In a narrow alley, Ouyang carried a backpack, a yellow hard hat perched like a small sun.

Don’t get it twisted—he wasn’t going to class. “Come on, White Cat, we’re gonna blow up a school!” His pack bulged heavy as a stormcloud, stuffed with a week’s haul of explosives.

A week later, by tricks unknown, his divine power guttered like a candle, barely casting the weakest forbidden spell. With that strength, he forged papers and passed as a citizen in the Eastern Empire. If not for dodging Youyun’s hunts like a hare under hawks, it would’ve been perfect.

“Blow up a school???” White Cat eyed the street punks flattened like cardboard. Ouyang’s hands moved fast as wind, frisking pockets with a thief’s practiced ease.

Backpack biting his shoulders, Ouyang checked the map on his phone. “Schools… heh. I’ve wanted to blast one since forever—no guts, no power back then.” He grinned, eyes bright as sparks. “Time to finish a childhood dream. I’ll fight for all the desk-bound kids.”

White Cat’s doubt showed plain as a flicking tail. It didn’t buy this as a whim. Think and think, it found no clean reason.

Ouyang swaggered down the avenue, yellow hard hat bright as citrus. No one knew the cute cartoon-cat backpack hid bricks of death. A harmless face drifted through a nightmare errand.

I’m gonna blow up the school.

The teacher doesn’t know.

Little bird chirps:

early, early, early.

Why do you want to blow up the school?

…

Ouyang’s wail—ghosts crying, wolves howling—rolled down the street. A man’s back thruster died mid-air; he dropped like a stone. Cars chain-crashed on the road like dominoes. Streetlights popped like firecrackers, poles toppled, panic rippled through the crowd.

“Huh… I didn’t even pull out the Calamity Cloak. What’s going on?” Confusion pricked like cold rain. In the span of a song, disaster bloomed as if the cloak’s doom were loose. He checked his personal space. The Calamity Cloak from the Boundless Sea’s sprite still rested there. He hadn’t drawn it. If he did, wouldn’t this world birth a Cataclysm and rip itself apart?

Meanwhile, sirens bloomed across the city. “Alert, alert, high-energy reaction detected in the city!”

Ouyang crushed his lollipop to shards. “White Cat, did the authorities sniff out our plan?”

He turned. White Cat lay like a toppled statue, foam at its mouth, body twitching. “O… Ouyang… your… singing is toxic…” It spent all its strength to say that. Ouyang stood there, hair ruffled by wind, bewildered.

Time drifted like dust. “That one—yeah, him. That terrifying voice came from him!” At some point, patrol cars ringed Ouyang.

Cold trouble pooled in his gut. He grabbed the limp White Cat, sprang onto a rooftop, and vanished from their sight.

“After him! That guy’s definitely a Western Empire spy. Don’t let him slip!”

All day, Zhongfeng City’s sirens never slept. Surveillance cast a net; Ouyang couldn’t shake the cars. Finally, he snapped, heat in his chest like sparks. “Damn idiots, think I’m easy? Fine—this time I’ll really blow up a school!”

Backpack heavy as thunder, he chose to bomb under pursuit.

Target: Zhongfeng First High.

“HQ, HQ… this is Zero-Zero-Seven. The suspect’s route passes First High…”

“007, notify departments. Evacuate the students—now!”

While the city boiled into pandemonium, Ouyang reached First High. A campus usually packed now lay empty as a dried riverbed. Ten minutes ago, they’d forced everyone out.

“White Cat, go set a barrier. Don’t let those idiots trip me up!”

“But toss a forbidden spell like a thunderbolt and be done. Why the slow way?”

Smack—Ouyang popped White Cat’s head like a bamboo clap. “Idiot. I burn out my divine power with a forbidden spell, then wait for Azure Bird to drag me back?”

White Cat had no comeback; the words fell like stones.

As White Cat dashed off to cast the barrier, Ouyang’s grin slipped away like a mask. The quiet school held no living souls. Leaves drifted over the walkways like brown snow. The place felt abandoned.

