Two men wrapped head to toe in bandages fought like caged wolves in a box of a room.

“Bastard, you beast, you clawed me? I’ll bite you to death!” Rage boiled like a kettle in Ouyang’s chest, and he sank his teeth in. He cursed himself for always trimming his nails short, a dull blade when he needed claws.

Lagu’s hand was trapped in Ouyang’s bite like a fox in an iron trap, and his temper snapped like dry twigs. He yanked Ouyang’s short hair. “Idiot, let go, or I’ll strip you bald!”

Pain pricked like needles. Ouyang narrowed his eyes, lips peeling back, and he let go.

“Now you get it.” Relief rippled through Lagu like a breeze across water.

In that lull, Ouyang’s hand shot out like a snake from grass, and he grabbed Lagu’s long hair. “You wanna play hair-grabbing with your granddaddy? With that horse-tail of yours reminding me of the ancients?” His own short bristles were a hedgehog’s coat, no trouble at all, while Lagu’s long mane streamed like a waterfall.

He looped that hair around Lagu’s neck like a rope, and pulled till Lagu’s face flushed crimson like a sunset.

“Trash... trying to go barehanded with me?” Ouyang’s voice hit like a drumbeat. “Your granddaddy Ouyang got beaten bloody by His Majesty the Overlord more times than I can count. My fists aren’t in your league.” The boast cracked the air, and Lagu bristled like a porcupine. He tore at Ouyang’s hair with a savage tug.

“Die, you idiot!” One hand clutched hair like a lifeline, the other clenched into a rock and slammed into Ouyang’s cheek.

“Beast, you still dare fight back? I’ll kick you to death!”

“Idiot, I’ll beat you till your own parents won’t know you!”

After a bout of scrapping that scattered bandages like shed snakeskin, both grabbed weapons again. Ouyang clutched a fruit knife that gleamed like a sliver of moon. Lagu took a pair of scissors that flashed like a mantis’s blades. Ouyang’s face was a bruise-blue map, like a sky after hail.

Lagu didn’t look much different, except his waterfall of hair had become a cropped field. That wasn’t Ouyang’s work; the moment he got the scissors, Lagu cut it himself. In the last fight, that hair had been a noose; he was decisive as a guillotine.

They panted like bellows, eyes locked like two tigers across a stream, as if a sea of blood stood between them.

Ouyang leveled the fruit knife like a fang. “Beast, truce first. Let me eat something and get my strength back, then we fight.” He snatched a piece of fruit and tore into it like a starving monkey, not even glancing at Lagu for a sneak attack.

Truth was, Lagu couldn’t ambush even if he wanted. One ‘airdrop cannon’ from Ouyang had emptied him out like a drained cistern. Add a few bolts of divine thunder from the World Will earlier, and he was a paper man in the rain.

So Lagu grabbed fruit too. He chewed slow at first, royal manners flowing like a calm river. Then he saw Ouyang devouring like locusts in a wheat field, and pride went out the window like a leaf in wind.

He wouldn’t starve, not with a godly body, but could an enemy sit and watch Ouyang eat the place clean?

“Mf— you— that cursed—” Ouyang’s mouth bulged like a hamster’s pouch. Seeing Lagu ditch the gentleman act to fight him for food, he let out a muffled warning that tumbled like stones.

Lagu didn’t care, like a hawk ignoring a crow’s caw. The more Ouyang warned, the more he snatched. He even ripped a fruit from right under Ouyang’s nose. “Beast, you dare rob your granddaddy’s food!”

Ouyang burned like a brazier. He swung an iron platter like a gong and clapped it down at Lagu’s head.

Then he grabbed a banana like a dagger. While Lagu still reeled, Ouyang jammed it into Lagu’s mouth and shoved.

Pfft. Banana and spit splattered like a burst gourd. Lagu shook all over like a willow in wind. They’d agreed to eat, then fight. He hadn’t expected a sneak attack at the dinner bell. He spotted bowls, roast meats, and soup on another table, a banquet like a harvest moon.

He sprinted, seized a bowl of soup, and flung it like a wave at Ouyang.

“Hot— it’s boiling— you beast, you’re dead!” Ouyang howled like a scalded cat and still tossed curses like stones. He grabbed an apple and pitched it like a red comet. Lagu wasn’t to be outdone. He tore a drumstick from a roast chicken like a wolf at a carcass, and hurled it. “Idiot, have a leg and calm down!”

“Calm down my—!”

Ouyang rained fruit like hail. Lagu flung plates, meat, and bowls like a whirlwind.

After a long storm, both heaved like oxen pulling plows. They’d thrown everything—stools like battering rams, vases like crashing waves. The lavish room turned messier than a wet market after a flood. Soup dripped through Ouyang’s hair like thin rain, and a leaf clung to his crown like a crooked hat. Banana mush painted Lagu’s face like war paint, and fruit pits stuck to his cropped hair like burrs.

Suddenly, Ouyang clutched his belly. “Damn it, there are always petty courtiers scheming against their emperor...” His face went pale as frost.

