He looked up, and there was Moer, that little pipsqueak, flying in like a sparrow lugging a cleaver-sized sword.
She hovered before Ouyang, cheeks puffed like storm clouds, and his gaze snagged on the blade—wasn’t that the Divine Sword he took from the Mist Mirage?
“Hey, you.” Moer propped the sword on one tiny arm like a crane with a beam, then jabbed him with her rosy finger. “Do you know littering is shameless? And this thing’s a thunderhead of danger. Tossing a super‑dangerous thing like this—do you even have a conscience? You didn’t get Moer cotton candy, fine. But you threw this deathtrap, and it almost smashed Moer.”
Ouyang stood there, mind blank like fogged glass under her tirade, and Moer gave the sword a whoosh. Space split like ink‑black claw marks, several cracks raking the air.
“See?” Her voice snapped like a twig in winter. “I said it’s super dangerous. Let’s see if you dare toss stuff again.”
Staring at those pitch‑black seams, Ouyang’s scalp prickled like frost on grass. Terrifying—beyond terrifying. The Divine Sword really was a calamity wrapped in steel.
Moer drifted, and emerald motes shimmered off her like a trail of fireflies. Where they touched the cracks, the wound of the world stitched shut like moss creeping over stone.
“Here.” Her tone dropped like evening rain. “Stop throwing things, especially leftovers from the Other Shore. Once they lose their masters, they rampage like feral floodwaters. Most big events these last hundreds of thousands of years were started by those ownerless brats.”
She tossed the sword back, cheeks puffed round like full moons.
Ouyang fumbled and caught the Divine Sword, and Moer flopped onto his head like a sleepy cat, claiming it as a temporary nest. “Cotton candy. I want cotton candy…” Her fury evaporated like summer thunder turning to drizzle, and she rolled lazily across his hair.
“Hey, little pipsqueak, I think I heard something serious. Those masterless things—what havoc are they causing? Can you spell it out?” Ouyang pinched the hilt, then touched the wall with the tip. Like slicing tofu, the Divine Sword slipped in without a sound.
He stirred the blade, and the wall parted like curd in a vat. In minutes, he carved a neat passage, clean as a river through sand.
“Those things? Don’t worry.” Her voice swung like a child on a swing. “That’s Li’s job. If Litian wakes, Litian will handle it like wind taming waves. None of it concerns you.” Moer tugged at his hair, giggling as if the strands were strings on a zither.
Ouyang shouldered the Divine Sword like a traveler shouldering dusk, and stepped out.
“Who’s Li? And who’s Litian?” He knew much, yet the heights of the old days were mist and lantern‑shadow to him—like those two names.
“You don’t need to know.” Her words skittered like beads. “Cotton candy—honor the promise. Moer wants cotton candy.” She kept rolling, a restless cloud never stopping.
“Fine, another question. If you found the Divine Sword, did you find my castle?”
“Trade for cotton candy!”
She started haggling, quick as a fox under moonlight, and Ouyang finally saw the gears whirring behind that doll‑face. She might be palm‑sized, but she was a scheming little minx all the same.
She’d given the Divine Sword back because she couldn’t stash it in her space container, and hauling it around was like dragging an anchor through mud. So she ‘generously’ returned it. The castle, though—since it fit a space container—she kept it snug as treasure. Until he produced cotton candy she liked, she wouldn’t hand it over.
“I mean, you’re strong. With one wave, you could call every cotton candy in the world like leaves on the wind. Why make me fetch it?” Ouyang’s bafflement drifted like mist over a pond. He’d thought she was pure, harmless, all soft spring rain—turns out, slap in the face.
“But you promised Moer.” Her reply was simple as moonlight on water. “So Moer clings and asks for cotton candy. What’s wrong with that?”
He had no answer; his words fell like pebbles into a deep well.
He thought, and decided to settle the cotton candy thing in this city, like planting a sweet stall in the market square. Then the thought stabbed like a cold needle—he had no money. The loot he took from Kooson had all gone to Xi, per their deal.
Thinking of Xi, he remembered, like a spark leaping to dry tinder—there was an important experiment undone. He’d promised Devila he’d help revive his sister. He patted his head, tracing the chain like threads in a loom: without Moer, he wouldn’t think of cotton candy; without cotton candy, not money; without money, not Xi; without Xi, not Devila.
