Out on the wild plain, Xi stumbled on a terrible truth: the sunset hung like a blood-red coin that never slid, and dusk stretched like an unending veil.

“Ouyang, how do we get out?” Her voice came sharp before her hands moved. The Demon King she’d collared as a servant had said, “soon.” He’d said it a hundred times, like wind circling a dead reed. They were still trapped in this eerie place.

Time felt pinned in amber, and that heavy, smoky glow never dropped beneath the rim of the world.

“Ouyang, great Demon King, are you doing this on purpose? If I starve in here, you’re free, aren’t you?” Xi bared her teeth, eyes hard as cold glass. He was a Demon King, after all. She didn’t believe someone like that bowed meekly to a contract.

“Dear Master, please don’t weigh my ocean-wide magnanimity with your pocket-sized pettiness.”

“Yes, I’m petty, so what? Get me out. Now. This instant.” Her temper flared like a torch in wind; the grace she wore in peace fell away like silk.

Ouyang heaved a sigh that sounded ancient. “Worthy of fate’s choice—my Master. After seven hours, you finally sensed something wrong. Truly, astounding.”

“You admit it! You totally admit it!” Her cheeks flushed like peach blossom, unsure if he mocked or praised.

“Enough nonsense. Tell me how to leave.”

Faced with her storming glare, Ouyang dropped the solemn mask. He pulled a long face, like rain sagging a banner. “Master, boo hoo… it’s not that I won’t let you go. I don’t know how to get out either…”

He sobbed, a mess of snot and tears, like a child lost at dusk.

“Of course, there’s one way. This place was made to seal me. So… sniff… Master, if I’m truly useless to you, kill me. If I die, this place will vanish.”

Her heart leaped like a fish at the first splash of that idea. Then her thoughts cooled like quenched steel. Trap one: does killing him really open a path? Trap two: we signed a contract; if she strikes, does she forfeit it, and free him from its chains? Trap three: he said the place vanishes when he dies—does vanish mean everything here winks out, including her?

Clear-eyed, Xi’s mind unfurled like a blade from a sheath. The light in her gaze made Ouyang edge back, step by step.

“Master, your wisdom is truly without precedent or successor.” Ouyang clasped his hands and worshipped the peerless girl before him. “Master for ten thousand years, unifier of the martial world! Master for the ages, glory unending, Master—”

“Enough. Keep this up and I’ll starve. If I’m stuck here, I’ll make sure you suffer with me.” She smoothed her dark hair like a calm lake; her set jaw showed a decision hammered firm.

Ouyang drooped, all sparks gone, like a banner after a storm.

“O—pen—Se—sa—me…”

Listless words drifted like ash. A door of gathered light budded open in the air before him.

Creak… creak…

The door eased outward, and beyond lay a sea of green, grasses rolling to the horizon.

The living breath that rushed in smelled like rain on earth. It was real. Xi knew it in her bones. She had stayed cool with Ouyang because she knew what he was—a Demon King—and caution stood like a blade between them. The contract leashed him, but it didn’t soothe her instincts.

Flip it around, she thought. If she hadn’t known he was a Demon King, Xi Winlester Gulachidor would’ve let him sell her and cheerfully counted the money for him.

She exhaled and found it made sense. He was the bottom rung among Demon Kings. If his strength lagged, then his wits had to bite; otherwise, how did he earn the title?

Danger. That Demon King was a coiled viper, too dangerous.

Her resolve clicked into place like a lock. He’d hunt for loopholes in the contract. The best way was to get out, and leave him in the Sealed Land.

She watched the light door shrink like melting ice. “When’s the next time this opens?” Her tone was cool, her gaze steady.

“Ah, dear Master, in a thousand years.”

“Perfect.” She smiled like a sheathed knife and drifted closer to the light, looking every bit her usual calm.

At the door, she pretended to study its weave. Then she wedged herself at the threshold and refused to move. Ouyang stood aside with a servant’s smile, as if his brains had boiled away.

