It was all so theatrical, like a farce painted in storm-light: a disaster sparked by one “cao ni ma” reeled in two Creator Gods. Normally, beings crowned by creation wouldn’t bend, like old mountains refusing the wind—but Ouyang played his hand like a river carving stone.

Not convinced? Fine. Since you’re Creator Gods already shackled by me, I’ll manage your worlds as a borrowed garden. It’s not mine, so if I trample the flowers, I won’t lose sleep.

The move snared Aupu and Lingwen alike. For a Creator God, their own world is a child—watched year by year, babbling to fluent speech, wobbling steps to free running, like spring sap rising to summer green.

Parents pour lifeblood into their children, snow to embers; they’ll trade breath for survival. Stories abound. So their surrender, bitter as rain, was understandable.

“Since we’re aligned—heh—let’s sign this indenture… no, this work contract. One simple job for ten thousand years. After that, you’re free as dawn birds.”

Ouyang’s grin was an eclipse with teeth. He pulled a scroll from nowhere, fog-black and swamp-cold—bad news wrapped like a crow’s wing.

“Indenture?”

Aupu and Lingwen’s faces went dark as overcast. Ouyang might be crafty river steel, but he was still their tier. Selling themselves wasn’t in their sky.

“Heh, don’t be shy, you two. Sign it, and you’re my people.” Ouyang’s intent was a knife under silk. At first, after the ambush, he’d wanted to kill them and strip their Genesis Crowns, like winter tearing leaves. But waste is a dull blade; use the scrap and you forge a bridge.

So he decided to wring their value dry, like pressing the last oil from seed.

Seeing their hesitation, his smile dropped like a shadow. He drew the Heaven Departing Divine Sword, cold as starlight. “Believe me, I’ll slice off your Genesis Crowns and graft them to Senyang.”

Crown transplantation—that was a technique Ouyang picked up at Starry College, chosen while bored, like throwing a stone at a pond. On class day, he found the room nearly empty—barely a handful, like stars before moonrise.

Later he learned the professor was from the Demon Hall, a veteran with frost on his brow. You hear that name and smell smoke. They’re the kind who scorn life, running human trials like butcher winds, using whole worlds as petri dishes. Before crown transplantation matured, they hunted tens of thousands of Realm Gods under the stars. Countless worlds fell like autumn leaves.

The High Council of the Other Shore never gave a clear stance; meetings ran like clogged rivers, result always deferred. The three Exalted—First Imperial Princess, Supreme Sovereign, and the Undefeated God Emperor—attended as witnesses, not votes, standing like statues under thunder.

Many had voting rights, but for Tiered Beings, this was “small weather.” They skipped sessions, silent abstentions like empty chairs. Of the rest, few dared cast a public “no” in the Demon Hall’s face, like sparrows defying hawks.

In the end, only a scattered few truly voted. Every Moon Goddess across generations condemned the Demon Hall, words bright as ice—and useless as smoke. The Demon Lord is a Second Tiered Being; few First Tiered Beings risk that wrath. Powers who could condemn stayed neutral—Qianling Lake’s ruler kept to the middle path, like a lotus untouched by mud. They say back in the Eighth Epoch, she did strike once; people assumed her temper was mild as dawn mist, but a newly risen Tiered Being bullied her younger brother, and she beat that First Tiered Being black and blue like thunder drums.

Aside from that, that low-key ruler kept silent at Qianling Lake, a shadow under willow leaves. After that incident, whispers tagged her “overprotective sister,” a label stuck like a sticker on a lantern.

The first Moon Goddess—who held Second Tier combat might—vanished like a star sunk in deep water. The First Cult’s Four Heavenly Kings, chaos-lovers with wildfire smiles, backed the Demon Hall every meeting, sparks flung into dry grass. The founder of the Magic Alliance stayed neutral; the founder of the Dark Magic Association stood with the Hall, night to night.

Ouyang had long parsed why the Moon Temple couldn’t pin the Hall. In short, those proud temple sisters didn’t know people as rivers know banks. Look at the Demon Hall: before meetings, they bribed those with votes, grease like warm oil. Anyone without backing got threats, steel in the rain. They didn’t need support—only silence, abstentions like snuffed lamps. Those with powerful patrons? Bribes, sweet as honey and strong as wine.

So from the first bell, the Moon Temple’s odds were winter-thin.

That single “crown transplantation” thread tugged Ouyang back to distant days. The technique’s reputation was a bruise, which explained that empty classroom.

Aupu and Lingwen wore complicated faces, clouds twisting. Aupu took the scroll first. He unrolled it, and black mist unfurled like ink in water. Ouyang had gotten these scrolls from Demon Hall hands, stashing many in his castle like a dragon’s hoard. Happened he’d brought this one, so on the principle of waste-not, he bound them. Otherwise, those two ambushers would’ve been humanely annihilated already, dust to dust.

“Here, press your bloodprint. Just a prick—light as a leaf.”

Aupu grimaced, then nicked his left index with his right fingertip, red rising like dawn. He closed his eyes, bracing like a soldier walking into winter. Then he pressed his print to the scroll, a stamp like a falling star.

