The Glachidor Clan’s compound sprawled like a small city, and its wealth matched that reach.

After all, every trove Ouyang took from Kooson flowed into Xi’s hands like rivers into a lake.

So he ate and drank here without a lick of guilt, a sparrow feasting at a granary.

Full and loose-limbed, he shyly asked to whisper with Xi, like a boy tugging a sleeve.

Xi’s mother played along, guiding them beneath a cherry tree where silk-soft shade pooled.

She even set down snacks and drinks, fruit-sweet steam rising like morning mist.

The spot was hush-quiet, a shrine of leaf and wind.

Petals lay scattered around the cherry, pale snow on clipped emerald grass.

It was a lawn made for sun-dreaming, a warm raft on a green sea.

Before leaving, Xi’s mother shot them that “take your time, lovebirds” look, sly as a fox at dusk.

Heat pricked Xi’s cheeks like nettles; exasperation buzzed like a trapped bee.

Annoyance first, then words: “Spit it out. You’re not here to beg me to break your seal, right?”

“Lian told me if I undo the last one, I die. I’m not that dumb.”

But sight undercut anger: Ouyang sat on the grass, back to the cherry trunk, sipping juice like summer itself.

Blue motes gathered in his palm, fireflies knitting frost.

In a breath, neat ice blocks hovered over his hand, square as carved jade.

“Want a few? In this heat, ice in the water makes it sing.”

He dropped the cubes into his cup; clink-clack chimed from the glass like tiny bells.

Suspicion flared like a cat’s raised fur; Xi turned her head.

“No way. You always sneak weird things into ice.”

Time stretched like shade; he still didn’t get to the point.

Impatience prickled; she snapped, “Out with it. What do you want?”

He yawned and stretched, lazy as a cat in sun, then let the words drift.

“Two things. First, I want your oath power to bring someone back.”

Skepticism iced her voice; her eyes were knives catching light.

“Oh? Even you Demon Kings can’t revive the dead, but my little trick can?”

“Listen,” he said, casual as drifting smoke. “You know Devila, that bat.”

“He had a sister. And the night before their wedding—”

“The Light Church, those zealots who love burning ‘heterosexuals,’ tore them apart.”

“Priests in ritual robes came with torches, a river of fire in their fists.”

“They strapped Devila and his sister to the pyre. Then they burned them.”

“Devila lived, because the Blood Kin in him woke like a midnight drum.”

“But his sister...” The last word fell like ash.

Memory flickered; Xi recalled that blond gentleman, a vampire with ballroom manners.

But burning heterosexuals? The logic snagged like a thorn.

She knew she’d read less than Ouyang, but this sounded made-up.

“Forget the details,” Ouyang said, draining iced juice, bliss on his face like cool rain.

“Big picture? The bat’s sister is dead.”

Xi filed it coldly. Ninety-nine percent nonsense, one percent useful: the sister died.

Maybe one more percent: the Light Church had dirty hands.

Doubt pooled in her chest like heavy water. “Do I even have that kind of power?”

In spellcraft, she had crossed the gate, a one-star mage under clear skies.

But the vow-gift, that inborn edge, felt like a fogged mirror.

“Believe in yourself.” His tone was simple, a lantern in dusk.

He rested against the cherry trunk and drew a long breath, tasting rain before a storm.

Xi kept still, weighing paths like stones in her palm.

Ouyang waited, patience coiled like a sleeping snake.

Half dreaming, he murmured, “Time and eternity, ruin and annihilation.”

“Fate and hope, order and chaos... vow and promise.”

The words drifted like petals into water.

Cherry petals slipped loose one by one, riding the breeze like pale moths.

They danced a small death, because falling is a kind of ending.

And the fall is the brightest flash, a blaze that chooses to fade.

Without noticing, Xi let her head rest on his shoulder, a bird alighting on a branch.

She turned and found him asleep, breath even as a lake at dawn.

A smile tried to rise and failed; she lifted a pale hand and plucked a petal from his brow.

His sleeping face mirrored in her red eyes, a lantern steady in a window.

She said nothing, and leaned in again, letting quiet hold them.

Time thinned; he woke hazy, eyes opening like shutters to morning.

“Back already?” Relief settled in his chest, warm as tea.

