almost penetrating gaze into those violet eyes and said, with layered meaning: “Butterfly demons are divided into two factions — the Xuedie and the Yedie. The Xuedie excel in healing and guidance, with noble bloodlines; every Butterfly King throughout history has come from the Xuedie clan. The Yedie excel in attack and destruction, with formidable ability. Therefore, to guard the Butterfly King and defend the territory is the Yedie’s sacred duty. Xuedie and Yedie together — one civil, one martial — complementing each other.”

Ku Yue was silent for a moment. “And what of it?”

“Have you forgotten that Moon City is under my barrier? No outsider can enter without my permission. Yet you walked into Moon City without the slightest difficulty. Unless your nature is inherently compatible with my barrier. Simply put — you should be the same kind as me. And you should have known this from the first moment you saw me.” Ji Feiyu looked at him with a smile. “Though there is one thing I find strange.”

“I knew we are of the same clan. I didn’t know you were a Xuedie.” Ku Yue looked at him impassively. “But whether or not we share the same clan means nothing to me.”

“You seem… incomplete.” Ji Feiyu shook his head. “Different from the Yedie I’ve encountered before. And yet I can’t pinpoint what exactly is wrong.”

“If you can’t pinpoint it, then say nothing.” Ku Yue leaped from the top of the tower and landed on the ground below.

Ji Feiyu descended behind him without a sound, and laughed: “An interesting character.”

“Less interesting than you.” Ku Yue half-turned, speaking with a hint of mockery. “You command the love and devotion of an entire city of demons — yet your own daughter keeps hiring people to kill you.”

Watching Ji Feiyu’s expression twist into a wry smile, Ku Yue let out a cold snort and turned to leave.

Whatever the hour, sleep was important.

008

In a concealed research facility on the outskirts of Washington, a group of people in white isolation suits of various complexions moved busily before a range of intricate, sophisticated instruments.

Outside the glass wall, a large-bearded man in a suit with blue eyes and a high-bridged nose struggled to conceal his excitement as he spoke to the young woman before him: “If this operation goes smoothly, we will collect, in a single instance, the most powerful demon spirit essence in all of recorded history. With that, our research results will be in sight very soon. Mo—” he caught himself — “we truly must thank you for this. Without you, we could never have located Moon City.”

The wide brim of a hat concealed most of the woman’s face. Her beautiful lips wore vivid lipstick. She glanced briefly at the scene of busy activity behind the glass wall and said coldly: “Don’t thank me. We each get what we want.”

Walking along the path outside the laboratory, the searing sunlight fell upon the woman’s slender, elegant figure. Her pace was unhurried and measured — her cream-white dress like a glacier of ten thousand years, refusing to be melted by any ray of sun.

At the end of the path she stood, and glanced back at that outwardly ordinary building where those people — who spent every waking hour dreaming of manufacturing the most powerful bio-spiritual weapon in history — labored day and night, neglecting sleep and meals.

By the end of next month, the demons of Moon City would become a key step in their research project — contributing the entirety of their energy to those weapons. Moon City would become a true dead city again, just as it had been after that plague a hundred years ago. That was what it was always meant to be.

Ji Feiyu — not just you, not just that precious Juling Xingjing, but her too, and those lesser demons, all the things you strove so desperately to protect — in the end, all of it will be destroyed.

Mo smiled coldly to herself. This is the price you ought to pay, Father.

009

July. The sun blazed in the sky like fire. Moon City’s daytime temperatures were absurdly high; the nights, bone-chillingly cool. From this week onward, every day Luo Ye walked through four streets to reach the small hillside bordering an abandoned construction site, carefully running her fingers along the clusters of plants growing densely in the cracks between stones — slender pale violet stems, white flowers like stars, with a delicate fragrance that drifted through the summer heat, scattering a ground full of tenderness.

“This is the Starlight Mallow you’ve been waiting for?” Ku Yue chewed on a blade of wild grass and crouched beside her, looking at the ordinary little wildflowers.

“Yes!” She nodded happily, lifting her nose to sniff. “Three more days at most — they’ll be in full bloom.”

“You can tell the blooming period from the scent?” Ku Yue nudged one of the small, snow-white buds. “What’s so remarkable about this flower?”

Luo Ye tilted her face up, absorbing the warmth of the setting sun. “Don’t rush. Wait until the sun goes down — then look at them.”

“All right.” Ku Yue lay flat on the grass to wait for nightfall.

“You really look like someone with nothing to do.” Luo Ye sat down beside him. “Still no trace of your A’Long, is there? I have the sense that you’re becoming less and less urgent about finding him.”

“Finding a person requires fate. Maybe Heaven simply doesn’t intend for A’Long to return to his mother.” The blade of grass rolled between Ku Yue’s lips as he told this comfortable lie without a blink.

Luo Ye sank into a slight dejection, wrapping her arms around her knees, resting her chin there, murmuring: “Mother… I can barely remember what my mother looked like anymore…”

Mother? This girl referred to her own mother as “mother” — in the formal, elevated term? Ku Yue removed the grass from his mouth and looked at her sideways, visible puzzlement in his eyes.

Perhaps realizing she had spoken out of turn, Luo Ye straightened up in a fluster and said quickly: “Oh, I meant — mother, just the regular word — not like a formal title — I…”

“That’s enough — you’re terrible at covering things up.” Ku Yue smiled. “King already told me all of Moon City’s secrets. You don’t need to panic. I know you’re not human. Though you’re both demons, you’re different from the other ‘residents’ of Moon City.”