Ouyang nodded, pleased by his grit, then looked at Lingwen, eyes smiling like crescents. “Hey, you. Want me to help? Relax, I’m real good at this.”

He held the Heaven Departing Divine Sword, its edge like a white grin. His smile was bright and clean, like a school scarf doing good without a name.

Lingwen pulled her hand back on instinct, a flower folding at night. She didn’t know that sword’s title, but Ouyang’s smile was a predator’s moon; if he cut her finger, nothing good would hatch.

“No… no need, I’ll do it myself.”

Like Aupu, she pressed her bloodprint to the scroll, a drop soaking like rain into loam.

Seeing that, Ouyang tucked the scroll away, satisfaction settling like warm tea. Ten thousand years sounded long as winter, but by then he wouldn’t need mere Realm Gods. After ten thousand years, his gaze would be higher, like a hawk above peaks.

“Your first task: drive out every other outsider in this region. Anyone resisting—humanely annihilate. Also, shatter their routes here—burn the bridges to ash.” If you force two Realm Gods into an indenture, you use them like oxen. “Oh, and report at Astral Plaza. Aurora will set your next chain of tasks.”

Over the next days, Ouyang sent those few to sweep the Malegebi Great Prairie, grass rolling like green seas. No other souls surfaced; the portals were broken, shards like glass in sand. As for destroying portals to their own worlds—how would they return? Ouyang tossed that headache like a hot coal to Xi, while he and Mapleleaf went humming to the Rebirth Pool to hatch the Void Smuggler Beast’s egg.

The Rebirth Pool was one of the prairie’s few lakes, called the Holy Lake by locals, a mirror where clouds kiss water. Every “cao ni ma”—Void Smuggler Beast—was born from its depths, like stars from night.

A golden lake, egg shells drifting like broken moons. The water shone with brilliant gold, eye-searing as noon sand. Mapleleaf pulled out sunglasses from nowhere, shade on shade.

Fine. Ouyang refused to complain; Gods needing shades to see was comedy in a crown.

He shook his head and set the head-sized egg into the lake, gentle as placing a lantern on a river.

“Cue the miracle,” Mapleleaf hummed. Gold gathered to the egg, like light pouring into a chalice. Golden veins ran across the shell, lines spreading like frost on glass.

Crack… crack…

The sound spidered from the shell, a rhythm like dry twigs.

From the egg top, a little head poked out, blinking like a new star.

“Holy—cao ni ma!” Ouyang was thrilled, fists clenched like drums. Mapleleaf pushed up his shades with a finger, calm as stone. “It’s a cao ni ma.”

“Yeah. Cao ni ma.” Ouyang nodded, conviction like anvil iron.

Mapleleaf frowned slightly, then said, “Hold up—really is a cao ni ma.”

Ouyang: “……”

After a long beat, Ouyang caught the deeper thread in the banter, like a fish turning to the hook. “Damn it, you idiot—you dared to curse me on the sly!”

They volleyed “cao ni ma” back and forth, words like stones skipping water, until the conversation soured like milk.

“Don’t sweat the details.” Mapleleaf looked guiltless under the blazing gold, tapping his shades with an index finger. “Priority’s the beast’s health. If it’s born flawed, that’d be a pity, like a cracked jade.”

The mini blue horse wriggled free, swam circles in the lake like a darting fish, nibbled shell, then sipped water—ritual as dawn. While it moved, it grew visibly, height rising like bamboo after rain. At one meter, it stopped, still as a standing reed.

“Cao ni ma, come here!” Ouyang waved, breeze in his hand. The little horse paddled over, cheerful as a puppy.

“Honored sirs…” At the shore, it bumped its head against Ouyang’s palm and spoke, words clear as a bell. Ouyang remembered—Void Smuggler Beasts inherit memory, the old stitched into the new. From that thread, it knew much, so it greeted them right.

Ouyang stroked the beast, pleased as sun on pine. “If this thing can smuggle through the void, then we can smuggle into the Primordial Continent, right?”

From Xi, Ouyang had learned that Yiyue Qianliu, White Cat, and Kanofia were on the Primordial Continent. That land was wrapped in layered forces, veils like winter fog. They couldn’t go with true bodies, only projections like candle shadows. Now with a Void Smuggler Beast, the door might crack.

“Primordial Continent? I’m coming too. You can’t have fun without me,” Mapleleaf said, ears keen as foxes. He’d heard Ouyang’s mutter and jumped in, fast as sparks.

Back at Astral Plaza, Ouyang irresponsibly dumped the indentured bunch on Xi, like throwing nets to a patient fisherman. As for the Primordial run—the beast was only one, and young as dawn—so only Ouyang and Mapleleaf would go.

Same as before, others barely noticed Mapleleaf, as if he were mist at noon. Even Lingwen, whom Mapleleaf had injured, seemed to forget him, memory like sand through fingers.

Sensing Ouyang’s doubt, Mapleleaf showed white teeth, a smile with meanings like ripples under moonlight.