“Little pipsqueak, how about I set up a shop that only makes cotton candy for you? Then you can eat it every day.”
“Yay, yay! Moer wants cotton candy every day—lots and lots!” He couldn’t see her face now, but he knew she was dancing like a sparrow in sunlight.
Was her whole life spun around cotton candy, like a silk reel forever winding sugar?
“By the way, Moer, why do you love cotton candy so much?”
“Because…” Her voice paused, a leaf caught in still water.
“A very long time ago—no one can count those years anymore. Back then, Moer was just a tiny sprite, bound by a contract to humans, a little helper swept up like a stray leaf. Moer was clumsy, so her master disliked her, and never gave Moer food.”
“One day, other sprites bullied Moer like crows pecking a fallen bird. Her master didn’t help; he said Moer was useless, and cut the contract like a rope. Moer became a wandering sprite, a cast‑off little thing drifting like a thistle on wind.”
Hearing that, Ouyang saw a shadow cross her tone like clouds across the moon. Time’s long river hadn’t washed that wound smooth.
“Moer didn’t dare go back to the tribe, so she wandered in the human world like a moth around lanterns. She met two humans, a boy and a girl. The boy held cotton candy—pink cloud on a stick—and wanted to give it to the girl.”
“Later, the boy said something to the girl. Moer doesn’t remember. The girl laughed at him, sharp as winter frost, then left, and the boy turned as lost as Moer.”
“After that, the boy saw Moer. He gave Moer the cotton candy. It was Moer’s first human food, first taste of human gentleness, warm as tea at dusk. The boy said he would become very strong, strong enough to be worthy of that girl. He tried so hard…”
“But the boy never lived to see that day. The sky tore like cloth, the earth burned to ash, and most people died like sparks snuffed by rain.”
Moer spoke simply, but Ouyang felt the sadness bloom like a bruise, that hollow loss heavy as fog. He remembered being refused by Jiling dozens of times—yet the girl in Moer’s tale was harsher than winter wind. Mockery…
Jiling had always refused him, had teased him like rain tapping a window, but never with that sneer. Right or wrong didn’t matter now. Everything had drifted past like fallen leaves in a stream.
“So, because of that, you love cotton candy?” His voice was soft, like dusk settling on fields.
“Mm.” Her answer was the hush of snow. “Moer doesn’t want to forget cotton candy, doesn’t want to forget the one who was kind to Moer when Moer was the saddest.”
He sighed, and his mood mixed like ink in water—dark, gentle, uncertain. Was it the story? Or a shadow like a raven at the edge of vision? Maybe he already sensed a cruel truth he didn’t dare name. Jiling…
“Moer, I’ll take you to eat lots and lots of cotton candy.”
“Mm. Moer wants lots and lots of cotton candy.”
He watched the sunset sink, the red disc sliding down like a blood‑orange boat. He walked slow, as if escorting the sun to its shore. Both he and Moer carried heavy hearts, yet their faces wore smiles like paper lanterns in wind.
“Ouyang… can I call you A‑Yang?” Moer’s words dropped in, sudden as a plum blossom in snow.
“Mm. Sure. Call me whatever you like.”
With his consent, Moer brightened like dawn through mist. “Hehe, A‑Yang, when we have time, Moer will take you to a fun place. There are many doors, and lots of things like—mm—like film reels rolling like moons. It’s super fun. When Moer was sad, someone took Moer there.”
“Oh… what’s that place called?” His mind drifted like smoke, honestly not caring about “fun.”
“That place? It has no name.” Her voice turned starry, far and soft. “Li said it exists at the end of the stars, at the far shore of time. She said Li’s master once crossed that region, then came back from the Other Shore.”
“Really? Li’s master sounds formidable, like lightning riding the ridge.”
“Li says her master lived as a Dream Chaser, chasing the very first dream like a comet.”
Chasing… dreams…
Suddenly Ouyang snapped awake, a hawk lifting off a branch. The Other Shore!?
“That person reached the Other Shore, then returned? How is that possible?”
He watched the last afterglow bleed like gold into violet, and his heart surged like a tide. The earlier gloom was swept clean like rain washing dust.