“He told you everything?” Luo Ye stared.

“Yes.” Ku Yue said plainly. “Maybe King decided I wasn’t a bad person either — ha.”

A pause. Luo Ye let out a breath and relaxed. “Well, good then. I could feel that King not only treats you well but genuinely trusts you. It’s rare — but I know he always has his reasons. I really am a demon.” She pressed her lips together in a smile. “A particularly useless one.”

He could sense the demon aura emanating from any demon. The scent coming off Luo Ye told him plainly — she was a butterfly. A butterfly demon, the same clan as him and Ji Feiyu.

The scent of a butterfly was more familiar to him than anything. But Luo Ye’s scent, compared to the kin he knew, carried a faint, peculiar difference.

“You…” He sat up straighter and studied the girl beside him — as ordinary as anyone could be. “You’re a descendant of the Xuedie King?”

“That was a very, very long time ago.” Luo Ye spoke like an outsider observing someone else’s past, and stuck her tongue out at him. “I barely remember. I only remember my mother holding me and feeding me the sweetest honey. The fragrance from her body — no flower on earth could compare to it.”

“Your mother was the most beautiful of all the Xuedie clan.” Ku Yue looked at her, dazed for a moment, then switched to teasing: “But look at you — you seem to have inherited absolutely none of your mother’s gifts.”

“You’re a butterfly demon too?” Luo Ye blinked first in surprise, then drove a solid punch into Ku Yue’s arm, puffing her cheeks indignantly: “I’m just too lazy to bother dressing up!”

Ku Yue rushed to say: “All right, all right — I’ll venture to believe that one day you’ll be just as beautiful as your mother…” He paused, then abruptly changed the subject. “But from what I understand, your parents were eaten by a Ghost-Face Spider. King rescued you and raised you.”

“I’m not entirely clear on it myself. I was very young then.” Luo Ye’s expression became a little hazy. “From what King said, he had been fostering me with a human couple for a time. Somehow one day, it drew the natural enemy of our butterfly clan — the Ghost-Face Spider. Although King arrived in time, he still couldn’t save them.” As the memory extended, a trace of sorrow gradually rose across Luo Ye’s face. “I vaguely remember that couple — when the great monster came to kill, they shielded me with their bodies until the very end. They could have dropped me and run.”

Ku Yue’s expression froze for just an instant. Fortunately, Luo Ye couldn’t see his momentary change; he recovered quickly and asked: “And do you remember what happened to your father, the King, and your mother?”

Luo Ye shook her head. “My clearest memories begin from when I was already following King, wandering the world, until we settled in Moon City. Before that — I really don’t remember much.”

“Understandable.” Ku Yue smiled with self-directed irony, murmuring quietly: “You were still too small then. Besides, a scene like that… it’s better you don’t remember.”

“What did you say?” Luo Ye leaned over to ask.

“Nothing.” He instantly changed the subject, pointing at the Starlight Mallow clusters: “Oh — they’re glowing!”

At those words, Luo Ye gave a smug smile and said: “See? I told you — wait until the sun goes down, and you’d know what makes Starlight Mallow special. It’s my favorite flower in all of Moon City. Even though I can’t see them, my fingertips can feel from their petals…” She placed her fingers gently on one of the still-unopened white buds. “A feeling of hope.”

Ku Yue looked at those clusters of flowers radiating soft, faint halos in the night — each one like a star that had fallen from the sky, waiting to be held in cupped hands and carried into someone’s heart.

“Over all these years, King hasn’t really been happy — I know that.” Luo Ye grew a little wistful and withdrew her fingers. In this moment, she was no longer the wild girl sitting on a rooftop — she seemed instead like a true, mature young woman who carried someone in her heart.

This sudden change lasted only a brief moment. She quickly broke into a light laugh and said: “Which is exactly why I need to finish this birthday gift as fast as I can and give it to him — he’ll definitely be happy!”

“Yes. Birthday gifts always make people happy. Do your best!” Ku Yue patted the top of her head.

With his years, he was easily old enough to be Luo Ye’s elder, he thought with a wry smile. The violet of his eyes seemed to ripple with something deep and heavy — his mind drawn, by some elemental pull, into the memory of an old and painful event.

010

Plunder is a primal instinct — surging without cease in the blood of every demon and even every human being who harbors ambition and greed, waiting only for the day it erupts.

A thousand years ago, beneath a sunset in the realm of Zhaohong — that great, winding Rainbow River that had flowed for ten thousand years — the river’s true colors were swallowed by a flood of scarlet. The towering mountains, forever lush and green, lay ravaged beyond recognition, strange-smelling smoke spreading freely across every stretch of land destroyed by ferocious assault.

“Run! Run fast!” His father’s blood-streaked face was swallowed by the rapidly closing firelight and the roaring of invaders. His elder brother held their little sister under one arm and yanked Ku Yue by the other, sprinting through the dense forest. Pursuers behind them, relentless.

They ran all the way to Zhihan Valley — the lowest point in all of Zhaohong. His brother pointed to the bottomless black pool of water at the valley floor and gripped Ku Yue’s shoulders hard: “After sunset, the instant you see the pool turn white — take your little sister and jump in. Hold your breath and sink all the way to the deepest point. There is a secret passage there leading to the human world. Once you reach it, you’ll both be safe. Remember — you must look after your little sister!”

