Wan Han was once just a farmer, hands rooted in soil like old willow roots.

Like his forebears, he lived in a quiet mountain village, a stone among stones, working the fields from dawn’s first blush to dusk’s last ember.

He was the steadiest youth in the village, a plow that never wavered, and he married the prettiest girl there—on their wedding day, blessings fell like spring rain.

It was a rounded, full marriage; both were kind as soft earth after rain, leaning on each other like twin saplings finding the same sun.

They worked at sunrise and rested at sunset, sowing seeds in the green breath of spring, reaping gold heads of wheat under autumn’s low sun.

Life as farmers rolled like a calm stream—no great waves, no grit in the teeth—each morning a clean horizon, each night a hearth’s warm glow.

Those were days of happiness stitched with bright thread; she was deft and gentle like a quiet moon, he was tireless like a river’s current, and under four busy hands the farm grew neat, then sprouted a henhouse, a sheepfold, little lives scampering like dappled light.

Only one thing made Wan Han laugh and sigh: his wife’s kindness was too soft to cut—she couldn’t bring the blade to their lambs, so the farm sold only milk and wool, like clouds and fleece, never meat.

What he didn’t know was this: his rising prosperity and the wife as lovely as a midsummer bloom stirred red-faced envy in certain eyes, like thorns under silk.

Under years of drought, when earth cracked like old pottery, their good life shone like a shard of glass—too bright, too sharp.

Disaster needed only a fuse, a single spark in dry grass.

A shamaness came to the village, fly-whisk in hand, like a storm crow on a dry branch.

To end the drought, the villagers offered food and courtesy like candles in a temple, begging for a road through the dust.

“I see it now,” she said, voice like cold well-water. “Only by sacrificing the village’s most beautiful girl will rain pity this parched land.”

“What?!”

The most beautiful girl was, of course, Wan Han’s wife, and of course he refused, standing like a boulder in a flash flood.

“Stop joking—human sacrifice is feudal superstition,” he said, heat in his chest like a forge.

“Do you dare doubt the World Tree’s messenger?” she snapped, whisk hissing like a snake. “These years of drought are your punishment for neglecting the divine. Only I can save you.”

“I don’t buy it. You’re a fraud—get out,” he said, anger cracking like thunder.

He moved to drive her away, but the hands that caught his wrists were his own neighbors’, faces shut like gates against him.

“Wan Han, are you going to throw the whole village to the wolves?” someone shouted, fear thick as smoke.

“Milady is the World Tree Maiden’s messenger! How dare you doubt her?” another cried, piety like a hard mask.

“The sacrifice won’t kill her! She’ll just serve at the World Tree. Why can’t your family take one step back?” a third said, words like gravel in the mouth.

“But Big Brother Wan is leaving with his wife—this is terrible! Their baby girl was just born,” someone pleaded, a voice soft as a reed.

“Hmph, you defend him because you’ve taken his favors, traitor of the village,” came the sneer, poison under the tongue.

“What?!”

“If you want to take my wife,” Wan Han said, eyes like flint, “you’ll step over my corpse.”

“Down with Wan Han—he’s the traitor!”

He hadn’t expected it—the villagers grabbed cudgels like storm-bent branches and rushed him in a wave.

It had been plotted like a snare in tall grass: the village head’s eldest son had long coveted Wan Han’s wife, but could never act while Wan Han’s roots ran deep.

So he hired a con-artist shamaness and gathered the discontent like crows, weaving a scheme like a net.

Shock blazed on one side, malice smoldered on the other—though his frame was strong as an ox, two fists couldn’t beat a forest of clubs; they pinned him and locked him away behind iron like winter bark.

In the lockup, the truth seeped in like cold damp, but by then his limbs felt like stone and he had no power to fight.

Far away, his wife was hauled to the so-called World Tree shrine—just the eldest son’s house dressed in incense smoke.

…

…

“Huh? It turned out like that?” Ailuna’s eyes widened, surprise rippling like wind over rice.

“Mm…” Breeze’s voice was low, a cloud crossing the sun. “After that, Wan Han’s wife—under the eldest son’s threats—she protected Wan Han the only way she could. She jumped into the well.”

“What?!”

“Wan Han… escaped with a friend’s help, but he was too late, like rain after fire.”

“Uu… and then…?”

“Then… he chose revenge,” Breeze said, heart tight as a clenched fist.

…

…

Suicide? He let out a dry laugh, a blade on bone.

That word might’ve been the cradle of the “Murder” Fiend, but Wan Han knew these people weren’t “human”—not even livestock fit for a pen.

Night was ink; he slipped back into the village like a shadow sliding under a door, laying trap after trap with a hunter’s patience and a farmer’s knowledge of furrows.

Simple, yes; effective, yes; cruel as frost on a newborn sprout.

