“Sis, where’s big brother? Isn’t he coming with us?”

“He’s got his own road to walk, like a river under mist. When his storm passes, he’ll meet up with me. So, Xian, be good, or big brother won’t come back.”

In the village where the kingdom touches the empire like two shores of one river, Xian spotted Xi and didn’t rush in like a sparrow. She stared past Xi’s shoulder, eyes on the path like a kite waiting for wind. The one she wanted never showed, like a late star swallowed by dawn, and disappointment pooled in her gaze like rain in a bowl.

“When will big brother come find us?” She hugged a teddy bear like a small hearth, and her face drooped like a wilted leaf. Xi smoothed her hair like calming waves. “Don’t worry. It won’t be long. When he loses, we’ll be together forever...”

Freeloading at Old Kula’s place, Ouyang felt a chill wind snake through like a ghost. He glanced around like a wary cat and found only quiet walls and dust motes in sunbeams. He’d planned to roam under Xi’s guidance like a willow leaning into wind, but the second contract snapped shut, and he began a solo run like a lone boat at dusk.

Staying with Xi felt like walking the edge of a blade under moonlight. He also had to gather more wishforce than the other side before the world gate opened again like a yawning throat. That was a huge project, like damming a river with bare hands.

A Primordial Deity once sowed a theory like a seed: all thought is wishforce. Any thinking being leaks it, whether joy or rage, like incense drifting in still air. Yet the trickle is too faint, like dawn dew; Ouyang can’t harvest mist that thin.

When emotion surges like a storm tide, wishforce thickens like poured honey. Under that cloud, Ouyang weighed how to make the continent’s beings tremble like leaves.

After circling like a hawk, he still favored the “doujin plan”—smutty booklets as sparks under dry grass, low-key and lethal. He could also carve a bottomless pit in the continent’s heart with one forbidden curse, like a crater on the moon. Fear would race like wildfire, and even sages would shiver like reeds. But as the saying goes, don’t salt the field; pull that stunt in a season this tangled, and every eye would nail him like crows on carrion.

He knew the board held many camps, pieces on a rainy chessboard. First, Lagu’s Night Clan from the Demon World, his shadowed nemesis like winter wolves. Second, Cataclysm and the Sword Demon, two traitors in a foggy faction like ghosts behind a screen. Third, Xi’s side, a dark river with no mapped banks, a quiet threat like lightning under silk. Even Moer might be in Xi’s current, a leaf caught by the same stream.

As for Xi’s identity, Ouyang felt Moer must know, like a sparrow hiding a gem under its wing. The little runt never warned him, never dropped a word, like a stone statue in rain. Nine times out of ten, she was with Xi’s camp like a shadow at noon.

Fourth, Leticia of the Abyss, a poison flower in deep water. Ouyang didn’t buy that Demon Lord Safix, that old fox, left this world unwatched; Leticia was the perfect plant, a needle tucked in velvet.

Then the Sky Council, natives of this land, a ring of cloud over a mountain. He hadn’t crossed them head-on, but he felt their depth like a lake with no bottom. From the Nightfall Clan, he learned the Council rests on twelve houses, like constellations. Each once birthed an Ancient God, volcanoes that breathed fire.

Add his own side, a lone camp like a lantern in wind. And the Divine Realm faction of the Contractors, cold and high like stars over a temple.

So Ouyang’s head throbbed like a drum. Xi showed no obvious malice, a smile in shade, but he wouldn’t drop his guard, like a hunter in tall grass. Lagu’s lot was simple: to the death, steel on steel like thunder. They didn’t owe him deep blood, yet his fists itched at their faces like stormclouds ready to break. The Night Clan wanted to break the curse the God Emperor laid on them, and they needed blood of the Other Shore to wash it clean like rain over old paint.

Because of that, even if Ouyang wanted peace, they wouldn’t let him go, hounds on a hot trail like smoke to fire.

About Cataclysm and the Sword Demon, he had a guess about their backer, a silhouette behind paper like a shadow play. In Ancient Memory Town, when he found the road to the Other Shore, his own castle smashed that road like a hammer through glass. He met Devila in that castle, and that, too, smelled like the same hand, one brush painting two strokes like twin ripples.

“How ironic,” he breathed, words frosting in air like winter glass, “our final enemy may be chosen from our own.”

He stepped outside, and the sun hit like a blade, making him dizzy like a skiff on swell. His heart knotted in a thicket; the board felt like vines across a path. Safix was an ally, but that old fox might still bite, teeth under fur like a smile with knives.

“It was easier,” he sighed to the wind like a reed, “when the Other Shore stood behind me like a mountain, and I wandered like a carefree kite.”

Back then he didn’t think much, a wild brat running with a guardian’s hand at his collar like a leash. Now he was an adult counting steps, every move weighed like stones on a scale.

