In Youwen’s living room, Ouyang and the White Cat gnawed fruit, man and cat wilting like flowers after rain, drowsy as if dawn hadn’t broken.

Youwen had no jokes left; because of their mess, his sweet little sister now held a frost-edged grudge against him, like a blade hidden in snow.

“Wait… didn’t you two finish all the fruit last night? Where did this fruit come from? And that bag you’re carrying?” His throat tightened, like a swallow of sand under a dry wind.

Ouyang lifted the bulging food bag, plastic rustling like a small river. “This? I found a card in Azure Bird’s room, tried a swipe, and boom—money flowed.”

“Azure Bird?”

“Oh, your sister,” he said with a crescent-smile that didn’t warm.

Youwen didn’t care why Ouyang called Youyun “Azure Bird”; his eyes locked on the card, a little storm rising. “That’s… that’s the card Youyun saved with since she was small. How did you know the password?”

“Kid, would an omniscient, omnipotent god find that surprising?” His voice lounged like a cat in sun, smug and lazy.

Crunch, crunch—Ouyang chewed fruit, sprawled on the sofa like a kingfisher on a reed, no trace of shame from last night’s eviction.

“Meow~” The White Cat sat on the same sofa, cuddling a fruit like a tiny moon and nibbling it.

Then Ouyang felt a chill from the deepest Abyss, a midnight wind that iced his bones. He turned, stiff as a reed in frost.

A loli in a black dress stared, face blank as a winter lake. That wasn’t the point; the point was the kitchen cleaver in her hand, gleaming like a cold moon.

“Damn—Divine Envoy, stop that feral loli!” In a blink he fled behind Youwen, like a sparrow dodging a hawk; that killing intent wasn’t a joke.

“Slept in my room… used my allowance…” Her words fell like sleet on stone.

Ouyang saw black mist coil around her like storm clouds, her eyes burning red like embers, a revenant drifting out of the nether dusk.

Youwen felt his heart thud like a drum in a shrine; even the White Cat flinched, its fur bristling like grass in wind. The “gods” hid—Ouyang behind Youwen, White Cat behind Ouyang—like mice when the owl glides.

He wanted to scoff, but the sight of his sister raising the cleaver and stepping forward, step by step like tide on shingle, made him panic too.

“Youyun, breathe… wait—uh, what’s your name again?” His voice tangled like vines; he realized he didn’t know Ouyang’s name.

“Ouyang!”

“Oh. Youyun, Ouyang didn’t mean it. Don’t be mad,” he said, voice thin as paper in rain.

Youyun’s face stayed black with frost, her gaze on Ouyang like a winter star. The cleaver didn’t lower. “Move. Or I’ll cut you too.” Her voice was ice on steel.

Life was a startled deer; Youwen bolted, wind at his heels.

“Grass—kid, you sold me out that fast? I was gonna make you a Divine Envoy!” Ouyang spat fire like a kettle boiling. The cleaver flashed—

A few strands of hair drifted down like black feathers, soft and slow. The blade hadn’t struck flesh; it had only shaved his hair, yet the weight of that cut promised heads would roll if it met bone.

This loli… was terrifying, like a thunderhead swallowing the sky.

“Next time… if there’s a next time, you’re dead.” Her warning rang like iron on ice.

She turned and left, her shadow sliding like a cold stream. Everyone exhaled together, air loosening like a knot.

Ouyang wiped his sweat, fear a sheen like dew. “Blackened Azure Bird loli is too scary.” His mouth said doom, yet his eyes gleamed when he saw she hadn’t taken the card, happiness bubbling like hot oil.

“White Cat, let’s go to the Western Empire. With funds, everything’s easy,” he said, ambition flaring like torchlight.

White Cat blinked, puzzled like a fish in glass. Ouyang shook the card, a little banner flapping. The cat understood in a snap, memory leaping like sparks—how First Cult brats hunted it across the Starry Citadel, how flight was its craft.

“Ouyang…” Suddenly the White Cat froze, stiff as a statue.

“What’s up?”

“Behind you…”

He turned. The little girl with the blue bow stood, face empty as moonlight. “What will you do with my allowance?” Left hand cleaver, right hand fruit knife, twin moons glinting with frost.

“These days, kids pull knives at a word,” Ouyang muttered, feet skidding back like leaves in wind. Youyun stepped forward, footwork steady as tides.

He reached the dead corner, wall on both sides like cliffs.

The fruit knife kissed his forehead, a cold star. The cleaver scraped its spine, metal singing like winter wind.

“Don’t… don’t be rough. Cute girls are civilized. How about… I compensate you?” Ouyang grabbed the White Cat from the sidelines like snatching a chicken. “Look, a talking, upright-walking cat, finest of cats. Its value should cover my sins, right?”

What?

The White Cat had sensed trouble the instant his hand closed, but it never imagined Ouyang would offer it like tribute. Its eyes went wide as twin ponds.

“Meow~ Ouyang, you bridge-burning traitor! Cat-lord came all the way from the Western Empire to fetch you, and you treat me like this?” Its fur exploded like dandelions, tail rigid as a spear.