“What about you, brother?” Ku Yue — still a boy — grabbed his brother’s arm as he turned to go back.

“I have to return. The royal city is under siege. Those vile spider demons and the human sorcerers they’ve allied with won’t spare the King, the Queen, or the little princess.” His brother wiped the blood dripping from his forehead and looked steadily at Ku Yue. “Xiao Yue — remember your brother’s words. Our Yedie clan was born for battle. Protecting our home is our sacred duty.”

Deep in the cave, in the darkness where one hand couldn’t be seen in front of one’s face, Ku Yue kept one arm around his sister and the other gripping a protruding rock in the underground river, both of them submerged in the ice-cold water. The underground river was far from the cave entrance — he couldn’t see what was happening outside, but the sounds of fierce fighting traveled clearly around every bend.

His sister shook constantly in his arms. She was still a child, her butterfly wings on her back not yet fully grown. Ku Yue held her tighter.

The underground river rushed past. The sounds from outside gradually faded. Ku Yue’s mind was a tangle of threads — he didn’t know how long he’d waited, only that the hand gripping the rock had long since gone numb from the cold. He left his sister at the river’s edge and crept on tiptoe to the cave entrance.

In his heart, his father and elder brother were the most valiant warriors in all the Yedie clan. For many long years, they and all the Yedie had together guarded the realm of Zhaohong under the rule of the Xuedie King. But the invaders this time were more powerful than any before. Those spider demons — who had lurked for years in damp, dark places — had amassed great strength over decades and launched their entire army at once, forming an alliance with treacherous human sorcerers from the mortal world. Together, the two forces were determined to conquer Zhaohong.

Although Ku Yue was not yet qualified to be a true Yedie warrior — not yet ready to fulfill the Yedie clan’s duty as his father and brother did — and although he clearly understood this war was unlike any that had come before, he had still firmly believed that the Yedie would not lose to these despicable invaders. But this time, he was wrong.

When long-suppressed desire finally finds the chance to erupt, it is destined to give birth to something more terrifying than the most fearsome demon. Those spider demons who could not bear to live their meager existence in cramped, lowly territory. Those sorcerers in the mortal world who dreamed of seizing the Xuedie’s demon saber, of conquering the demon realm and then unifying the mortal world beneath their rule. At last they had their opportunity to realize their “dream.” And that opportunity — had been given to them by the Xuedie King’s own younger brother. He had always presented himself to the world as mild-mannered and refined — everyone saw only his apparent indifference to worldly ambition, and none could see the craving for the throne buried in the deepest part of his heart, nor his jealousy and hatred toward his older brother. He had quietly unraveled the defensive barrier the Xuedie King had placed around Zhaohong, opening a door that brought catastrophe upon the butterfly clan.

Of course, none of this was something the young Ku Yue could have understood at the time.

Now, he stood numbly outside the emptied cave, staring at a vivid trail of blood on the ground — speckled with dark blue points of luminescence. The phosphorescent light from a Yedie butterfly’s wings.

Everywhere on the ground were traces of fierce fighting: sword marks, holes burned by toxic spray, fragments of torn talisman paper. The air smelled hot and metallic.

His brother’s trail of blood led in another direction. His brother must have been captured — Ku Yue’s mind went completely blank.

“Second Brother…” His little sister, tears on her face, peered tentatively out of the cave entrance. Ku Yue looked up at the horizon — only a thread of golden light remained, and from the black pool, a string of strange bubbles occasionally surfaced.

“Back inside the cave!” Ku Yue bellowed at her.

“No! I want to find our eldest brother — and Father!” His sister shook her head fiercely.

“Get back!” He rushed over and pushed her toward the cave.

“No!” The small creature stubbornly hooked her fingers onto the cave’s edge until blood seeped from her nails. “Mother said, right before she went to sleep — a family must not be separated!”

Ku Yue froze. Three years ago, on their mother’s deathbed, she had indeed held the hands of both siblings, their father, and spoken these very words. He steeled himself, lifted his sister onto his back, and bolted with straining legs in the direction the blood trail pointed.

Along the way, the bodies of their kin were everywhere. Every village home was ruined without exception — a sight devastating beyond measure. He followed the trail all the way to the ceremonial platform near the royal city. The overwhelming demon stench particular to spider demons made it hard to open his eyes. Amid the din, he halted and hid in the dense trees not far from the platform, watching through narrowed eyes with tense nerves.

Several humans in strange robes were whispering with the Ghost-Face Spider King who led an army of followers. Behind them, before the high ceremonial platform, an enormous spider web shimmering with an eerie light had trapped several people who struggled to the death inside it. From within the web, Ku Yue made out his father and elder brother. The sister in his arms started involuntarily to cry out — he covered her mouth just in time.

“These Yedie warriors are nothing more than guard dogs under the Xuedie King — of no particular use.” The Ghost-Face Spider King waved his ugly limbs at the captives in the web, and then let out a hollow, bloated laugh. “However, your talismans and incantations are truly formidable. Without your help, defeating this pack of dogs might not have been so easy. Here — the spiritual essence of these creatures — consider it a gift to the venerable Daozhang here, to strengthen their cultivation.” The moment his words ended, the Ghost-Face Spider King spat a white thread from his mouth, threading through the web like a serpent, coiling around one of the Yedie warriors, and with a toss of his head, wrenched the man free from the web and flung him before the humans.

