When Liqianyu woke again, it was high noon. She lay on the bed, sunlight like warm rice paper. Beside her sat Angela with a helpless look and Yiyi from the future.

"I… did I fail?" Liqianyu sighed, a reed bending in wind, and looked at her two best friends.

"No. You succeeded." The door slid open with a hush of mist, and Li Gongxuan walked in.

"Brother." She watched his face, calm as a still pond, and her thoughts stirred like fish beneath.

"So I did succeed?" Joy flared in her chest like a lantern.

"Can't you understand plain words?" Li Gongxuan’s voice was cool, a winter blade between strangers.

Liqianyu noticed his distance and scratched her head, guilty as a sparrow in rain. "Bro… you don't have to be like that."

"You succeeded. Be satisfied. Heal up, then you can go." He shook his head, the motion slight as a leaf. He turned away. "This road is the one you chose. What the end looks like is on you. I won’t help again. I won’t step in."

"…Mm." Liqianyu nodded, her heart tightening like a knotted sash.

For her, this had all been decided long ago, only now spoken aloud by Li Gongxuan. She bit her lip, the taste of iron like storm rain. Hearing it from him hurt, a thorn under silk. But if her fate was death, why cling to the orphanage like ivy on a wall?

"I’ll go with you." Angela reached out and tapped her shoulder, light as a petal.

In these years, the girl had bloomed like a flower at dawn. Her face, once the mirror of Edlyn’s, now held more and more its own lines, like diverging streams.

Liqianyu studied the teen Angela and, smiling, touched the tear mole at the corner of her eye with a fingertip, playful as a dragonfly. "You sisters both got this mark right here. It’s gorgeous."

Angela arched a brow and flicked Liqianyu’s finger away, quick as a swallow. "You fuss too much."

"How’s the fusion with Akenachel?" Liqianyu asked with a half-smile, a cloud trying to look casual.

Yiyi stepped in, voice soft but steady as moonlight. "With me watching, why worry something will happen?"

"That’s true." Liqianyu nodded, ease like a loosening knot.

Li Gongxuan watched the three chat, their words bubbling like a spring. He sighed, and his figure flickered like a phantom and vanished.

Liqianyu shot him a glance from the corner of her eye, an arrow behind silk. The Far East beauty lifted a hand and wiped away the teardrops, clear as dew.

This might be the first time she’d cried since she was little, like ice finally cracking.

Yiyi and Angela traded a smile, bright as twin crescents. "We really don’t get you. You can’t let go, yet you act like this."

"Of course you don’t. This is leaving the clan for real— a fledgling spreading its wings." Liqianyu scrubbed away the tear marks and flashed a sunlit smile.

"Angela’s coming with me. What about you? Aren’t you going to look for your original body?" Liqianyu turned to Yiyi, curious as a cat.

Yiyi’s smile dipped, subtle as a veil. She hadn’t told them she wasn’t the Yiyi of this timeline, so many things she could only brush past like a hand over water.

"I have a mission. I’ll be back soon." Yiyi smiled again, steady as old pine. "For now, I’ll stay by the director, the old man, for a while."

"…All right." Liqianyu had a faint hunch about her identity, a shadow behind a screen, but no certainty. She nodded.

"Then pack up. We’re leaving soon." Liqianyu smiled, a traveler at the gate.

They said they’d leave soon, but time trickled away like sand in a gourd.

Angela was too beloved among the kids, a lantern in a night market. Pretty and fun, gentle, able to chat with any topic, matching everyone’s rhythm like a drumbeat.

She helped with little things in their days, like a steady hand guiding boats in a pond. Homework trouble? She taught. Can’t sleep at night? She told stories like fireflies.

All kinds of small storms found her, and she calmed them like rain on dust. Liqianyu felt restless here, a wild bird in a cage. But Angela moved like a fish in clear water.

Now she was leaving, and many nuns and children couldn’t bear it, eyes red as sunset. So the pleadings piled up, and departure slid to the next day like a moon delayed by clouds.

At dawn the next day, while everyone slept heavy as stones, Liqianyu tugged the yawning Angela and slipped out like mist.

No joke— if they got blocked again, who knew when they’d finally set off, like a boat stuck by reeds.

"Brother, I’m going." Liqianyu lifted her face and looked at the figure seated above the central church, calm as a mountain. She offered him a smile, light as a kite string.

The figure seemed to nod, barely a ripple. Fog swelled, and his shape melted away like frost.

Liqianyu smiled, shouldered her pack, and linked arms with Angela. They headed for the gate, feet light as swallows.

At last, we can step through the door and see the world outside, wide as a river.

