As the kingdom’s capital, Canopy City still hummed after dark, a river of lanterns the ink-black night couldn’t drown.

On the bright avenue, Ouyang gripped the Divine Sword, a steel moon on his shoulder, and palmed a few stones like cool river pebbles.

Moer squatted on his head, tugging his hair like wind teasing meadow grass.

“Ayang, cotton candy, Moer wants cotton candy!” Her voice fizzed like sugar syrup starting to boil.

The little bean kept squawking, but the crowd flowed past like a tide, and no one saw them, as if they were mist under eaves.

“Don’t rush me, let me think how to get money first.” The stones clicked in his palm like bone dice in a cup.

Moer got bored and sprawled on his head like a lazy cat sunning on a wall.

She had time enough to wait—centuries, millennia—like moss counting rings on ancient stone.

Let’s not argue with a little bean’s sense of time, as slippery as smoke.

Ouyang watched the street like a hunter scanning reeds, when a small boy bumped into him, a sparrow hitting a windowpane.

“Yo, brat, got no eyes?” The boy blinked, and a strange big brother stood there like a stump that sprouted overnight.

Weird—seriously weird—he was sure there’d been no one ahead, like an empty path suddenly growing a tree.

“Ayang, how can you blame that kid?” Moer’s tone pricked like a pine needle. “They can’t see us, so you weren’t watching and hit him.”

She was right. Their existence sat in a crooked state, like moonlight that people ignore without knowing why.

But not seeing wasn’t not being; the boy saw no one, yet Ouyang stood there solid as stone, so a careless step made them collide.

The boy couldn’t see Ouyang, but Ouyang could see him; so the fault, like a fallen leaf, landed on Ouyang.

“Blah, it’s clearly this brat’s fault.” His words snapped like dry twigs, and the boy shivered back a step like a startled fawn.

Ouyang stared at him, then grinned, fox-bright. “Kid, let’s discuss this in the alley.”

He pocketed the stones like seeds, grabbed the boy’s collar like a kite string, and dragged him into a lane black as a well.

The boy struggled like a hooked fish, but Ouyang’s grip was iron, and resistance scattered like spray.

“No, sir, I’m still young, and I’ve got hemorrhoids,” the boy babbled, words tumbling like marbles. “I know lots of handsome men—please, I’ll bring them!”

The alley was darkness brewed thick, a cradle where Sin grows like mold.

The boy was broke as bare earth; he didn’t think a robbery was coming, so his mind ran to shadows with teeth.

Ouyang froze in place like thunder held in a fist. What did that brat mean?

Hemorrhoids? Handsome men? Realization hit like a blade of cold wind.

Thud. His fist bonked the boy’s head like a hammer on a gourd. “Kid, I’m straight.”

The boy clutched his skull and squatted in the corner like a scared quail, then sighed in relief like steam leaving a kettle.

Ignoring him, Ouyang produced paper and pen from nowhere, like a magician plucking moons from sleeves.

Brush swish, lines flowed like water reeds, then a red seal stamped down like a setting sun. “Kid, sign.”

Sign? Was it a contract to sell his life, a chain dressed as silk?

The boy trembled like a leaf, took the paper and pen with shaking hands, and swallowed air like dust.

He stared at the blocky script, a wall of bricks he couldn’t climb, but the sight of the sword shone like frost on his neck.

He scrawled his name like a cricket’s trail, and the sheet glowed with ghostly light, a pale will-o’-the-wisp that made him drop it.

Ouyang picked up paper and pen, nodded with a cat’s satisfied blink, and pulled the stones from his pocket like pebbles from a brook.

“Kid, punch me.”

What? The order was absurd as rain in a room, and the boy’s mind stalled like a cart in mud.

Seeing him freeze, Ouyang kicked him lightly, a boot-tap like a drumbeat. “Did you hear me? Hit me.”

Frightened, the boy shut his eyes and tossed a soft punch, a moth bumping a bell.

At once the stones in Ouyang’s hand flared gold, sunlight pooling in his palm, and their bodies flashed gilt like statues in a shrine.