One of the humans drew a yellow talisman paper from his sleeve and flicked it lightly onto the Yedie warrior — and the powerful young man let out a muffled groan of agony, his body collapsing into a small form, reverting to the original shape of a butterfly, then swiftly becoming a wisp of black ash. The man flicked his sleeve, and the ash dispersed on the breeze, leaving only a thumb-sized, perfectly round orb of light rising slowly from the ground. The man opened his mouth and inhaled, and the orb obediently entered him.

Ku Yue watched, cold dread running down his spine. His little sister thrashed violently in his arms, muffled cries pushing past his hand. It was the first time in his life he had faced true enemies in the real meaning of the word — their power and cruelty exceeded every limit of his imagination.

His father and elder brother were right there before his eyes, teetering on the edge of death. Cold sweat fell from Ku Yue’s forehead. The impulse to save them collided with fear in a heart that had never known any storm — and the contradiction was immense, unprecedented.

One. Two. Three. The Yedie warriors fell, one by one, to ash at the hands of those so-called Taoist masters. Only the last thread of faint light remained at the horizon.

We must not be separated as a family! Run! Go now! Take good care of your little sister! The words of his mother, his father, his elder brother rolled over and over inside Ku Yue. He looked at his father and elder brother inside the web — on the verge of death. He gritted his teeth, scooped up his sister, and turned and ran.

His sister kicked furiously in his arms. He ignored her and kept running toward Zhihan Valley. He couldn’t afford to think about anything else. He had no courage to think about anything else. He only wanted to flee as fast as possible, to reach the human world as fast as possible. Perhaps, going back to look just now had already been a mistake—

Then his palm erupted in searing pain. On instinct, he released his grip — across his palm was a ragged, blood-raw ring of bite marks. The sister in his arms — with a speed beyond her age — turned and bolted back the way they’d come. After only a few steps, there came two sounds of air rushing — and the foolish girl wrenched open her not-yet-fully-grown butterfly wings by sheer force and flew fast toward the ceremonial platform.

Ku Yue lunged — and missed. He gave chase — but again found himself in the dense trees before the platform, stopped as though struck by a binding curse. He still couldn’t make himself take that step forward.

He watched his small, frail sister hurl herself with all her body’s force against the spider demons guarding the sides of the web — the phosphorescent light falling from her wings drifting and scattering, heartbreakingly beautiful. He also watched the Ghost-Face Spider King, without the slightest hesitation, send a white thread through her chest. And he watched the father and elder brother inside the web — their faces twisted in anguish to the point of distortion — heard their screams of grief so extreme it was as though they would tear them apart. While those humans simply gave a contemptuous smile, used a talisman paper, and ended all sound in an instant.

Ku Yue didn’t know how he made it back to Zhihan Valley. Only when he saw the pool of water — turned lunar white in the darkness — did he realize his hands had been pressed over his ears the entire time, with a force nearly strong enough to crush his own skull.

He gasped for breath and looked forward — at the edge of the pool stood a man dressed in white, gripping tightly the hand of a small girl. The scent drifting in the air told him they were the same kind as him. Before he could speak, the man had already pulled the girl and leaped into the pool. Ku Yue hadn’t even clearly seen their faces — only the man’s silver-white hair, bright as moonlight.

Danger stirred again behind him. The edges of the pool were already beginning to return to black. Ku Yue pinched his nose and plunged in with a splash. Spiraling bubbles and the sound of water consumed his entire body.

Everything was left behind — the Xuedie royal clan, the Yedie warriors, the once beautiful and serene realm of Zhaohong, his loved ones, his home. From this moment on, severed from him completely.

In the water, he sank, and sank, and sank…

011

“Father!” She touched her own face in horror — and her own shrunken body. “How can this be? Why?”

In the royal city’s secret passage, her father held tightly to the small dark-haired, snow-robed girl in his arms — and she, after swallowing the pill her father had given her, had transformed into this — identical in appearance to the little girl in his arms, the daughter of the Xuedie King.

Outside the passage, the spider demons’ howling grew louder. The heavy stone door shuddered under great force, threatening to collapse at any moment.

“The Xuedie King’s daughter is hiding inside there!”

“Hurry! She must be captured!”

Amid the thundering crashes against the door, crumbling dust fell from the ceiling, raising a choking thick fog throughout the passage. Her father walked up to her. On his familiar face was no expression at all — he said only one sentence: “Forget that you ever had a father like me.”

She looked blankly at this man who had been at her side since the moment she entered the world — this man who always loved to hum a song while lifting the young her and spinning her in circles — this man who would have gladly gathered the entire spring to give to her as a gift.

In this instant, she suddenly didn’t recognize him.

Her father took the other “daughter” — the girl with no blood relation to him at all — to the wall at one side of the passage. He pulled a mechanism, a small door opened, revealing a modest space inside with food and fresh water. He walked in carrying someone else’s daughter, and without the slightest hesitation pressed the switch inside.

The hidden door slid slowly shut. Through the last remaining crack, she caught a faint glimpse of her father beyond the door — closing his eyes, turning his head, looking at her no more. And so she was left — by her own biological father — abandoned before the approaching catastrophe.

