In the end, Moer let her domain fold back like a tide going out, but the jungle she’d raised didn’t ebb to bare sand. Power roared in her like a flood, yet the world around stayed still, like a painting after the fire.

“Cotton candy…” Moer floated onto Ouyang’s head like a thistledown and tugged his hair like stubborn weeds. “You’ve got no sincerity. Someone burned Moer’s house before, too, but he gave Moer cotton candy the size of a planet. You? Not a single puff.”

A planet of cotton candy?! The shock cracked through Ouyang like sudden thunder. Which clown had that much time to waste? Wait. The same burning trick had drawn Moer out. That crooked merchant called the method a secret recipe. Smoke of suspicion curled up in his chest.

“Hey, little sprout, was the one who burned your place an alchemist? Was his name…” The name rose like a moon in Ouyang’s mind, and then—

It vanished. He could see the name in his head as clear as a mountain lake, but his tongue turned to ash whenever he tried to speak it. Each time he reached for it, the name sank like a stone into a well.

It would return after a breath, like a fish flashing in sunlit water. He’d try again, and fog would swallow it whole. Something unseen was rippling the surface.

He knew the name, yet he couldn’t say it. He couldn’t call the true name, as if heaven itself sealed it with frost.

He stared, chilled, then the thought burned clean. Sure enough, that crooked hawker wasn’t simple. If you can’t speak his true name, what kind of monster plays shopkeeper on a dusty street? Are they all so bored they poke at the sky?

Moer swung her legs atop his head like a child on a riverbank. “It should be that guy you know. Only he used that rude way to wake Moer. Of course, now there’s you.”

“Who is that crooked merchant, really?” Resentment rose in Ouyang like smoke from wet wood. Back then, green as spring shoots, he got cheated out of a mountain of coin. He spent days chasing debts like a stray dog in the rain. If not for a pack of good‑for‑nothing buddies lending him a heap, he’d have sold himself by dusk.

Thinking of loans, a pebble dropped in his gut. He still owed Jiling ten thousand star coins. Back then, every time Jiling saw him, the first words were a hammer blow: Pay up.

“That person, I heard his alchemy is sky‑high,” Moer said, voice light as a leaf. “Many call him the Great Sage.”

What? The word struck Ouyang like lightning on open water. The Great Sage? The Sage of Truth? Heavens and earth, that crooked hawker is the legendary Sage of Truth? His heart cracked like thin ice. He couldn’t stitch a street swindler to the idol he worshipped in his chest.

Absurd. Too absurd.

He refused it like a man spitting out sand. Back then, that hawker skinned him to the bone. If he’d still needed food to live, he would’ve starved like a lantern going dark.

Too wretched to look at, too hateful to forgive.

Off to the side, Devila and the trio stared, dumb as carved wood, at the storm crossing Ouyang’s face. It was their first time watching a man’s expression change like mountain weather. God or not, at the root he was still human.

“I’m done with this world,” Ouyang muttered, voice flat as winter rain. “It’s woven with lies from earth to sky.” No one quite understood, but the line sounded like a bell tolling in fog.

Days later, under the townsfolk’s steady hands, weeds on the main street fell like summer barley. Vines clinging to houses got cut back to bare bark. Today, for Ancient Memory Town, was a day to carve into stone.

Because today, the mayor would change.

No one knew why, but a few days ago, the white‑haired mayor suddenly announced a new mayor would take office. The message rolled through town like a drumbeat.

In living memory, White Soul was an old monster who outlasted winters. Their fathers and grandfathers had always known White Soul as mayor. He was all white hair and wrinkles, yet years slid off him like rain off slate. He grew old without dying.

Now, White Soul declared a successor. The news shook the town like wind through bamboo.

“Is that old monster finally dying?”

“Impossible. They say he doesn’t die. Even if he did, they say the Underworld won’t take him.”

Whispers threaded the alleys like mist. White Soul, the undying, stepping down—people’s hearts stumbled.

