The Little Overlord’s treasure only bared its breath recently because Bai stepped into the vault; her intrusion cracked the seal, and the aura spilled like mist from a jar.

With that, the Sealed Land’s treasure case finally found a resting point. Ouyang still had questions fluttering like startled sparrows, but time pressed like dusk closing in. The meaning of the Sealed Land, those meetings across timelines—he’d shelve them like books for a quieter night.

Today was the first day of the God-Demon Pilgrimage. It would run a full week, seven sunsets and seven dawns, doors between worlds opening like mirrored lakes.

Normally, the ‘Source’ world policed divine traffic tightly, procedures layered like winter frost. During the Pilgrimage, the gates stood open like a festival street.

So this stretch became the season when gods and demons roamed most often, drifting through markets like comets through a summer sky.

Their exchange naturally converged on Miracle City. Outwardly it still looked like a small town, modest as a clay teapot. Inside, every building bore spatial sigils; the true rooms unfurled like oceans hidden in shells.

Visitors from other worlds might tour the mountains and seas here, but the heart of it beat in Miracle City’s trade. In the inner district there was a street that only opened for the Pilgrimage, a ribbon of stalls like lanterns in a fair. Otherworld gods set out their mats, selling treasures, swapping relics like stones beneath a river’s gloss. That market happened on the final day; before that, they wandered the continent like wind in high grass.

The Pilgrimage mattered. Run it well and it was a thunderclap that discouraged rivals; run it poorly and it was a jest tossed like confetti. So Xi returned from the Other Shore today, and Ouyang, as her boyfriend, got pulled out like a kite into the shopping breeze.

He explained, heat still in his chest, that a bunch of dull men had sold him out and trapped him in the Sealed Land through the morning; the words scattered like leaves. Xi’s face held storm-light; anger rippled like a restless pond.

By now dusk was near, the sky burning like embers. The morning had been all chains and stone. The afternoon, back in the castle, became a parade of fabrics—Xi, Loyin, Bai, and a whole flock of girls spun through outfits like swallows through spring rain. Only at twilight, feeling the day slip like sand, did they settle into chosen dresses and tug Ouyang out into the street.

Loyin kept to her eternal gothic—black as moonless water, a silhouette like carved obsidian. Bai wore a simple white robe, clean as winter snow. She went barefoot, but her feet never touched the earth, hovering like a petal above the path. Xian had been whisked away by classmates; for missing time with her sister and brother-in-law, she puffed with grievance like a small cloud.

Finally there was Xi. She wore a long gown, wine-red like ripe pomegranates, ruffled tiers like lotus leaves, bows tied like butterflies at rest—grace and nobility in one glance, like a poem stitched in silk.

Nabelia and the others drifted on their own, free as starlings, not joining Ouyang’s little constellation.

Bai was Ouyang’s Guardian Angel; however close they seemed, Xi could only sigh like breeze through bamboo. Loyin called him “gege,” her voice sweet as syrup; he couldn’t set her aside. Besides, her core was Original Sin; neglect might turn her into a storm that tore rooftops and roots alike.

So besides Xi, Loyin and Bai followed for reasons carved like fate on stone, and Xi let them trail like satellites around a moon.

Times had changed, and Miracle City no longer hid its scales. Bai didn’t need to fold away her dragon wings anymore; her loose white robe let them arch out like crescent sails into the air, and a dragon tail swayed behind her like a willow branch.

All the while, Loyin clung to Ouyang’s arm, sticky as honey on summer fingers. Her clinginess matched Xian’s; truth was, Xian had learned that soft gravity from Loyin like a child learns a song.

An angel traced the sky; a rainbow unfurled like silk high above. The angel was Aurora. As Xi’s Guardian Angel, she kept order across the continent during the Pilgrimage, hovering like a watchful star.

Miracle City’s inner district no longer barred mortals at the gate, though living there demanded god-level strength, a backbone like ironwood. With the locks lifted, the inner streets churned like a tide; powerful gods stepped through world portals that glowed like standing mirrors. In one corner, dozens of portals flickered, each a window to a friendly world, like constellations clustered around a moon.

Not far off, a god set a small stall on the stones, simple as a picnic cloth. He looked like a kindly white-haired elder, his smile warm as a hearth, so children flocked around him like sparrows to grain. Mortals couldn’t see the mountain under his robe.

His stall brimmed with toys, oddities from his world, shapes and mechanisms like puzzles of wind and shadow—things Ouyang had never seen, new as a first snow.

Loyin glanced at Ouyang, then at Xi, her eyes bright as glass. She tugged Bai toward the stall like a playful current. “Gege, Bai and I are going to look at toys. You and Sister Aurora go wander. Find us tonight so we go home together!”