When his mind snarled, he liked to lie in grass like a tired wolf and watch blue sky and white clouds drift like sails. He did it now, dropping into green and letting the breeze comb his hair like gentle fingers.

“I promised Devila I’d revive his sister,” he muttered, voice dry as dust on a window, “but Xi took it back like a tide after Jadeite Mountain.” He meant to find sacrifices and use Xi’s power to bring her back, like lighting a cold lamp. Xi had agreed; after Jadeite Mountain, she flipped like a fish.

What a pain, he thought, life a pebble in his shoe like grit in a boot.

While he drifted, a book fell from the sky like a stone in a pond and smacked his head. He grunted, and the book floated up, pages fluttering like moth wings. Fresh words bloomed on blank paper like ink vines: Yo, kid, we meet again!

“The diary?!” His spirit snapped awake like a struck gong. That damned diary told him about Loyin, and it tossed him the Divine Sword like a comet. He drew breath to speak, a spark in his chest like kindling.

A jade-pale hand closed on the diary like a snow petal, then flung it over a shoulder like trash. The one who treated that mystery like garbage was a little girl with a cascade of silver hair, a loose silver robe flowing like moonlight. Her bare jade feet pressed soft grass like pearls on moss, and in eyes like the Milky Way, stars were born and died like sparks.

“My name is Li.” She looked twelve or thirteen, a young moon, yet Ouyang’s bones refused to pair her with the word girl, like a drum that wouldn’t take a whisper.

An azure pendant hung on her chest and spilled starlight every breath like dew on cobwebs.

Ouyang stalled, thoughts scattering like startled birds. The flung diary whipped back, and an angry voice barked from its spine like a snapped twig: “Damn it, stop undercutting me. I finally get to flex, and you—”

It didn’t finish. Li grabbed it again and tossed it like a skipping stone over a pond.

“Dammit, is that how you treat your brother?” the diary shouted, voice spitting sparks like flint.

“Correction,” Li said, face flat as still water, “I’m the strongest, so I’m the elder sister.” The diary bristled, fur in static like a cat. “Get lost. I was born first, so I’m the big brother!”

Watching a diary and a peerless girl bicker over seniority was like watching a crane peck a mirror; their mystery peeled off like silk in warm hands.

In the end, one line from Li shut the diary like a lid. “Liuguang was born first. Will you call her big sister?”

When the two finally quieted like snow falling, Ouyang asked, voice careful as a step on thin ice, “What do you want from me? And, diary—if you can talk, why keep making words bloom on paper?”

He’d wanted to ask for a long time. In the Fog Mirage, the diary chatted by writing like a brush in air. Just now, it greeted him the same way, like a signboard at dusk. Couldn’t it just talk?

The diary kept mum, a stone in water, but the starlit girl answered for it with two cool syllables like a wind chime: “To show off.”

“Brother Diary, looks like you’re a master at flexing,” Ouyang laughed, a thin stream over stones like a brook. “You fooled me before...”

From their quips, he figured the diary was male, a voice with heft like oak, and the idea of a gendered book left him speechless like a fish on sand. It didn’t stop him from cozying up, a cat to a sunbeam like gold on a sill.

Last time, in the Fog Mirage, the guy tossed him a Divine Sword like lightning. If they hit it off, maybe he’d get a handful of artifacts, a belt of stars like blades. Then he’d be all shine, teaching anyone he disliked a lesson like thunder over hills.

Too bad, Brother Diary didn’t bite. He asked one question, and Ouyang’s tongue knotted like wet rope.

“Kid, where’s the Divine Sword I gave you?”

The Divine Sword? His mind blanked like a wiped slate. He’d lost it. From the tone, the diary had come to take it back, a creditor at dusk like a shadow at the door. He remembered being told to keep it for now, a torch in hand like a watchfire. But how to explain? He went back countless times to the place of loss, combing earth like a farmer, and it never turned up.

What now? Confess and hope for mercy, a boy with muddy hands like rain on tiles? That was the God Emperor’s own blade. If he admitted it, would Brother Diary chop off his hand like kindling?

He thought it through, and in front of these two unfathomable beings, he chose honesty like laying cards on a table.

“The sword... I lost it.” His head drooped like a wilted flower; he stood like a scolded schoolboy in a yard.

“Lost? You lost Litian? Ahahahaha...” The diary didn’t scold; it laughed like thunder rolling away over hills. To him, the loss sounded like a festival with firecrackers.

“Good loss!” Without a body, it still felt like he saw a thumbs-up, clear as a banner in wind under sun.

“No big deal,” Ouyang said, suddenly modest like a pale cloud. He smiled, sheepish as moonlight over water. In that moment, he felt their bond climb like ivy, and both of them found each other pleasing, a breeze through pines like music.