Find Eli? We’ll talk about it when we get there…

But Edlyn needs to be found first. Otherwise, who knows what state Angela will be in. Liqianyu rolled her eyes, a tired moon, and sighed. Still, it’s fine. By now Edlyn must be a stunning beauty, a peony in full bloom.

Li Gongxuan sat in a strange space, vast as a hall of stars, eyes closed. Blood and qi surged through him like a storm tide. Soon he couldn’t hold it, and he spat a mouthful of crimson, bright as maple leaves.

He crumpled to the ground, drained like a scarecrow after harvest, fatigue seeping to the bone.

"This is the last thing I can do for you," he murmured to the ocean-wide field of azure energy before him. "As long as you’re not scattered beyond soul and spirit, I can pull you back."

He let his eyes close, lids heavy as dusk. It was time to rest for real, like a warrior laying down his blade.

Hundreds of thousands of miles away, Birand, rushing toward Holy Paris, glanced back toward the orphanage as if sensing a string tugged. He smiled, thin as a knife-edge.

"As expected, everything’s running along its track. Even you can’t escape." His voice was calm as stone. "People from the Far East are always formidable. I still haven’t found where the Far East secret realm lies. The two of you left don’t want to go back. You make things difficult."

"Still, you’ve already woven into this world’s path. You can’t run." He looked at the crack in his hand, growing brighter like a shard of dawn, and his smile turned strange. "Netherworld, you’d better behave. Keep this up and we might both die unsung."

"I know you want revenge. I know this body will end up yours. But in this stretch before the end, you’ll do as I say. Otherwise…"

As his words faded, the power in him stopped bucking like a wild horse and began to flow with his lead, smooth as a river.

Birand sneered, cold as iron, and sped up, feet like wind.

"Holy Paris should be under my hand. Manstein’s been entangled for so long— who knows what he’s doing. And the Demon Race… I need to grab a few high demons. Otherwise, when weapons run short, it’ll be embarrassing."

He laughed, and his body became a streak of light, a comet cutting sky, racing toward Holy Paris.

Two days flicked past, like pages in a breeze.

Liqianyu strode down the road, carefree as a stray cat. Beside her, Angela kept yawning now and then, night fog still in her eyes.

They wandered half a day like drifting leaves.

At a fork, Liqianyu stopped, chewing her thumbnail like a rabbit, torn between paths. Angela scratched her head. "Why’d you stop?"

"Emmm, little sister. Uh… do you know where we’re going?"

"???" Angela stared at the bashful woman, her face red as a baboon’s backside, lips twitching.

"I’ve followed you a day and a night, no rest, no sleep. And now you ask where we’re going? You’re a legend."

"Ahem, ahem. Flattered. Flattered." Liqianyu rubbed her head, grinning like a fox.

Angela hopped up and smacked Liqianyu’s skull with the stick she’d been using as a cane, a crack like dry bamboo.

"Ow?!" Liqianyu grabbed the stick and looked at Angela’s fierce glare, swallowing hard like a carp. "Sis— sis— hear me out."

"Speak."

"I… I said I’d get you out of the Draco Empire first." Liqianyu wore a bitter smile, thin as winter sunlight.

"So now what? Where are we?!" Angela’s eyes went wide, twin bells ringing.

"I don’t… know. That’s why I’m asking you…"

"I swear I’m gonna kill you."

Eli sat cross-legged, eyes on the beach ahead, quiet as a monk under pines. He dug through his pack and pulled out the seed of the Tree of Life, its faint green glow drawing a thread forward like a firefly.

He raised a brow. "Don’t tell me the World Tree grows in the sea?"

For some reason, this stretch of coast held no signs of life, empty as a stage before a play. In such scenic beauty, how had no developer turned it into a booming beach?

He puzzled over it and walked to a reef, gazing into the distance, eyes like flint.

He could fly straight there, sure. But what if the sea threw up some weird mess? If he wasn’t ready and got caught, that’d be bad.

The Seafolk had held the ocean for years, a city under waves. No one could say what lived inside. The World Tree’s location was just as uncertain, a needle in blue silk.

Who knew where, in this great bowl of water, a tree could stand?

The more he thought, the more he felt crazy, like chasing clouds for a rope. He’d come to the sea to look for a tree…

Then the reef under his feet shifted and stood up, stone turning to life like a dragon waking.

Two giant crab eyes rose from below and peered into Eli’s face, close enough to taste the salt.

Eli blinked, slow as a cat.

The crab stared.

Eli blinked again.

The crab kept staring, eyes like polished beads.

"Holy—ghost!" both of them yelped, in sync.