She said it and slipped away, laughter like bells fading down the lane.

Watching the two imps vanish like twin fireflies, Xi laughed, soft as rain on leaves. She understood the meaning: Loyin wanted to give them space under the evening sky. She hadn’t expected that clingy little imp to be so thoughtful.

“Dummy, come on,” Xi said, her hand warm in his like sunlight through tea. “We haven’t truly shopped together, have we?”

She pulled Ouyang from his daze like a wave tugging a boat. She knew his EQ was low, his reactions slow as winter sap, and that was exactly the Ouyang she loved. If his EQ rose too high, she feared her heart might stumble like a dancer missing a beat.

Hand in hand, they walked beneath the theme of sunset and dusk, old as the seasons. No words, just footsteps along a long street, lanterns winking like stars.

A haze lifted, and Ouyang remembered a scene he’d filed away like a pressed leaf—something he’d seen through the Flowing Light Wheel, a frame flickering like film in a dark hall.

“Will you spend your life with me chasing that beautiful dream?” a voice asked, soft as night rain. “Walking this road without regret, an entire lifetime. The kingdom of white clouds, the angels’ domain, a rainbow bridge like a span of light, a river of stars, a romantic shower of meteors. So many things worth our pursuit.”

“We’ll forge a dream realm,” another voice answered, bright as dawn. “I want meteor rain that never stops on summer nights. I want the sky heavy with floating islands like drifting stones. I want rainbows stringing bridges across the whole world.”

That dialogue, those lovers—that scene happened in a crack between worlds, two people abandoned like weeds in a ditch, holding each other, licking their wounds like wounded deer. They swore a vow that ran as long as a mountain’s shadow.

Back then, Ouyang thought they were romantic, promises stitched like constellations, bodies pressed together like two saplings in wind. Later, after rain and road, he understood more. People live with masks, porcelain smiles they wear for themselves and for others, thin as ice and just as necessary.

It’s like attending someone’s birthday; even if your mood is a thunderhead, you don’t show it, lest you break the lanterns. A forced smile becomes a decent umbrella.

Sometimes the mask is a shield that keeps blades from your skin, a shell against stones.

Ouyang looked at the sky, its colors layered like silk, and couldn’t tell when he was forcing a smile and when truth slipped through like spring water. In a world packed with masks, those lovers making vows felt remarkable, a candle protected cupped-hand in a gale. They could lean on each other and meet with genuine smiles like sunrise across faces.

He squeezed Xi’s hand, unusual strength in the grip, his heart beating like a drum. The vision returned—an endless tree-lined path, sunset unfading like paint on old wood, dusk holding the street, a couple hand in hand, evening wind stroking, leaves spinning like coins.

“Aurora, will you stay with me?” he asked, the name falling like a white feather.

“Stay with me to watch the world’s splendor, to trace the seasons’ turn, to feel the vastness of the starry sky like a sea.”

Suddenly, beneath the sunset’s amber, with the night breeze whispering like reeds, Ouyang hugged Xi, his body trembling like a bowstring. His EQ was low, but his mind was keen as a blade; to have a girl this good to him was rare as a phoenix feather. He didn’t want to miss it again, not under this sky.

He and Jiling had failed to meet at the same harbor once because of that clumsy heart. Now he had a girl so kind, so steady—if he missed again, the road would feel like winter forever.

“Mm. I’ll stay with you, always,” Xi said. At first she flustered like a startled bird, then steadied and hugged him back, her head resting on his shoulder like a soft stone. “Always with you… like Xuan and Mulin. Like them, even if we stand against the world, I’ll be here. Right or wrong, tears or laughter—it’s you I choose.”

Xuan and Mulin… Ouyang finally knew the girl in that vision was called Mulin. Even that guy, with EQ no higher than his, had spoken words like lanterns floating on a river.

They held each other tight. Somewhere along the way, the bustling street thinned to silence, the people gone like receding tide. The empty road wore dusk like an eternal coat, the sunset paused like a painting. Wind moved, and leaves danced like little boats.

In that moment, Ouyang felt like a fallen leaf finding its root, a traveler finally hearing “welcome home.” Where she stood, that was his house, a hearth lit and waiting.

It was a kind of growth of the soul, sap thickening in the tree. Outside those sealed years, he’d lived over ten thousand years, but most had been spent carousing with rowdy friends, laughter like fireworks in summer, no anchor. The Void Watcher’s memories felt like movies—pictures on glass, not breath in lungs.

Only now did he feel a step of maturity, a bit more weight in his shoulders, a readiness like a hand closing around a steady torch.