Inside the ducal estate, Ouyang and Kooson ran into a wall of a problem: how to get back to the “Confinement Room” under guards bristling like iron thorns.

He eyed the courtyard wall, resolve hardening like frost on stone.

“Yeah, blowing the wall open is the best plan. Big noise draws eyes, we slip in. Brilliant. Only a peerless genius like me could think of it.”

Boom—stone thundered. Before Ouyang could breathe, Kooson drove a fist through the wall like a meteor through clay.

“You idiot, I was just talking!” Ouyang’s temper flared like sparks in dry grass. He yanked Kooson and darted inside, shadows rippling like fish. Patrols would swarm like hornets; they had to disappear before the stings arrived.

The wall’s collapse made Xi and Irina’s eyelids jump like flicked drumskins. Irina raked her fire-red hair, headache blooming like a storm. “Why so much chaos today? That noise… sounds like my place…”

Xi frowned, chin propped on one palm like a crane at rest. “You sure it has nothing to do with those two Demon Kings? The staff said they stayed put in the Confinement Room, but without seeing it, I can’t settle.”

“Let’s go check.” Irina’s decision fell like a clean blade.

Elsewhere, Ouyang and Kooson wandered the estate like ants on a hot wok; they couldn’t remember the Confinement Room’s direction. Panic sizzled, then Ouyang spotted a familiar face.

“Hey, Hericot brat. Which way to the room we stayed in?” Relief slipped in like rain through eaves. He’d forgotten her name, but the Hericot Clan’s scent hung on Nabelia like pine sap.

Nabelia looked up, saw Ouyang, and tensed like a strung bow. She didn’t know if the minotaur had been released, or where her mission stood; guilt fluttered like trapped birds. “Um… Lord Demon King…”

Ouyang caught the wrong note in her face, a haze like heat over sand. No time to probe.

“Kid, answer.”

“Ah—my lord, this way…” His gaze needled her; she jolted back to herself and led them, footsteps shaky as reeds in wind.

On the way, Ouyang felt the discord deepen. Nabelia trembled, fear beating under her skin like moth wings. She tried to still it; he still noticed.

With her lead, Ouyang and Kooson slipped back to the Confinement Room like night returning to a well. Captain Brel saw them unharmed and felt disappointment fall like a damp cloak.

“Uh, sorry,” Ouyang said with a rueful smile, apology soft as rain. “We just stepped out and ran into a monster. Never made it to those ‘sights’…”

Brel understood; the city had been in uproar like a shaken hive. Any man with sense would run back, not go sightseeing. Their contrite faces nudged him like a gentle shove. He’d sent them out to get roughed up; they hadn’t gone, yet they looked guilty. The thought gnawed: bullying honest folk felt hollow, like punching straw.

“It’s fine. There was unrest. You two coming back safe matters most. If anything had happened, I’d feel guilty for life.” His mouth spoke balm like warm tea, even as his mind stayed guarded. Still, Ouyang’s earnest eyes, Kooson’s simple face, and Ouyang’s bashful air doused his urge to teach them a lesson.

Soon after Ouyang and Kooson returned, Irina arrived with Xi at the Confinement Room like wind bringing the scent of rain.

“Huh, these two really stayed put?” Irina’s disbelief glittered like ice. The servants had said so, but seeing two Demon Kings quiet as stones still stunned her.

Xi felt her worry drift off like mist; she shouldn’t pin every bad thing on the Demon Kings. She’d even suspected Ouyang. She shot him an apologetic glance, a leaf-light flicker that left Ouyang baffled.

“Ouyang, we’re leaving tomorrow. If you need to pack, do it now. You’ve been missing long enough; your family’s worried.”

They’d stayed several days at the Terracafe ducal estate. Xi felt the tide turning homeward. With Irina here, they could take an airship, cloud-fast. A month on the road became a single day. That was why Xi lingered in Terracafe—time folded like silk.

“Leaving?” Kooson scratched his head, fingers raking dust like plowshares. “So I’m gonna be separated from Boss Ouyang?”

“Correct.” Irina’s answer snapped like a bowstring. She wanted Ouyang gone, yet that meant Xi would leave too; the knot tugged both ways. Her instinct rang like a warning bell—Ouyang was dangerous. Kooson was a Demon King, yes, but his ox-sturdy honesty felt harmless as earth. Ouyang, though—always agreeable, smiling at whatever Xi said like a crescent moon in daylight.

Two faces under one mask—that was danger wrapped in silk.

Her gut knew: distance from Ouyang was the safe road.

Her instinct wasn’t baseless. Kooson’s contract with her was bound by the Light Goddess, chains of radiance he couldn’t break. Ouyang’s contract with Xi had nothing to do with that goddess; he could rip it apart like cloth, though the price would bite hard—he might burn through the power in his six remaining Divine Grace Crystals.

For now, sticking close to Xi cost him nothing; he only needed to keep his little tricks under the water’s skin. No reason to drain the crystals dry.

Kooson pouted like a calf at a closed gate, but Irina would never let two Demon Kings herd together. With Ouyang leaving tomorrow, she’d dig into the riots. A blue-armored knight had felled that horrible monster in one stroke, cold lightning through cloud—but nothing happens without roots. If not the Demon Kings, then who?

Irina chased the thought in circles until sleep slipped away like a startled deer.

Meanwhile, deep into the night, Ouyang sat cross-legged, still as a stone in a stream.

“Time to push it—get that girl to undo the second seal. Right now I don’t even have elite-tier strength. Heh… the script’s written. The ending’s set.”

His sly laugh rolled around the room like a fox under the eaves—until a pillow thunked into his face.

“Shut up. Stop plotting evil at midnight. Sleep. We’re traveling tomorrow.” Xi flipped over, cocooned herself in the quilt like a silkworm, and drifted back under.

In a season this troubled, with lessons still warm like fresh scars, Xi chose to “sacrifice herself” and share a room with a Demon King, eyes on him like a lantern. But Ouyang watched her fall asleep in moments, breaths soft as snowfall, and felt speechless.

Was he that harmless? She threatened to “monitor” him, yet with a man here, she slept sweet as a peach in spring.

He shook his head. Boredom pooled like stagnant water. Time to begin his art.

He picked up paper and pen; strokes whispered shua-shua, ink flowing like a creek. A sketchbook isn’t a joke.

“Hmph. People pay for what they do.” That splinter in his heart pricked like a thorn.

Before long, a drawing bloomed. He admired it, satisfied as a craftsman: every curve where it should rise, every line with lift. Add sound, and it’d sing. One done, momentum surged like wind in sails; he dove into the next.

“A tentacle monster is a must. What else?” He paused, memory sifting like sand. “Right. Plot. It needs plot.”

As he chased his muse, Xi stirred—whether by the scratch of pen or the lamp’s halo, who could say. She rubbed her eyes, saw Ouyang bent over the desk, writing like rain.

“He’s not bad when he’s serious,” she thought, warmth flickering like candlelight. “If only he wouldn’t joke, break things, and scam people all the time…”

She tiptoed behind him, leaned in like a cat.

A heartbeat later, thunder cracked through the ducal estate.

“Ouyang, you bastard! Burn it. Burn it all!”

“No! That’s my art, my life. An artist breathes through his work. Every line is my child, born of my hand—”

“If it’s your life, then go die with it!”

Fire leapt in the room, flames racing like wild horses. Another night of feathers flying and dogs scattering burst wide open.