Poison in bowls like black dew, hangings that creaked like old trees, fire that bloomed like red flowers, stones that fell like meteors.

Everyone who had harmed him died by a different hand of cruelty, names crossed out like stalks cut at the root.

At first, killing one person felt like pushing a mountain; then he learned how light the knife could be, how easy it was to cut rain from a cloud.

Maybe he was born a killer; maybe he was born with a mouth that could swallow souls like embers.

Only the last cries of the dying could bank the blaze in his chest, like water on iron.

When his closest brother was murdered while gathering proof—blood on snow—Wan Han’s restraint snapped like a bowstring.

The killings piled up like cairns, and his strength swelled like a river in flood—bodyguards hired like sandbags did nothing; the village head’s eldest son and the head himself were torn by five horses, deaths ragged as storm-torn banners.

The shamaness, hearing of his vengeance, fled into her master’s Daoist temple like a rat to a granary and refused to show her face.

“Hand her over,” he said outside their gate, voice flat as a winter road.

“She’s guilty, but her judgment is our internal affair,” came the answer, robes puffed up like swollen toads.

“Then don’t blame me… for slaughtering your house,” he replied, calm as a sheathed blade.

That was the battle that wrote the Murder Fiend’s name in iron.

The sect was small, a pebble on a mountain path, yet he stormed through it like wildfire; anyone who raised a hand was felled, numbers erased like chalk in rain.

The swindling shamaness had her heart dug out, eyes open to a sky that wouldn’t answer.

Corpses stank; flies droned under the beams like black bells, three days without lifting.

Because of this, the Inner Ring civilization took notice; a bounty marked him, the Murder Fiend, like a brand on dry wood.

…

…

“Huh? It happened like that? B-but… why didn’t Wan Han use the law?” Ailuna asked, hope flickering like a candle.

“In his memories… there’s no clear image of that path,” Breeze said, sadness like mist. “But it must’ve been… a path he couldn’t walk.”

“No way at all?”

“Mm… not everywhere… can hold a fair scale,” Breeze murmured, eyes lowering like petals.

When the world has no justice, what do you do? The question thudded like rain on a shut door.

Endure, swallowing bile, waiting for a sunrise that won’t come?

Or raise the banner, write your own laws with your own blade, like carving on stone?

Wan Han chose the latter, clear as a cold wind, and fate handed him strength sharp enough to make it real.

Thinking that far, for a heartbeat even Breeze felt adrift, a leaf in a wide river.

She, the World Tree Maiden, suddenly realized how people saw it: strength was the root that wrote every rule.

If your strength was high, your acts became “right,” and others could only bend like reed and live.

The village head’s eldest son was like that—flaunting muscle to defile women, rot hidden under lacquer.

And Wan Han learned the same truth; that’s why his revenge landed like a hammer, giving those worms of society the end they deserved.

But if it keeps going like that… is the answer truly right? The doubt curled like smoke in her chest.

Breeze frowned and found no path, a traveler at a fork.

Back in her homeland, people did the same—dusty soil, meager rivers, and war blooming like thistles over scraps.

An old general had told her once, voice like iron on anvil: “The weak are weeded out, the victor is king… as the World Tree Maiden, you should understand us.”

He said it, then led the kingdom’s troops in a lightning strike, spears flashing like rain.

Killing civilians cut the “surplus” like pruning branches, he said, eyes dry; brainwashing children dulled future revolt like filing a blade.

He carried out his justice without a tremor, using strength to redraw the map like charcoal over paper.

In the end… he died by his own muzzle’s mouth, the snake swallowing its tail.

“Let the old fossil take the blame; otherwise the people won’t cool,” someone said behind silk screens, voices neat as accounts.

A mask of benevolence drew the cheers of a king, drums loud as thunder.

No one counted how many corpses were left in the dark corners of history, bones cold as moonlight.

Forget, then re-enact—the wheel turns and the rut deepens.

People repeated the same play, spending the planet’s last breath of life, collapsing at civilization’s edge like a burned-out star.

…

Strength, in truth, is…

…

…

“Breeze, Ailuna, I brought cupcakes!” The voice chimed like a bell, sweet as fruit.

(Huh?!)

“Whoa! Cupcakes?” Ailuna’s eyes lit up like fireflies.

“Mm! Ji Wan-chan came too! We can all share,” the friend said, a tray bright as a festival.

Pretty, cute cupcakes caught Breeze’s gaze like butterflies on blossoms.

(I want one so bad…)

The cakes were snowy white, fragrant as warm milk, with frosting like clouds.

“Let’s all eat!”

“Mm…” Breeze’s answer was soft as cream.

And our World Tree Maiden let the fate of humankind drift for now, and sat with her friends to taste small sweetnesses.

(Cake is so good~)

The girls sank into the happiness of cake, smiles blooming like petals.