“Mm... this is all I can do.” Yiyi half-knelt on the ground, breath sawing like a bellows.

“My true self left me little power... this is it.”

Liqianyu scooped Yiyi up and planted a fierce kiss, warmth like a sudden sun on frost. “You’ve done great.”

Yiyi frowned and shoved her face away, motion sharp as a sparrow’s wing. “Hey! Don’t push your luck. Get off.”

“Heh-heh... don’t be shy,” Liqianyu said, eyes squinting like crescent moons.

Angela ignored them. She turned, scanning for Edlyn like a hawk over stony ridges.

Yiyi drove a hard headbutt into Liqianyu’s nose, impact like a ram at a gate. “Go already!”

Liqianyu smiled, calm as still water. “Relax. It’s not our cue yet.”

“Huh?” Yiyi watched her, confusion misting like morning fog.

In that instant, Liqianyu’s gaze shifted. Her gray pupils filled with blue light, deep as lakes under moon. Her whole body breathed an airy, mountain-breeze aura.

Yiyi froze, like a deer at a rustle in grass.

What was this? A moment ago she felt like some drifter by the roadside; now her presence rang like a temple bell.

Liqianyu looked toward a distant point, focus sharp as an arrow. “It’s a family matter. We shouldn’t meddle. Oh—I'd better go rope our little Angela back.”

“Huh? I’m getting more confused. What do you even mean?” Yiyi’s voice fluttered like a leaf.

“Hmm... anyway, it’s a bit risky if you go now.” Liqianyu tilted her head, words trailing like smoke from incense.

“Your true body is probably about to croak.” Liqianyu sighed, shrugging like wind over grass.

“Eh?!” The shock hit Yiyi like cold rain.

In the next heartbeat, Liqianyu vanished with a whoosh, like a sparrow flicking from a branch. She appeared behind Angela, arms looping her like a net. “Hey, hey. Angie, easy. Give me a sec, okay? I’ll take you over.”

“Hey! What are you doing? I can feel my sister’s aura over there. Why stop me?” Angela struggled, heat rising like a fever under skin.

“If we go now, we’re lambs to the slaughter,” she said, voice cool as shade under pines. “So I need your help.”

“Huh?” Angela stared at Liqianyu, confusion bobbing like a buoy.

Liqianyu raised her left hand and tapped Angela’s brow, a touch light as a moth’s wing.

She pressed exactly on the rhombus mark Akenachel had left, a faint brand like amber under frost.

Angela’s eyelids turned heavy as wet sand. She had no choice; she closed them with effort and drifted into sleep, like a leaf onto still water.

“Heaven and earth, lend me your path; let the four quarters shift,” Liqianyu murmured, pulling her fingers from Angela’s brow like drawing thorns from silk.

Something came free. Golden light gathered at her twin fingertips, a glow like dawn on blade tips. Liqianyu traced Far East characters in the air, strokes gliding like cranes.

Each golden stroke braided into a charm and hung there, a seal like a sun pinned in mist.

She spread her hand and caught the talisman like a falling star.

Her aura changed in waves, tide rolling under her skin. Her strength climbed a mountain step by step.

Her water-blue hair blazed into gold like ripe wheat. In fact, her clothes and every patch of hair—from eyelashes to brows, keep your mind out of the gutter—flashed to gold like hammered sunlight.

Liqianyu flexed her fist, excitement sparking like flint. She glanced around. “Ah, so this is the famed Western Angel. Interesting...”

“Mm... time to handle the aftermath. Otherwise, when Angela wakes, she might turn on me,” she said, light as a cat stepping off a wall.

By then, Birand had already booted Edlyn clear across the field. She hit the mountainside and embedded in stone, rock shards raining like gravel.

...

Far away, in a deep mountain wrapped in cloud and mist.

Li Gongxuan held a folding fan in one hand and tea in the other. He eyed the chessboard on the table, then sighed. “Old man, you’re getting ridiculously good. I bow. I can’t not.”

“Heh-heh. Speak, brat. What did you come here for?” said an elder whose eyebrows trailed longer than most men’s lives. He sipped tea and smiled like a crescent moon.

“No big deal—I’m feeling nostalgic,” Li Gongxuan said, scratching his head like a farm dog. “Dad said you were here, so I rushed over.”

“Heh. You expect me to buy that pitch? You think this old man’s been eating for free all these years?” The elder kept smiling, voice smooth as a stream.

“All right, brat. You walked in and played nine games of life-and-death with me. That kind of grit means you’ve hit something that’s chewing your mind, right?”

“...Fine. You’re too sharp; I can’t hide it.” Li Gongxuan shrugged, shoulders sloping like hills. “I want to know where my sister is.”