Loneliness rose first, colder than shade. Ouyang wandered without aim. It was noon, yet a sunset bled across the sky. Blood-red light soaked the empty campus.

A faint ping-pong rhythm tapped in the air. He followed it. A table stood by a wall. A boy of twelve or thirteen played alone against the bricks—black short hair, black shirt, gray sneakers—return after return.

Stroke after stroke, the ball never fell. The boy moved like a tireless machine, humming without heat.

The scene blurred; people filled the grounds. Morning felt bright and new. A PE teacher led warm-ups in front of Ouyang. When drills ended, everyone scattered—basketball here, badminton there. Yet the boy clutched his own paddle, back against a corner. His eyes were empty, watching laughter drift past like kites.

He stayed alone, quiet at the wall. No classmate called him. No teacher saw him. The world tossed him aside like a broken toy.

Ouyang approached him, steps soft as falling leaves. “I’m Ouyang… and you?”

The boy didn’t react at first. Ouyang waved, and awareness clicked like a switch. “Me?” He pointed at himself, as if being spoken to were strange weather.

“I’m Xuan.”

Words were precious to him. He answered, then tipped his chin to the sky. The blue vault seemed to float some lure only he could see.

Silence settled, cool as shade. Then the boy spoke. “You know, fairy tales lie. Above the sky, there’s no dreamlike Cloud Kingdom. So-called heaven is just a story…”

Hard to believe a child of twelve could say that. Ouyang didn’t cut in. He listened, a stone beside a stream.

“Guardian angels don’t exist. Immortals, gods—just human fantasies.” The boy watched his paddle, fingers tracing a crack like a river line.

After that, the boy fell quiet. Ouyang had no words either. PE stretched long; people flowed past. The boy looked abandoned. And Ouyang—without a uniform—stood out like a stray brushstroke. Yet he seemed abandoned too. Or rather, no one could see him.

“Xuan, let’s go play outside. No one’s going to join you here anyway.” Ouyang took his hand and led him from the field. A runner barreled into Ouyang—except the impact never came. The runner passed through his body like fog.

“Are you… a ghost?” Xuan tensed, his hand trembling like a leaf in Ouyang’s grip.

“Not quite…” Ouyang kept walking, hand in hand. “But in this world, only you can see me. So you could call me a spirit.” He had no better explanation; let the boy name it.

“Wanna walk on water?”

By the campus lake, Ouyang stepped closer. The boy nodded, eyes bright with a secret hope.

“Then let’s go…”

The surface rippled with each step they took. Their feet held on the water as if it were land. At first the boy was tense. Then, as safe footing proved itself, joy bubbled up. He moved like a child again, stomping playful circles on the lake.

Whoosh—Ouyang scooped a fish from the water, then tossed it back.

“Heh, slippery hands…” Ouyang grinned. The boy smirked. “You let it go on purpose. Don’t think I can’t tell.”

The boy wiped droplets from his face, splashed by the fish’s leap. He crouched on the water, watching silver knives flick through the lake. Time slid by; a distant bell rang like bronze.

“Class ended…” He had to return for the next period. “Ouyang, will we meet again?”

“We will. I’ll come play tomorrow. You’re the only one in this world who can see me.”

The scene shifted. The crowd vanished; sunset painted the rim of the sky. The boy still rallied the ball against the wall, alone. Ouyang knew this boy was Xuan.

He didn’t seem the same as before. That Xuan could smile, could play like a child. This one had no expression, striking the wall again and again like a soulless machine.

“Back then, I thought the Other Shore opened the Golden Constant Gate to another universe. I thought their scheme was to have me open it again and let them descend…” Ouyang drifted closer to the blank-faced boy. In the dusk, wind lifted red leaves along the street. “But after all I’ve seen, until I reached the First Continent, I finally started to guess.”

The campus was cold and airless as winter glass. When Ouyang first entered Zhongfeng First High, sirens still cried afar; White Cat’s figure set a barrier like a shimmer. After meeting this boy, every siren fell silent. White Cat never appeared again.

It all pointed to his guess.

“An obsession that won’t disperse…” Ouyang watched the machine-like boy and sighed, helpless as mist.