In Ancient Memory Town, Ouyang had spent the past few days feasting and drinking, happy as a carp in warm spring water.

Xi’s mother watched him with the warmth reserved for a son-in-law, her gaze like winter sun, her table a river of steaming bowls and fragrant tea.

In her eyes, Ouyang and Loyin were siblings with scarred pasts; she wanted to cocoon them in a hearth’s glow, to let hunger and cold melt like frost.

Xi knew her mother meant well, yet irritation pricked her skin like thorns. That accursed fox had sweet-talked her mother, then ate under their roof without shame.

The cost wasn’t much for the Glachidor Clan, not since Ouyang had handed Kooson’s treasure to Xi last time. The real snag was this—she knew who he truly was.

It felt wrong. Every time her mother fussed over Ouyang and Loyin, discomfort crawled like an ant under her collar.

“Ouyang, Loyin’s still young. She shouldn’t go hunting with you. Stay in town awhile. There’s a school here, a house of lantern-light and books.

Settle here, and Loyin can learn. She’ll find playmates like sparrows in spring. Don’t just think of yourself—think of her future.”

Ouyang went speechless and dabbed at his forehead, sweat beading like dew. He muttered inside, amused and alarmed. “Playmates? That little tyrant needs playmates?

If she gets truly mad, she could wipe every creature in this world’s air with a snap.”

He couldn’t say that out loud. He stalled with a mild “I’ll think about it,” and felt smothered by hospitality as dense as summer heat.

When Xi’s mother finally left, Ouyang and Xi let out a synchronized sigh, a soft wind slipping through bamboo.

“I say we should just ‘elope’ early,” he whispered, mischief flickering like fireflies. “By the way, where’s that little gremlin Leticia? I haven’t seen her.”

He wasn’t holding Loyin; Xian had tugged the girl away to play, laughter trailing like tinkling bells down a lane.

Xi rolled her eyes but spared him a fight. “Leticia? I haven’t seen her for a while. She asked for leave to travel the continent.

I worried at first—she’s a girl alone under a wide sky. But then I remembered the black wings unfurling behind her—night blades cutting the wind. She’s not simple.”

“What about your maid?”

Xi knew who he meant. “Snow. Ever since I brought those children back from Dragon Gorge, some died like candles in a storm.

Snow felt too weak and guilty. She returned to the Magicians’ Association headquarters to train, to forge iron out of sorrow.”

The people he wanted to see were all scattered like migrating birds. Loneliness pooled in Ouyang’s chest like rain in an empty courtyard.

“How about we slip away now?” he said, voice bright as a polished blade. “As long as those demon remnants linger on the continent, innocent lives hang by a thread.”

He sounded like a paragon, like a bell tolling in clear air. But the City of the Dead had been his doing, a stain that rain didn’t wash.

Back then he lacked control, yes, yet he felt no weight. He’d done things like that more than once, and his heart stayed light as ash.

Xi propped her cheek with one hand, hesitating. Irina and Fei had left yesterday, their shadows long on the road.

Kooson and Amelie, both Demon Kings, were bound by contract and couldn’t stray far; they had to follow. Without Irina and Fei, the house felt dull as a gray noon.

“Slip away? Sis, what are you and big brother plotting?”

Xian hugged a teddy bear, grin sunny as dawn, and peered up at Xi’s startled face. Shock faded; annoyance darkened like a storm rolling in.

When the little imp heard everything, she stuck like burrs on cloth. Xi knew she wouldn’t shake her off.

Loyin blinked, her ink-dark pupils turning like marbles. “Brother, hug!” she said, arms sprouting like willow branches toward Ouyang.

Xi busied herself coaxing Xian. Loyin tugged Ouyang’s sleeve, a sparrow’s peck, signaling she had words tucked behind her lips.

Seeing the sisters spar with smiles and pouts, Ouyang carried Loyin out, steps light as a cat over tiles.

He found an empty corner in the shade. He tried to set Loyin down, but the little girl locked her arms around his neck like a warm scarf.

He pulled, then laughed and surrendered, letting her hang off him like a sleepy koala.

Her eyes, dark as wet ink, fixed on him. She opened her mouth, then hesitated, words shying like deer behind brush.

“What is it?” he asked, gentle and puzzled. “You weren’t like this before.”

He ruffled her hair, strands soft as silk grass. He felt it clearly—Loyin was changing, like ice thawing into spring rivers.

“Um…” She parted her lips and forced the words out. “I’ll first help you get the so-called Dark Trinity Artifacts. But don’t forget your promise.”

“Ah… it won’t be dangerous, right?” he blurted, surprise cracking like a twig. Before, he’d have cheered. Now worry coiled like smoke in his chest.