“Oh? That girl Liqianyu came out?” The elder’s surprise flickered like a lantern in mist.

“Yeah. You didn’t know?” Li Gongxuan lifted his brows, casual as wind.

“Good that she came out. All the tribulations can be crossed in this season. Nothing wrong with that,” the elder said, sipping tea, steam curling like ghosts.

“Old man, I don’t want the lore. I don’t want to solve the riddles you handed my father. I just want to finish Dad’s task, grab that little terror, and bring her home.” Li Gongxuan rubbed his tired head, brows knotting like rope.

Clearly, those life-and-death games had drained him, like winter sapping a tree.

“Heh-heh. Fine, fine. Young folks should check pride and curb haste. Don’t fly off like a startled bird,” the elder said, smiling.

“Okay, okay. Can we please get to it?” Li Gongxuan pleaded, a note like rain on clay.

The elder chuckled, then went still, as if sleep clamped him like frost.

A few seconds later, he opened his eyes and gathered his smile away. “Xuan’er, once you leave here, you’ll find your sister. No need to ask me.”

“Huh? What?!” Li Gongxuan’s eyes widened like full moons.

What kind of answer was that?

“Hey! Wait!”

The elder nudged a black stone on the mountain-shaped board, a tiny move like a pebble in a stream. Li Gongxuan’s body faded, dissolving like mist at dawn.

Elsewhere, he floated in a pond. Something hit him like a hammer beneath water. He shuddered and woke with a jerk.

“Damn it, old man—you actually kicked me out?!” Li Gongxuan snarled, teeth bared like a wolf.

A purple-haired girl sighed and handed him a towel, soft as cloud.

He was about to keep ranting when a sense tugged him like a fishhook. He whipped his head around and stared at a point.

“So that’s what you meant. Silly little sister is stirring trouble again?” Li Gongxuan ground his teeth, voice low as thunder.

...

“Give him back to me.”

Edlyn mumbled the words. Her vision blurred like fog on glass. The pain in her body ebbed, tide pulling away from shore.

She sighed, breath thin as smoke.

So I’m going to die after all, aren’t I?

...

Sorry, Eli. I’m useless. I can’t do a thing. I thought after reclaiming my origin, I could help you.

I’m sorry... I’m sorry...

Liqianyu stood beside Edlyn. Energy flowed from her like a river, pouring into Edlyn’s broken body like warm rain.

When Edlyn’s wounds were mostly mended, Liqianyu drew the current back, stream thinning to a thread.

Then Liqianyu’s face changed. She dropped to one knee and spat a mouthful of blood, dark as wine, with flecks that looked like torn petals—viscera.

She squinted, sweat cold as dew. “Damn... just one kick did this to a girl with a monster’s physique. Even unguarded, it was only a kick. That’s absurd.” She pressed her abdomen, face pale as paper.

“All right. Let me see what happened.”

Her pupils widened, gold drowning her eyes like candles in a shrine.

...

“You’re the continuation of the Founding God. Why? Why would you still strike at her?” Birand lay on the ground, head tilted, looking at Yulia like a fox watching fire.

Yulia’s voice cooled, a blade in the snow. “Everything is to restore order. She must disappear. I have no choice.”

Birand laughed, cruel light like frost. “Figures. You only recite lines everyone’s sick of.”

The masked man’s face shifted, color draining like rain. “Not good! This guy—”

For no known reason, Birand’s energy surged again, a storm exploding from a cliff. The vast force blasted everyone nearby away like leaves.

Birand raised his hand and tore off the chains, iron snapping like dead twigs. He stared around, eyes wild as wildfire.

“Sure enough, this world is better off destroyed!”

...

Birand’s smile sharpened, a bright edge. In the Celestial God’s name, he invoked word-spell and spoke to the face before him: “Rebound!”

There it is.

Which means someone, at these two points, started altering the sequence and the order of everything.

Who is it?!

The Abyss and the Celestial God were sleeping then.

Who else has that kind of power?

...

Birand looked silently at Edlyn in the near distance. He spoke to Eli, voice flat as ash. “You and I, we’re the same kind. What we do—it’s so alike.”

...

Liqianyu’s pupils slowly returned. The gold slid away, like sunlight leaving a pool.

She stood there, fingers at her chin, thought sinking like a stone in deep water.

Using fragments of Angela’s and Edlyn’s souls, she had finally seen what Akenachel hid in his mind.

Sure enough, she had brushed the edges of truth.

But it was still unclear.

When all the conditions are gathered, maybe I can unravel that so-called curse.

Please let Elder Moyue not have lied to me.

Liqianyu sighed, then let a bright smile break like dawn. “I have to know. Where that person went.”