In old stories, every mayor of the town was a ‘monster’. Recently, White Soul was an old thing that never fell. Further back, one mayor never aged, spring sealed in his face. They said one mayor was a six‑year‑old who never grew up. And in a more distant age, a mayor was a ghost. Back then, the dead didn’t go to the Underworld. They drifted here like fog, and ghosts ran wild through the streets.

Ancient, odd tales crowded like birds on a wire.

People waited, breath held like a drawn bow. What kind of monster would the new mayor be?

The Glachidor Clan’s manor stood quiet as a pond at dusk. Gone were children’s laughter and servants’ bustling steps. In the courtyard, weeds rose like a small forest.

“What’s wrong with this world?” Xi’s voice was winter‑cold. “You, a great Demon King, becoming our town’s mayor?” She knew every mayor was some kind of monster. But handing the seat to Ouyang, the continent’s public enemy—it was a knife across the grain.

“Big Brother is gonna be mayor? Hee‑hee, I can’t wait.” Xian hugged her teddy bear, bright as a lantern.

“No. I’m against it.” Xi’s words slammed down like stones. “A mayor should be someone with roots, like Father. Ouyang’s barely lived here. Making him mayor is nonsense.”

Whatever it took, Xi would block Ouyang from taking the seat. Under a Demon King’s banner, their town would become the continent’s target. Led by that unreliable tyrant, the town had no spring ahead.

“Can’t help it. Handsome folks are always popular.” Ouyang slicked back his hair like a peacock preening and sauntered off like a breeze through reeds.

On this matter, Xi’s father held his tongue like a shut gate.

Too unreasonable. Too abnormal.

Resolved, Xi gathered the only two children left, Xian and Leticia. The pile of kids Xuelai took had sent no word, like a bottle lost at sea. Her father trusted Xuelai like a mountain, so he didn’t worry much.

“Leticia, Xian, our town stands on a cliff,” Xi said, breath tight as a bowstring. “Soon, we’ll fall into the Demon King’s hands.” With no choice, she laid out Ouyang’s past. Xian and Leticia were the only sparks she could fan into a flame.

Even with few hands, they had to stop him from becoming Ancient Memory Town’s mayor.

“Mr. Ouyang… I remember him,” Leticia murmured, gaze soft as rain. His magic had blurred him from most minds like fog. But the three of them, for different reasons, still remembered his face and the things he’d done.

At the critical moment, Xi recalled, as if some knot in her mind untied itself. Xian never forgot because of Yuan’s presence, a quiet lantern that kept the fog away. And Leticia, with demon blood awake in her veins, stood outside Ouyang’s spell like a rock in a stream.

“We must stop that guy from becoming mayor!” Xi declared, solemn as a vow carved on wood. Then she saw Xian nodding off over her teddy, and Leticia staring out the window like a bird at sky. Her heart cooled by half, like snow dropped down her collar.

“Xian, no sleeping! Mayors are busy. If Ouyang becomes mayor, he’ll have no time to play at our place. And Leticia, if he’s mayor, won’t it be harder to be with him?”

Xian jolted awake, rubbing her eyes like a kitten. She heard Xi’s words and clenched her fists like tiny pebbles. “No way. The kids are gone, and no one plays with me. If Big Brother has no time, it’ll be so boring.”

Leticia’s cheeks bloomed pink like peach petals. She shut her eyes, breathed out a white plume, and decided. “I’m sorry to Mr. Ouyang. I’ll make it up to him later.”

Elsewhere, in the castle’s war council, Ouyang sneezed, sharp as a spark. “Aish, being handsome means lots of folks think about you. So, where was I?”

“Ouyang, sir, you were talking about conquering worlds and founding a cross‑realm empire,” Eunice said. She stood only one‑fifty tall, yet her ambition rose like a mountain ridge.

“Vice‑captain, your time’s come. Give me your homeland’s coordinates. Our first war starts there.”

“Why my homeland?”

“Isn’t it obvious? As Pope of the Ouyang Demon God Cult, you pick the first altar. Besides, your low‑element plane is easy hunting.”

Ouyang looked smug as a cat in sun. Devila’s palm itched to slap him into next week, anger coiling like a viper. But the henchmen around glared like wolves, and he swallowed the fire like a hot stone.