It was the same barren earth; a red crescent hung in the firmament like a blood-curved sickle.

Wutong, who calls himself a perfect lifeform, crouched low, cradling severed hair like a lover at a graveside. His hair had been cut—by Ouyang and Kooson!

His clothes were rumpled, his spirit drained like a lake in drought. Ouyang and Kooson snickered aside, the scene sour with forced shame and midnight wrongness.

Alright, drop the act. Tell us what’s going on, and what’s with the words and arrows outside that prison? Ouyang eased the laugh from his face and asked.

Wutong shed the dead-eyed look and stood. They spared him a shoulder-length cut—boy or girl, take your pick. Buzz it, and he’d fight to the death.

He folded his arms and huffed, frost against ember.

Those letters? I bought off the Nightfall Clan. They’ve been turned. The words hit Ouyang and Kooson like a storm smashing a still lake.

About the Nightfall Clan, your Other Shore archives are wrong—or written wrong on purpose. Wutong’s gaze steadied, thought burning like a lantern.

I looked into it. The compiler’s called the One Who Writes Epochs. If it’s him, there is no mistake—only intent carved into pages.

When record and reality diverge, we should treat it as deliberate, not error. The thought rang like iron on stone.

Hold up. Before your sermon, hit the point.

Wutong flicked Ouyang a look and twined a hair tip, gathering words like dew. The point? It’s an unsolved tangle, a knot the ages left.

Fine, I saved us from the avalanche. If the record is wrong, which part?

The part about the Nightfall Clan’s stance toward the Other Shore. They didn’t evolve; they were created, forged and tasked by an Emperor.

Obeying that mission, they built the Eternal Empire, spanning worlds like a continent of stars no map could hold.

At the end of the Sixth Era, the Eternal Emperor sacrificed countless worlds, burning lives like paper offerings. The Supreme Law erased him. Backlash hammered the clan.

Legions attacked them; even Tiered Beings whose true names can’t be spoken joined in like thunderheads breaking. The Other Shore watched, eyes cold as winter.

No one helped. The clan died in hate, ashes scattered across the windlike multitudes.

Wutong turned to the red crescent, a blade against night’s throat.

That’s what the book says. In truth, the Nightfall Clan didn’t die. At the final hour, the Aurora Goddess acted. Late, yes—but they lived.

And they didn’t hate the Other Shore. Their survivors waited, season after season, for their Emperor’s return, like stones guarding an empty gate.

They believed he was eternal, that even the Supreme Law couldn’t erase him. That’s the truth I know, the ember that won’t go dark.

Respect rose first, like heat off stone. Ouyang admired the Emperor’s madness and grit, and the clan’s waiting that wore years thin.

The Emperor would burn everything for his first vow. The clan would spend eras for theirs. Ouyang couldn’t tell if that was blind or pure.

Then unease pricked him, thorns under skin. Those messages left him by old friends—one was the Emperor’s, a ghost-signed leaf on his board.

But didn’t he die in the Sixth Era? Were those notes prepared ages ago? The thought felt absurd, like ice in summer tea.

The Eternal Emperor stood too far, a mountain beyond another range. Ouyang was a newcomer of the Eighth Era, a fresh reed.

He knew the man only from records. Swap the Emperor for the God Emperor, and he wouldn’t believe the Supreme Law could erase him either.

Everyone worships someone; in your heart, that figure is invincible. With that, Ouyang could accept the clan’s waiting, a lamp in fog.

Pity—he felt their waiting was doomed…

Wutong shook his head, a reed against wind. Sorry. They really did wait him back.

What? That villain with crimes longer than bamboo tallies actually— Alright, now I get why his name sat on the message board.

Good men die early; scourges live a thousand years. Despair washed him cold; this world punishes goodness and rewards rot.

Wutong cleared his throat, a bell struck once. Next is my “rebirth.” His voice rang crisp, like wind over grass and silver light.

Stop. Before that, don’t talk like that. It’s messing with us. You’re a walking mix—use a neutral voice. Don’t swap mid-sentence.

He had to say it; irritation crested first, then words spilled. Wutong kept flipping male and female tones, a yin-yang twist no one withstands.

Fine, I’ll be a girl for a while. He said it like ordering lunch, face calm as water. Then he went on in a silver-bell voice:

I negotiated with a big shot of your Other Shore. The First Imperial Princess agreed to lift my curse, but only many years later.

Everything I know came from her. Maybe she arranged all of it, threads drawn like silk through time.

Ouyang felt his storytelling off-beat, short where it should be long, long where it should be short, a drum out of step.

He wanted details about the First Imperial Princess. Wutong dropped a pebble of words and went silent. On the Nightfall Clan, he poured a river.

In short, it’s the road those seniors paved. Ouyang sighed, a draft in the chest. They left, yet wouldn’t leave peace behind.

Across the river of time, they still bend this age, like moon-tide tugging an old sea.

But I want my own road, not a hothouse flower on a path parents picked. Maybe that’s rebellion. He breathed out and fixed on the red crescent.

Resolve set like ink, dark and steady.

Wutong glanced over, reading Ouyang’s mood like rain signs on distant hills.

You think they’re idle? Why lay every step for you? Their arrangement ends here. The road ahead is yours alone, and it’s unwritten.

His words blew Ouyang’s sentiment away like leaves in autumn wind. So he’d been self-indulgent after all.

They’d chatted half the day, treating the big guy as air. Only when a cough popped like a cork did they remember Kooson existed.

You two are too much, daring to ignore Kooson, lord of all realms! I went down into the Abyss, up into the Divine Realm!

Wherever I walked, I was the center, a sun with every eye for a planet.

Ouyang and Wutong traded a look; Kooson’s illness had flared like a summer fever.

Kooson has two minds. One is honest and simple. The other is this braggart king with thunder for lungs.

Because of that side, he earned the title King of Demon Kings, a crown of noise and night.

Ouyang blinked at Wutong: He’s acting up. What now?

Wutong blinked left thrice, right once: What else? We walk. I’m not sitting through his boasts; they grind like sand.

Ouyang blinked twice: Deal. We leave, he’ll settle. Stay, and he’ll brag till dawn’s frost.

They kept talking with eyelids, a ridiculous craft honed under pressure, a silent code on skin.

Kooson probably forced it out of them. Potential blooms under a whip and a storm.

They rose in quiet sync. An Oil Paper Umbrella bloomed in Ouyang’s hand like a pale flower.

He drew a line with its tip. A black passage opened, ink splitting silk under moonlight.

They slipped inside without a word. Kooson saw and panicked, a bull on ice.

Hey, my splendid story isn’t over—wait for me! He rushed after them. The black hole dimmed and faded like breath on glass.

No one noticed Wutong’s coffin dissolving into particles, slipping into the void like ash on wind.

No one knew where it would go. No one knew where its journey would end.