Lagu doubled over too, pain gripping him like an iron snake. “Someone poisoned it...” He pointed at the battlefield of food, a garden turned graveyard.

“What a vicious poison... a mortal would die a hundred times.” Ouyang’s voice shook like a drumskin. “Brother Lagu, truce. This place isn’t safe.”

Only their god-bodies kept death at bay, like rocks in a torrent. The toxin still roiled their guts like spoiled food, knifing them with cramps.

“Agreed. We... join forces and get out.” Lagu’s words came through clenched teeth, like wind through shutters.

Poisoned food killed trust like frost kills spring shoots. They both decided to flee. Mountains trade places with rivers in ten years; tides turn. If they escaped now, they could return when their strength rose like the sun.

Gritting through pain, Ouyang pulled a set of clothes from his spatial ring, moonlight glinting on the banded metal. He wore only bandages, a walking mummy. He slipped into black night-robes like a shadow, then drew out a black cloak, a raven’s wing against his shoulders.

He staggered for the door, steps wavering like reeds in wind.

“Ouyang, brother, toss me clothes too!” Lagu panicked, a fire under his feet. He was bandaged and bare as well, pride stripped like bark.

Ouyang didn’t slow, moving like a fox slipping past a snare. Lagu shouted, voice flaring like a torch. “Wait. You’ll be caught out there. I don’t know why no one came during our brawl, but there must be patrols.”

He yanked a compass from his spatial gear, its face gleaming like a purple star. “This compass can blink us short distances. If we work together, we can slip out like fish through reeds.”

Ouyang weighed it like a stone in his palm, thought circling like crows, then pulled another black cloak from his ring and tossed it to Lagu.

“Brother Lagu, in danger we stand as one. We face the outer foe together.”

“You’re right, Brother Ouyang.” Lagu threw on the cloak, a crow matching a raven. He tuned the compass with careful fingers. “In our state, it can move us ten times for free. All short hops, like stepping stones across a stream. After ten, it needs power. We’ve got none. Use it wisely.”

Purple light rose like mist off a swamp. Ouyang stepped in, a shadow entering a spell circle. Lagu held the compass in his left hand like a lifebuoy. His right hand hid behind his back, fingers around the scissors like a stinger. Ouyang came close, right hand clapping Lagu’s shoulder like an old friend, left hand hanging with the fruit knife like a shy crescent.

“Brother Lagu, start the transfer... When we recover, they’ll learn what it means to anger us.”

“Right. The master of this place needs a lesson for daring to poison us.”

The purple grew blinding, a sunrise inside a room, and both laughed like thunderheads gathering.

At the final heartbeat, Ouyang’s right hand darted for the compass like a hawk stooping, aiming to snatch it. Lagu snapped a kick like a spring trap, trying to boot Ouyang away and jump alone. Two foxes, two plans, neither willing to go straight even at the cliff’s edge.

Luckily—or not—the space shift triggered at that knife’s edge. The air twisted like heat over sand. Smack—Ouyang’s palm cracked down on Lagu’s compass hand like a slapped drum. Lagu’s kick landed and sent Ouyang flying like a tossed sack.

Splash—the compass tumbled into a pool, purple light dying like a drowned firefly. Thud—Ouyang crashed into the garden, flattening a sea of flowers like a fallen boulder.

“You idiot! You slapped away our only escape!” Lagu roared like a storm over the hills. “I should’ve never trusted a snake like you.”

“Trusted me? You booted me at the last second. That’s trust? You wanted to ditch me and run solo!”

Ouyang raised his left hand, the fruit knife glinting like a cold fish. Lagu’s right hand flashed too, scissors singing like a mantis’s cry.

“Remnant of the Night Clan, I’ve stomached you long enough.”

“Outland idiot, I’ve stomached you just as long.”

Whoosh—the wind slipped in, and petals drifted between them like snow.

While they glared like twin blades, a scream rang from not far off, sharp as a sparrow’s cry. “Who are you? You dare wreck Her Majesty the Empress’s garden?” A maid stared at the trampled sea of flowers, a painted field turned to mud under their feet.

“Guards! Guards!”

At her shout, Ouyang and Lagu tucked their weapons away like magicians palming knives.

“Brother Lagu, we’re not out yet. Looks like we still need to cooperate.”

“Brother Ouyang, agreed.”

Ouyang pointed at the sky, face solemn as a priest. “Brother Lagu, look. An angel!”

Lagu blinked like an owl in daylight, then glanced up. Empty sky, no wings, just clouds.

When he looked down, Ouyang was already a black streak vanishing like a swallow.

“Stop! You in black, stop!” A squad of guards pounded past the pool like a herd of boars. Lagu swore in his heart, a storm in a teacup. They saw Ouyang running up ahead too, but Ouyang’s trick had tossed the hornet’s nest on him.

“Kid, you won’t have it easy either!”

Lagu made his choice. He bolted after Ouyang like a hound on a trail. If Ouyang sold him out, he’d herd the whole pack straight at Ouyang.

No one was getting out clean.