The stone door of the passage crashed down. Those hideous, loathsome spider demons — dripping with revolting saliva, all claws and fangs — burst through. Their barbed limbs coiled tightly around her body; the venom-tipped barbs pierced her flesh. It hurt. It truly hurt.

Amid the invaders’ excited howling, she was dragged out of the passage. “The King has already captured the Xuedie King and Queen — just this little one left for a family reunion!”

“I heard that gathering the spiritual essence of an entire family together can produce some kind of treasure!”

“What kind of treasure?”

“How would I know! Just hand the girl over to the King — and we’ll have done a great service!”

Bound tightly in spider silk, she shut her eyes and clenched her jaw, telling herself desperately not to be afraid, not to cry — at worst, she would simply die.

But she survived, in the end. It was her mother — a priestess of the butterfly clan — who, at the cost of her spiritual essence and all the blood in her body, used the Blood Escape Curse to trap these enemies within an illusion spun from the incantation, frozen and unable to move.

Though this curse — which had consumed both her mother’s form and soul — was nothing against enemies that powerful and would hold for only a few brief minutes, those minutes of chaos were enough to give her the chance to escape with her life.

Following what her mother had told her before she died, she hid in Zhihan Valley, waited until the black pool turned white, and from there fled to the human world.

The pool was bone-cutting cold as ice. Yet no cold was as cold as the look in her father’s eyes. To this day, she could not forget the sight of her mother in those final moments — she had watched her once-beautiful body shrivel like autumn leaves, wither and dry, then crack in the air into countless fragments.

Even more unforgettable was the very last thing her mother had said to her — which was, inconceivably: Do not hate your father.

Could she not hate him? Could she?

He had protected someone else’s daughter while leaving his own flesh and blood to die — and in doing so, had indirectly caused the death of the wife who had shared his life through years and hardships.

She could not forgive him. Never. Never could she forgive him.

Mo struggled in a nightmare. For all these years she had dreamed the same dream — in searing firelight, she and her mother were trapped, unable to move, while her father stood just steps away, beyond the fire, watching them both with cold eyes, indifferent to their outstretched hands, watching them turn to ash…

“Father! Save me!” She cried out in shock and jolted upright in bed, cold sweat damp across her forehead.

She got out of bed, ran barefoot to the liquor cabinet, grabbed a bottle of red wine, and poured it straight into her mouth. The rich liquid slid into her body; gradually, she stilled.

A thousand years was truly a long time. She was only a Xuedie — like her father — with no offensive ability at all. The only thing she had been able to do across this millennium was wander far and wide searching for her father’s whereabouts, borrowing every power she could to make this man pay the price for what he had done.

But she had always failed. He was too skilled at concealing himself — every so often she would lose track of him again, and then it would take a long time to find him once more, wandering the world as he did, with his “daughter,” and those useless demons protected by his ridiculous compassion. And the killers she’d hired — not one had ever fulfilled her wish. Either they failed, or they gave up halfway.

She no longer had the patience to wear herself out any further. She wanted a method that could end everything. Although she had finally found Ku Yue, he could only fulfill half of her wish.

What she wanted to destroy was not merely the man who had abandoned her all those years ago — but the entirety of Moon City. She knew that was his life’s work, the home he had labored to build for those demons. Home… every time she thought of that word, she laughed coldly. You built a home for those small demons, while destroying your own true home with your own hands.

But when this group of “scientists” — whose stated purpose was “contributing to the advancement of human science” — appeared, Mo had smiled. She knew the opportunity she had been waiting for, the truly decisive one, had finally come. Human greed was history’s most powerful weapon — annihilating in its effect.

Three more days. In three more days, everything would be complete. Mo tipped her head back and drained the last of the wine from the bottle. When she lowered it, she licked the corner of her mouth — and was surprised to taste something faintly salty.

012

Ji Feiyu sat in the courtyard behind Butterfly Kisses, absorbed in wielding a small iron hammer against a pile of timber, shaping it with steady, meticulous blows. From among the scattering shavings emerged the form of a half-height wooden butterfly rocking chair — still unfinished, but every line and detail so refined it drew the eye in astonishment. Sunlight filtered through the dense green leaves, casting dappled, swaying patterns around him, enclosing a gentle and tranquil stillness. The noise from outside the bar was entirely sealed away at the farthest possible distance.

“One coat of varnish, and this rocking chair is finished.” Ji Feiyu set down his tools, blew sawdust from the chair’s armrest, and rocked it with satisfaction. “Do you know how long I’ve been making it?”

He lifted his head and asked Ku Yue, who sat across from him. Ku Yue put down his book, squinting slightly, and shook his head.

“One thousand years.” Ji Feiyu reached for a can of varnish and began applying it carefully to the chair. “I once promised Mo I would make her a butterfly-shaped rocking chair with my own hands as a gift. Yet here I am — it took me a thousand years to prepare it. Quite laughable, isn’t it.”

“If you were given the chance to choose again, would you still abandon your daughter?” Ku Yue asked slowly. “When all is said and done, you were only the Xuedie King’s pharmacist — was there really any need to be this ‘noble’?”

“The King and Queen treated me with great generosity.” Ji Feiyu smiled gently. “And by then, the King was no longer some high and lofty Xuedie King — he was simply a father who had lost any chance to protect his own daughter.”