Ouyang chuckled, shadow stitched to his grin. “Little White Cat, if you hadn’t suggested we pry this door last night, would this mess bloom? This chaos sprouts from your rotten idea.”

He threw the blame like clay; the White Cat yowled, anger flaring like a brush fire.

“Meow for real—everything’s on me?”

Youyun and Youwen watched their civil war, eyes calm like stones in a stream. Finally, the loli tucked away her cleaver and fruit knife, voice cold as mist: “You both stay. Clear the debt. Youwen, tally what they owe.”

Youwen eyed the fridge, its surface cratered with bite marks like a lunar plain. “That fridge: ten thousand Empire coins.” He glanced at the chewed table, redwood scarred like old bark. “That table: thirty thousand Empire coins.”

He lifted the receipt for Ouyang’s spree with Youyun’s card, paper fluttering like a moth. “Expenditure on Youyun’s card: ten thousand Empire coins. Last night’s one month of ramen: twenty thousand Empire coins. Shampoo and body wash used while bathing: ten thousand Empire coins…”

“All told, fees and spiritual damages included, Ouyang owes us one hundred thousand Empire coins.”

Ouyang wanted to throw a punch, fury boiling like a storm pot. The early items were fine, but he’d spent three hundred at the market; in Youwen’s mouth it became ten thousand. A bath became ten thousand. Was the daylight robbery wearing a lantern?

Youyun lifted the fruit knife, a comet of cold. “Until you repay one hundred thousand Empire coins, you don’t leave.”

She said it and truly left, footsteps drifting toward the kitchen like a quiet stream, likely to set the knives down.

The White Cat leaned close, whispering like wind through bamboo: “Ouyang, what now? Don’t you have a way to handle that girl?”

Ouyang shook his head, a slow ripple. “You blockhead cat, didn’t you notice she looks familiar, like a face in morning mist?”

“Familiar?”

After a moment, the White Cat’s eyes widened like lanterns. “I remember. But even if it’s her, you shouldn’t be scared.”

“She’s Azure Bird. So I can’t…” His words fell like stones.

“What’s Azure Bird?”

“Azure Bird is Azure Bird.” He cut the topic like string and moved, choosing the kitchen and the labor of repayment like wading a river.

Pots and pans chimed in the kitchen, metal voices like sparrows. Ouyang’s smile rose like steam. Three years since he showed dark cuisine to the Glachidor Clan in Ancient Memory Town, three years since he cooked—nostalgia curled like smoke.

“This afternoon, guests will come to my home. You’ll prepare all the dishes,” Youyun said, command crisp as winter air. Ouyang gripped the ladle with a sun-bright confidence.

For some reason, Youyun trusted him like a boat trusts the river. She slipped into her room, gathering sheets and covers like clouds; anything Ouyang touched would be washed and disinfected, as if rain would cleanse the dust.

In the kitchen, Ouyang snapped his fingers, sound sharp as a twig. “White Cat, don’t stare. Be my helper. I say pass, you pass.”

White Cat watched Ouyang tie on a white apron, the look of a chef settling on him like a mantle. It nodded, simple as a pebble; cooking was a mountain, passing things was a leaf.

“Sesame oil. Ginger. Chili…” Ouyang called, and the White Cat leaped like a small deer, fetching and passing.

Youyun and Youwen peered in, noses catching a scent that curled like incense. Ouyang chopped ordinary ingredients, but the aroma was intoxicating, a warm river flowing. They relaxed, like knots undone; maybe they’d found a top-tier cook. Youwen felt a wave of profit; this felt like a win.

They didn’t know what brewed inside…

Ginger sizzled in oil, bubbles rising like tiny pearls. Ouyang poured in a whole bottle of soy sauce; a black unknown sea began to boil.

He dumped in a big bag of white sugar; the black liquid turned sticky, a tarry lake gripping the spoon. Lid down, breath trapped like thunder under a dome.

He boiled red chilies and tossed the flesh away, then poured the chili-red water into the sticky dark, a river into molasses. The ladle stirred, a slow storm.

He threw a cucumber into the black, gluey night; stirred; then fished out a blackened creature, a fallen star on a spoon.

“Hell Cucumber. Eat one and you won’t think about men all night,” he said, with a cackle like a cave echo.

White Cat trembled in a corner, shivering like a leaf; Ouyang’s dark cuisine was a ghost, and it feared being chosen to taste.

“Glory to my dark cuisine!” His shout rang like a gong.

Ouyang pulled out a big basin, the kind that could catch rain. Earlier, he’d sent White Cat to buy loads of instant noodles; he wanted only the sauce packets, those little storms.

He tore packet after packet; sauces pooled like muddy tides. He dumped in cooked rice, grains scattering like seeds, and stirred.

Then he added oddities—lemon juice like sunrise acid, cola like brown rivers, Wang Lao Ji herbal tea like bitter wind—pouring chaos like weather into a bowl.

“Heh heh~ heh heh~” His laugh crawled along the kitchen walls like shadow, the sound of night stretching its claws.