Loyin saw it and smiled, eyes narrowing, dimples blooming like twin crescents.

She shook her head, calm as a pond at dusk. “It’s not a big problem. The opponent is the Firstborn Elf.

She shouldn’t hurt me. But I may not get the items. I’ll try.”

“Okay. Then remember—safety first. If it’s too hard, say it’s me who wants them. She might show respect.”

It wasn’t the current Ouyang she’d respect, but the Ouyang of the void, the former lord of the Starry Citadel, a name like starlight on old stone.

“Honestly, I’ve wanted to ask. What do you need the Eternal Trinity Artifacts for?”

He felt their bond had warmed like tea. Questions he’d never dared now seemed fine to ask.

Loyin didn’t answer at once. She loosened her arms and dropped to the ground, light as a leaf.

She stared up at the sky, blue like a cold lake. Desolation flickered over her face, thin as frost.

“I want… to see Father again, the one who created me. I want to know if he abandoned me because I was disobedient.

I want to know why he turned his back on us.”

By “us,” Ouyang guessed she meant herself and “Sin.” He’d only seen Loyin in the aspect called “Original.”

He didn’t even know if “Sin” was male or female, face lost like a shadow behind a screen.

“Your father didn’t abandon you,” Ouyang said softly, voice like a hand on a shoulder. “At the time, he had no time.

The Gate’s opening scrambled everything he planned.”

He’d read that diary, pages that whispered like a house-lamp in long night. The “father” hadn’t truly let go.

And that talking diary had stood guard like a nanny, watching over “Original” and “Sin.”

If the diary hadn’t gone easy on them, they might never have gotten out. It held the Heaven Departing Divine Sword, the first Supreme Artifact—even if that sword had died.

Even in his hands, a dead sword ripped the mist labyrinth like silk. And that diary handed a first-ranked artifact around like cabbages at market.

He couldn’t believe Original Sin slipped its watch unless the diary let the river overflow its banks.

He comforted Loyin in a low voice, but her reaction burst like summer thunder. “No! He could’ve taken us to the other side of the Gate.

He left us on this side!” Tears reddened her eyes, falling bead by bead like rain off eaves.

At the end of it, she was still a child set aside by fate, craving warmth like a kitten in winter.

“Listen to me. There’s a reason.” Ouyang wiped her tears, his words slow and steady, like stones laid on a path.

“Haven’t you noticed? The famed weapons left by the great ones of the Other Shore, those renowned artifacts—they’re wandering too.

If it were only you, that would mean your father abandoned you. But look at them.

The God Emperor didn’t even take the sword he used to fight among stars. What does that say?

The Gate likely doesn’t allow you through.”

“That’s why the vast continent of the Other Shore remained on this side, like a whale stranded near shore.

Those artifacts keep drifting in the starsea like lanterns set afloat. Your father didn’t want to relinquish you. He was forced.”

He’d suspected this since Moer’s tales had settled like dust. Think of the Heaven Departing Divine Sword; think of Wutong’s Oil Paper Umbrella.

Most of all, think of the Other Shore—an ancient continent floating in the heavens, said to be larger than hundreds of stars.

It was their witness, their glory, their hope carved into stone like old seal script. And it still didn’t move.

If even the Other Shore couldn’t pass, the Gate held limits like a sieve catching larger grain.

Ouyang’s words settled, and Loyin’s breathing steadied, ripples smoothing on water. His guess had teeth.

She thought for a moment, then her expression cleared like clouds parting.

“Then… I’m going,” she said, frost reformed into poise. “Be ready to collect the Eternal Trinity Artifacts.”

The mask returned, cool as porcelain. Yet Ouyang saw it—the small smile at her mouth, a petal half-hidden.

Knowing she wasn’t truly thrown away could bloom that much joy? He understood.

In his memory, he was an orphan, a child looking for parents in alleys of wind. He had blamed them too, once, with a hurt as quiet as dusk.

That memory…

A ruin dyed red by the setting sun, concrete and rebar swallowed by weeds and vines, a world of silence and green.

“In truth, we’re one person. Only the Ouyang who carries both our memories is the real Ouyang.

When we became void, some memories dissolved into that void.

That set of memories is of that world—our homeland.”

“Then you appeared, holding that set, and you felt lost, like a boat without oars.

At times you feel you’ve forgotten something; the past you forgot is sitting in my mind.”

Two Ouyangs, each cradling a different lantern of the past.

In the current Ouyang’s memory, he was an orphan who grew up in an orphanage, then fell into this world like a leaf in a whirl.

In truth, he had come before and knew the root of everything.

But that memory lay in the other Ouyang’s mind, kept like a letter sealed for years.