Change rippled; the pebbles became gold ingots, heavy and bright, like dawn poured into metal.

“Ah-hahaha… success! Genius—pure genius!” His laughter broke the alley’s hush like fireworks over water.

The Power of Vows—that was how Ouyang wielded it, like a locksmith turning a heaven-made key.

Most people used that power to bind promises, to forge chains no oath-breaker could snap, like iron around a tiger’s throat.

In his hands, it twisted sideways. In the contract he wrote, if the kid attacked Ouyang, then as the injured party, his stones would turn to gold.

Hence the miracle, as neat as a coin pulled from behind the ear.

It wasn’t invincible. Say he wrote: if I fall, the earth hurt me, so destroy the earth; that breaks balance, like trying to buy a mountain with a leaf.

Equivalence had to hold, like scales level under heaven.

Ouyang stood at a god-tier height, life’s ladder many rungs above the boy, like a cliff over a stream.

A mortal striking the divine carries weight, a price rich enough to gild stone, like thunder buying rain.

Picture three people: an emperor, a killer, a commoner. Which death shakes the court, and which sinks like a pebble in a pond?

He used that angle, a road most minds wouldn’t walk, like a path hidden under fallen leaves.

“Kid, since you cooperated, here’s a tip.” He tossed a lump of gold that arced like a small sun, then turned and strolled off like wind leaving reeds.

“Let’s go, Moer. I’m buying mountains of cotton candy.” The gold ingots clinked together like tiny bells, bright as his mood.

“Ayang, are those gold pieces permanent?” Her question fluttered like a dragonfly over water.

“Permanent? No way. Nothing’s perfect, and the Power of Vows isn’t either.” His words fell cool as dew.

“That kid hit me, so the vow stood; if I hit him, I stop being the victim, the vow collapses, and everything reverts.”

He walked a few steps, thought of something dark as a knot, then shook it off like rain from a cloak.

“Cotton candy…” Moer’s reminder popped like a bubble, and he sighed like wind leaving sails.

He hunted for a seller through Canopy City’s loops, streets winding like rivers, and found one—closed tight as a clam.

He stared at the shut door, silent as stone, while the signboard creaked like a tired sparrow.

“There’s light inside; the owner’s awake.” He nodded to the air like greeting an old tree, then ran up and knocked hard.

Thump-thump.

Thump-thump-thump.

The door finally opened, and a girl of thirteen or fourteen peered out, wary as a cat at dusk.

“May I ask you—”

Before she finished, Ouyang cut in like a knife through paper. “Do you sell cotton candy?”

“Sir, it’s very late.” Her meaning was clear as frost, but he acted deaf, a river ignoring pebbles.

He opened his left hand and showed the gold, sunlight caught in a fist.

“Oh, Jasmine, why are you still at the door?” Her parents saw the gold, and their wariness melted like ice over tea.

They welcomed him in like a long-lost cousin, warmth blooming like spring.

By morning, Ouyang swept a houseful of cotton candy into his spatial container, white clouds bottled like marsh-formed weather.

The owners had worked all night, panda-eyed and nodding, yet smiling like lanterns at dawn.

“Sir… come… again…” the lady murmured, then fell asleep face-first like a felled sapling.

Ouyang tossed out all the gold like petals in a breeze and walked off without a backward glance, rich and willful as a summer storm.

The street stayed bustling, day or night, two faces of one coin spinning in the sun.

“Now that we’ve got lots and lots of cotton candy, Moer’s leaving.” She fluttered her dragonfly wings, and a mini castle shimmered before her like a mirage.

“Hey, why so soon? Let’s get barbecue, wander a bit—wouldn’t that be great?” His plea drifted like smoke from a grill.

“No can do. Moer’s got piles of work.” Her voice rang like a bell in a temple.

“At the World Tree, there’s so much to handle. And those orphaned artifacts, those brats wrecking things—I must track them like footprints in dew and hand them to Li.”

“In short, Moer’s busy, busy. Coming out this time was Moer’s slip.” Her tone mixed guilt and pride like rain and sun.

The little bean stretched in midair like a cat on a beam, then turned into a fall of emerald rain and vanished.