“You saved someone else’s daughter, while your own daughter has spent nearly a thousand years trying to take your life. And now you’re sitting here in good spirits, doing carpentry.” Ku Yue tilted his head, not without mockery. “Your constitution is not ordinary.”

“I’m glad she comes to kill me.” Ji Feiyu’s brush moved with care. “Knowing she’s still alive is more of a comfort than anything else. Those vile invaders from back then — they probably never imagined, to their dying moments, that the King and Queen in their final hour would open the seal beneath the royal palace and invoke the Heaven-Shattering Eternal Flame Curse, turning all of Zhaohong into a blazing inferno. The Yedie’s wings were reborn in the flames, and everything — all enemies, and our entire homeland alike — was dissolved into nothingness in the void.” He paused and sighed.

Ku Yue laughed, self-deprecating. “I never expected that the figure I saw by the pool in Zhihan Valley that day was you. And even less did I expect that a thousand years later, I would be hired to kill you — a Xuedie pharmacist who had once held status and standing in the butterfly clan, and whom in ordinary times I’d never even have been able to get near.”

“That’s what makes fate interesting.” Ji Feiyu dipped his brush in another color and continued. “I have refined enough Juling Xingjing for everyone to use, and Moon City’s affairs have grown steadily more stable; Luo Ye has grown to adulthood. All these years I’ve avoided direct confrontation with Mo precisely in order to concentrate on completing this genuine ‘work’ of mine. Now — everything is ready.”

Ku Yue looked at him, so entirely at ease, and frowned. “You plan to…”

“Once my work is done, you can begin yours.” Ji Feiyu gave him a smile. “You can take my body to your client as proof of delivery.” He paused. “Though you won’t need to do it yourself.”

“What do you mean?” He truly couldn’t see through this man.

“I know everything Mo has been doing this time around. My subordinates do as well — she issued Moon City’s ‘death notice’ several months ago. The day after tomorrow, she will bring this city to ruin, killing every living thing within it. Ha — on that point, at least, she’s being straightforward.” Ji Feiyu’s expression gradually became grave. “Barring anything unexpected, the day after tomorrow, a large number of humans with their most advanced weapons will converge outside Moon City. Mo will break through my barrier for them and open a passage into the city. I need to ensure Moon City’s safety.”

“You intend to…” Ku Yue thought for a moment, and the words came: “Use the Xuedie’s Grand Illusion Seal Curse?”

“Quite well-read, aren’t you.” Ji Feiyu gave a lighthearted laugh and said with complete nonchalance: “As long as all those people — Mo included — see the entire city of Moon City forever as nothing more than an empty lot, or a lake, or a ridge of mountains — then all problems are solved.”

“Creating a permanent illusion like that requires your life in exchange.” Ku Yue reminded him coldly.

“This is a trade I come out ahead on.” Ji Feiyu bent his head, carefully adding color to the rocking chair. “But keep it for me in confidence. The version I’m telling everyone else is — as long as we all work together and concentrate our collective will on the barrier, no intruder can break through Moon City’s defenses.”

Ku Yue stood up. Before he left, he said without turning back: “Fair enough. I’ll save myself some trouble. The day after tomorrow — I’ll collect your body.”

“Thank you.” Behind Ku Yue, a soft song rose — that familiar “Butterfly Kisses”…

013

“Ku Yue! Ku Yue!” Luo Ye popped out from beside the inn, grabbed Ku Yue’s arm with excitement — the cloudy shadow over her eyes seemed a shade lighter than usual. “I finished King’s birthday gift! Lucky you, want to see it first?”

On the hillside where the Starlight Mallow grew, Ku Yue stared blankly at the gift Luo Ye handed him — a blank sheet of paper.

“This is what you’re giving King for his birthday?” Ku Yue turned the paper front and back and couldn’t make anything of it.

“Yes!” Luo Ye was very pleased with herself, feeling carefully over the paper. “I named this painting ‘Day and Night’ — heh, a poetic name, don’t you think?”

Ku Yue felt a bit at a loss and said: “But this is clearly just a blank sheet of paper.”

“It is not!” Luo Ye was agitated. “Press your face against it! The left side of the paper!”

Ku Yue pursed his lips and pressed his face to the paper. The instant his skin made contact with its surface — his eyes, half-shut a moment before, went wide. Warm?! The left side of this painting was actually warm! Not the mild warmth that simply came from summer air, but a peculiar warmth — alive, as though a sun was hidden beneath the surface of the paper.

“I spent many, many days collecting the sunlight of Moon City — every morning and every evening, I gathered the warmth of the sun in its different forms.” Luo Ye described it with great enthusiasm. “But I was too clumsy, and not very practiced at sealing techniques, so it took a great deal of effort to seal this warmth into the paper — this is genuinely real sunlight and its heat!”

Ku Yue recalled the first time he had seen her — this girl sitting on the rooftop, holding that small glass bottle in her hand. He pointed at the right half of the paper. “Then why is the other half cold?”

“Silly.” Luo Ye gave a light laugh. “I already said it’s called ‘Day and Night’ — that side is sunlight, so this side is of course moonlight! You’ll have to wait until it gets dark to see!” She glanced at the sky, touched her own face. “Mm, it should be about time now.”

As the night deepened, a luminous, watery white shimmer rose in Ku Yue’s eyes — soft, flowing, gentle.