In sleep he’d wandered a maze of shattered memories, endless and cold.

More of the other Ouyang kept flowing into him, a second river joining his.

When it all arrived, would he still be himself, or a shoreline redrawn?

A tickle brushed his crown, a moth’s touch on hair.

His hand twitched, ready to shoo it away.

“Don’t move,” Xi said, voice soft as felt. “I’m picking the cherry petals off.”

He realized she was pressed close, the small rustle overhead her careful fingers.

Her scent drifted over, light as night-blooming flowers, and heat crept up.

He leaned on his iron nerves, yawned once, and let her work, face calm as stone.

“Done yet?” he asked, voice lazy sunlight.

“Done,” she answered, quick as a bell.

She settled back against the cherry bark. “I’ve decided.”

“How do I revive Devila’s sister?”

Something in her felt different, a note tuned a touch higher, but he couldn’t name it.

“Leave the rest to me,” he said, thinking like a chess player.

“When the time comes, do exactly as I say.”

He fell silent, mind hunting for an equivalent price, a balance scale in storm.

She’d died millennia ago; the toll would be god-tier, a mountain for a feather.

His fellow Demon Kings were gods in all but name, but who trades their life for a stranger?

Trouble, deep as ravines. The price would not be easy to find.

Their foes, the Cataclysm lot, had vanished like smoke in high wind.

He suspected a hand behind them, vast as a shadow on the moon.

The two dragons were taken as well, stolen across horizons.

Crossing to another world was a shut door; every gate was sealed tight.

“Right,” he thought, lightning quick. “Some Demon World remnants must still be clinging on at god-tier.”

A plan lit like a lantern: revive Devila’s sister, and prune a blight from the world.

He laid out the idea. Xi’s look went crooked, a smile caught sideways.

“A Demon King doing public service?” she said, irony flashing like a fish.

“You must hate the Demon World. There’s a Demon Emperor, and you’re called Demon King.”

“However you spin it, this is for you.”

She pinned truth to the board with one clean move.

“Still, I support this,” she said, words falling like clear water. “First time, too.”

The Demon World had torn through lands lately, ruin like claw marks.

The Karosen Kingdom sat at the center, spared the worst scars.

Elsewhere, cities had been butchered like cattle.

Whatever legends say about Demon Kings, she’d never seen them slaughter cities.

“Good. Second thing,” Ouyang said, eyes bright as coins. “Be my guide to the prettiest places in the human kingdoms.”

“We’ll hunt Demon World remnants anyway. We’ll pass by good views. We travel.”

“Tell me that’s not perfect.”

Truth hid behind the grin: he meant to tour, then quietly uproot the best trees, the most artful houses, the bones of beauty.

He meant to ferry them all to the Demon King’s City, a village now, a dream later.

For that, a guide was gold.

Xi narrowed her eyes, a cat measuring a puzzle box.

She knew his goal wasn’t simple, but the idea of him stealing landscapes never even brushed her mind.

“I can’t,” she said at last, voice tugged two ways like a torn ribbon.

“Mother enrolled me at Lamo Academy in Canopy City.”

Study there felt thin as gruel compared to staying near this walking library.

Ouyang’s head held more magic than all the schools stacked like bricks.

“Academy, huh?” He sighed, wind through reeds. “I came up through one.”

“Campus life was dull as stale bread. Work by day, pay debts by night.”

Xi leaned in; curiosity glinted like a coin. “A Demon King did coursework?”

“Which academy?”

“Starry College,” he said. “Don’t ask.”

“Back in the Starry Citadel, I worked every day to pay what I owed.”

“I was young. Earned a little, and the old sharks took it clean.”

He grimaced, pain fresh as a paper cut. The First Cult nested there.

A newbie walking in was a sheep among wolves, sold before he bleated.

“So yeah. School’s overrated.”

“Come with me. Hunt remnants, see the world.”

“But my mother...” The words trailed, a kite tugged by a string.

Ouyang clapped once, sound like a spark. “Easy.”

“Leave a letter. Tell her you eloped with me.”

“Go die,” she snapped, the words a thrown pebble.

She didn’t swing. She huffed, turned away, and watched the far rice fields shimmer like green waves.

Silence settled again, soft as dust.