Time ticked like water from a cracked eave. The door kept shrinking.

At last, it was only wide enough for one. Any smaller and even one person couldn’t pass. Only then did Xi slip through in an unhurried glide. The instant she cleared, Ouyang moved to follow.

She was already chanting, breath cool as the night tide. Her palm lifted toward the passage.

“Burst, O Wind of Wrath!”

A savage gust slammed Ouyang backward, a roar like a cliffside storm. By the time he staggered back, the door had shrunk to a fist-sized coin of light. He couldn’t fit. Xi finally let out a held breath.

She braced for his roaring rage. Instead, through that tiny light, she saw him smiling. Not frantic. Not furious.

Wrong. His calm rang false, like a bell with a crack. When the world does something strange, monsters lurk beneath. She paced back, face gone pale as moonmilk, sweat beading and falling like rain.

At last, the light winked out.

Hoo… hoo… She waited in place, listening to the wind. Nothing leaped from the shadows. She pulled air into starving lungs. It wasn’t simple bravado; she’d just gone twelve rounds of wits and nerves with a Demon King.

After a while, a new problem rose like a thorn. This place felt foreign. She’d forgotten to ask where the door spat them out. Any spatial gate tied to Demon Kings from the Era of Demonic Chaos had a habit of hurling you across continents—or worlds.

She looked up. The sun nailed the sky’s center like a golden rivet. If this wasn’t another world, then it wasn’t far from the Verdant Kingdom she’d left. Before she entered the prison of the great Demon King, the sun had stood just so.

If this was still the same world, then time flowed differently in Ouyang’s Sealed Land. Otherwise, after all those hours inside, night should’ve drowned the sky.

That was the rosy version. The darker one: this wasn’t her original world at all. She didn’t doubt the build quality of a Demon King’s gate.

Worst of all, she might still be inside that eerie place; the “escape” could be nothing more than a mirage spun from mist.

None of it was impossible. He was a Demon King from legend.

Skirts pinched up from the dust, she walked and walked until life finally showed itself—a living, breathing person under a roadside tree. A few words exchanged washed her like spring rain. She was still in the Verdant Kingdom, but the distance was cruel; by carriage, it would take a full month of hooves and road.

She eyed the few gold coins in her palm like dry seeds. She chose an inn. She’d been walking forever under a white sun, and she’d spent hours inside the Sealed Land.

She hadn’t eaten a bite. She fell on a soft mattress like a feather and slid into sleep.

As Xi slept, a complex sigil rose on the back of her right hand like ink seeping through silk. If she’d been awake, she’d have known it at once. It was the same mark that had burned forth when the stele’s power bound her contract with Ouyang.

As the sigil glowed, a great circle lit the floor nearby, red and black light braided like serpent and vine. In a breath, a black-haired man stepped out of that pattern as if out of deep water.

“So naïve. I, a Demon King who once stormed the Palace of the Light Goddess—how could a mere seal hold me?”

He looked out the window at a world loud with life. Laughter convulsed him like thunder on a ridge. “Ha ha ha… how many years… how many years… I’m finally out!”

“Ha ha ha…”

Silence folded in. He stood by the window, hollow-eyed, staring at stars strewn like frost.

“I missed it. In the end, I still missed it. What’s the point now? This sky, this earth—what meaning do they have for me?”

“Fate? Is this what you call fate?”

He slumped over the sill like a man washed ashore. “Watcher of Fate, tell me—what should I do? Sage of Truth, tell me—where should I go? You who keep vigil over Time and Eternity, tell me—how do I chase your footsteps in the river of years?”

He laughed once, bitter as old tea. “How ironic. I waited year after year, and this is the lot I draw? Am I meant to be discarded in this corner?”

Ouyang didn’t know Xi had awakened. She lay still, listening to the self-mocking, helpless drift of his voice like rain on a cold roof, not knowing what to do.

Can a Demon King be sad? Can a Demon King be hurt? Can a Demon King… cry?

On the edge of the sky, a meteor scored a silver wound through the dark.