On the right side of the paper, a crescent moon — painted in some unknown pigment — was surrounded by a scattering of tiny stars.

“It’s the juice of the Starlight Mallow blossoms.” Luo Ye’s eyes were full of smiling warmth. “Even though I can’t see it, I know — it must be very beautiful.”

Holding this painting, Ku Yue began to wonder what kind of feeling, what quality of heart, could compel this girl to place the sun and the moon and stars “into” a painting and give it as a gift to Ji Feiyu.

“I know he’s been missing someone for a long time.” Luo Ye sat down. “Once when he was drunk, he leaned against my shoulder and said he had lost an entire world.”

“So you’re giving him a world where day and night turn, the sun warm and the moonlight graceful.” Ku Yue sat down beside her, speaking to her for the first time in a truly serious tone.

“Exactly.” Luo Ye nodded vigorously. “King has done so much for me — so much and more. And all of Moon City too — without him, the demons here might long ago have become ingredients in someone’s furnace, or worse. He seems like someone who has never once lived for himself.” Her large eyes carried a glimmer of light. “What I can do is live happily. And then, as much as possible, give that happiness to him.”

Ku Yue was quiet for a moment, then carefully rolled up the painting and returned it to Luo Ye.

“He’ll love it.” he murmured.

014

Night. All around, complete silence.

Ku Yue sat on the windowsill of his room, tapping at the keyboard. “Transaction terminated. Payment returned.” He pressed send.

“Reason?” The reply came quickly.

“I fell in love with a bar here.”

“What’s special about it?”

“The bar’s owner — there is always only ever one song playing inside. ‘Butterfly Kisses.’ It’s a song a father wrote especially for his daughter.”

“A killer has no need for too much artistic sensibility, even less for sentiment. You have broken a cardinal rule.”

“But you do. The butterfly rocking chair is finished — even the paint is applied. Beautiful, he said. It took a thousand years.”

After that, the other party sent no further reply. Ku Yue closed the laptop and lay quietly on the bed.

The life in Zhaohong, his home, his parents, his brother, his sister — all the scenes he had spent so long forcing himself to forget — came gradually back into clarity. If, back then, he had chosen to turn back instead of running… what would have happened?

He had cultivated in the human world through years of hardship, gaining formidable abilities. He hunted and killed demons — ruthlessly and without exception. Every one of those ugly, savage demons reminded him of the enemies who had reduced his father, his brother, and his sister to ash. But no matter how many he killed, he still couldn’t feel at peace. His father and elder brother, and all those of their clan who had perished with Zhaohong — they were the true Yedie warriors, born to protect their home and those they loved. While he — was nothing. Nothing but a shameful deserter.

He had bought houses all over the world, only hoping to find something like a home. But houses were only houses. No matter how many, they were not a home.

Thinking of Ji Feiyu, thinking of Luo Ye — Ku Yue, without meaning to, began to hum the song he had heard over a hundred times: “Butterfly Kisses.”

He found himself glad he had come to Moon City. Perhaps there was something he could do for this place and for certain people — in a truly right way. Some regrets, for him, could never be undone. But for others — perhaps there was still room to set things right. If that was so, why not try?

In the early hours of the morning, as the sky barely began to lighten, Ku Yue quietly left Moon City. He needed to retrieve something he had stored elsewhere — something he had once regarded as a mark of shame, too heavy to bear.

015

Outside Moon City, the sandy earth rose and churned.

Beneath a sky thick with cloud, dozens of strangely shaped, advanced aircraft — resembling fighter jets — circled aggressively overhead.

Mo stood in the wide cabin and looked down at the city below — like an old photograph — her face expressionless.

“Mo—” the large-bearded man from the laboratory had shed his suit and wore military green. He could barely suppress his excitement. “It’s time for you to break through the defensive barrier here for us, isn’t it?”

Mo said nothing, holding the same position without moving.

“We have an agreement! You’re not backing out now, are you?” The bearded man’s expression shifted. “Mo — if that’s the case, the consequences will be very serious.”

“Silence.” Mo said coldly. “I know what I’m doing. Don’t lecture me.”

The dark fleet of aircraft hung silently beneath the clouds — like vultures spreading their wings, ready at any moment to plunge at their prey.

Inside Moon City, all was still. Ji Feiyu and Luo Ye sat close together on the sofa in Butterfly Kisses, sleeping soundly, showing no sign of stirring.

On the table before them lay the blank sheet of paper — empty in appearance, yet containing an entire world. From the speakers, still that gentle male voice, singing “Butterfly Kisses,” over and over.

The bed where Ku Yue had slept was empty. On the windowsill, several small blue bottles were lined up, their caps removed. Those bottles had once held the most effective demon sleeping mist available. The dosage he had released was sufficient to keep the entire city of Moon City asleep until today’s sundown…

Sleep. When you wake, everything will be all right.

Epilogue

I stood on a hill outside Moon City, gazing at the demon city perfectly sheltered beneath its barrier. Outside the city walls, a dozen aircraft lay sprawled in chaotic angles — they had illegally infiltrated.

Police, military, research personnel were scattered all around, every one of them on high alert. They couldn’t understand how these aircraft had slipped past sharp radar systems and entered here without a sound. Illegal incursion — a matter of extreme and very real danger.

Although, until a radar unaffected by demon interference was invented, they would likely encounter similar incidents many more times.

I concealed my form and walked forward.

Fatty and Skinny — who had pestered their way into following me and couldn’t understand a thing — still didn’t know why, after I had seen a piece of morning news, I had unhesitatingly ridden the clouds for a thousand miles to come to this city on the edge of the world, nearly forgotten by all.

The truth was, I had long been waiting for Ku Yue to come back. I had kept that pot of wine for him all this time. But when he came to retrieve his wings, I had a quiet sense already — the chance for the two of us to drink together might not come again.

Five hundred years ago, after we had become friends, he removed his wings himself and gave them to me for safekeeping. He said he did not deserve to be a Yedie butterfly. So he had no need of wings. The Yedie’s natural combat power — all of it was in those wings. I only hoped he would return safely, and that we would drink together through an evening and a dawn.

That morning, I was reading the news with breakfast as I habitually did, when a story caught my attention: Strange unidentified objects sighted over remote border city — barren location suddenly reports large numbers of butterflies overnight, a rare phenomenon. Relevant personnel have begun heading to the area. Biologists and meteorologists say climate variation triggering butterfly migration cannot be ruled out.

I set down the paper and went straight to Moon City. Watching those dark green butterflies fluttering around the aircraft, my suspicion was confirmed.

Those dark green ones were not true butterflies. From their scent, I could clearly smell the odor of humans. They were humans — transformed into butterflies by some force.

I went to the aircraft cabin and looked inside: not a single person. The news too had said — from the moment the aircraft were found, they’d already been empty. I sniffed the scent lingering in the cabin: it was identical to what those chaotically fluttering butterflies outside were giving off.

I stood outside Moon City for a while, and in the end dismissed the thought of going in. On the way back, the only thing I did was pray. From that day on, I received no news of Ku Yue at all.

One month later, in the night, I returned from outside, had just arrived at the entrance of Bu Ting — and a small shadow drifted down from the air.

A black butterfly, its beautiful wings patterned in dark blue, fan slowly in the air, and settled on my shoulder. A radiance bloomed before me, and I couldn’t help closing my eyes.

When I opened them again, Ku Yue was standing before me — smiling brightly — in a semi-translucent state. I let out a long breath and, affecting calm, made a cross over my heart. “Thank God — He heard my prayer.”

“Ha — what a strange demon you are, praying to God.” He still smiled at me the way he always had, showing a row of white teeth.

“In this state, I suppose you can’t drink, can you?” Looking at how he appeared now — clearly the state of someone who had nearly exhausted all their spiritual essence and had no choice but to revert to original form to conserve what remained — “You used the power of your wings to turn all those poor wretches into butterflies?”

“Didn’t know my wings had that divine power, did you?” He feigned a proud tilt of his head. “I am after all a cultivator of a thousand years. Are you a little sorry now that you didn’t secretly keep them for yourself?” I rolled my eyes at him.

“All right. I came to say goodbye.” His smile gradually faded. He patted my shoulder — symbolic only; I felt no weight in it. His eyes held an ease I had never seen there before. “I think I’ve found the place I want to stay forever.”

“Moon City?” I guessed.

“I really do love that bar there — Butterfly Kisses. The people are wonderful too. A man who’ll spend a thousand years making one rocking chair, and a girl who’ll find every way she can to put the sun and the moon into a painting.” Saying these things, a quiet serenity spread across his face. “Besides — there are still things waiting for me to do. Like mediating between a father and daughter who have been at odds for a very long time. Even though that daughter still won’t call him ‘Father’ yet — but since I’m the one who brought her all the way to Moon City, I’ll see it through to the end.”

“Your business is your own — I won’t interfere. As long as you believe it’s right, go do it.” I didn’t know the details of what had happened to him in Moon City, but the release I saw in the depths of his eyes made me genuinely glad. “Though mediating family disputes has always been a woman’s job — if you want to see it done, you’ll have to put in some real effort!”

“I will.” Ku Yue smiled with confidence. “As long as the home is still there, nothing else matters. They’ll reconcile — they just need a long-overdue conversation. I believe that.”

“You’ve got this!” I gave him a thumbs-up. “I’ll keep that pot of wine ready for you. Come back and find me after you’ve recovered enough to take human form again!”

“A hundred years then — let’s drink together in a hundred years.” He made me a promise, then suddenly asked: “That day I came to see you — I left a box in the corner.”

“Ah, that one — I thought you’d forgotten it. I was going to keep it for myself, but I held back. I’ve been storing it for you. Do you want to take it back?”

“That’s a gift for you. I have no need of those things anymore.” He breathed out a long, contented breath and smiled. “You really got lucky this time.”

With that, he gave me one last meaningful look: “Take care of yourself. I hope next time I come to find you, it will be three people drinking together.”

His body gradually became translucent, condensed into a small sphere of light, and became a butterfly beating its wings in flight — drifting in the direction of Moon City, disappearing gradually into the night sky.

I went back into Bu Ting, dug out the box he had left in my room, and opened it. Inside was a pile of keys — and a pile of property deeds, from all over the world. The strangest thing of all: every single deed had my name written on it.

I did a rapid mental conversion of property values into gold bars, and concluded that I had, without lifting a single finger, come into another considerable fortune.

This May was truly something beautiful. But that pot of wine — I truly will keep it for him, for as long as it takes. A hundred years, a thousand years.

This Yedie butterfly deserves a drinking companion.

He deserves me.