Watching the black cat and the little girl, Mo Rain felt a thin ache unfurl, like mist seeping into silk at dawn.

She’d, like the aunt at the fried fish-stick stall, pictured Saya orphaned, drifting with a cat under endless skies—so she treated her gently, trying to stitch old regrets.

Seeing Ouyang munch with bright appetite, Saya dove in too, like a sparrow pecking at ripe fruit.

“Mm~ A‑Yang, it’s super tasty~”

Her mouth was stuffed with sweet pulp; joy shone in her eyes like sun on water.

Mo Rain watched quietly, a crescent of a smile rising, soft as moonlight.

“Meow~”

“A‑Yang says you’re a good person!”

Mo Rain already knew A‑Yang meant that cat. “A good person… heh. Been ages since I got handed a ‘good‑person’ card, and from a cat, no less…”

She couldn’t help a wry smile; that badge of pity hadn’t come her way in years.

“Little sister, have you always lived with that cat?” Mo Rain walked with Saya away from the fruit‑salad stall, mind tugged by the thought of a fragile girl surviving in a city full of sharp edges and hungry shadows.

Saya stared into the distance, head lowered, silent; the air around her sank, like dusk folding over cold water.

“Sorry… did I stir something bad?” The urge to pat her head rose warm and gentle, like spring wind; Mo Rain reached out, the way anyone would to a creature this cute.

Her fingers neared—then Saya vanished, like a ripple swallowed by dark glass.

Vanished. Mo Rain jolted. To disappear before her eyes—what sort of being could do that?

“Meoow~ Girl, that won’t do. Only I get to pat my Saya’s head.”

Mo Rain turned; the little girl stood a short distance away. The black cat had climbed from her arms to her crown and now lay on her head like a small king.

The voice had come from the black cat.

“A talking cat… a third‑tier magical beast?” Mo Rain blinked, surprised, but kept steady like a stone under rain.

The cat’s reply cracked open her composure; her near‑dead heart stirred like storm on a still lake.

“Poor soul, hopping from one parallel world to another, writhing to overthrow ‘fate.’ But can you really change it? Any change just flips another parallel world. Your original world’s already walking into ruin.”

Slow words, lazy cadence—each fell like cold rain, and Mo Rain’s heart heaved into rough seas.

A dead world, a fate that wouldn’t bend, parallel time and space—secrets she’d never dared bare. Again and again she struggled, failing in the same dark loop, watching comrades and familiar faces fade, the despairing cycle dragging her step by step into the Abyss. Only a promise, lit like a single lamp in night, kept her from breaking.

“What exactly are you?”

Her pupils tightened; a watch floated up beside her, its hands ticking like a quiet metronome.

Whether it was Saya’s eerie vanishing or Ouyang’s sudden “senior” routine, nothing felt ordinary.

In Mo Rain’s eyes, the black cat stood upright on Saya’s head like a tiny person. Then it drifted into the air; behind it, a throne shimmered into view. The cat sprawled there, casual as a lord, gazing down with the cool of high peaks. Meanwhile, Saya’s green hair lifted like water grass, phosphorescent motes circling her like fireflies at dusk.

Unfathomable—Mo Rain had never met beings she couldn’t read. The harmless‑looking black cat, the frail little girl; both stood in front of her, yet stayed opaque as deep water.

Her brow eased. In endless loops, she’d tried alone to wrench fate aside—never once had she won. Now two unreadable lives had appeared, a first in all her cycles. Could it mean this time fate would move?

“I remember I bought a watch last year. Wouldn’t that be it?” Ouyang’s throne slid forward; his paw reached for the watch. The watch dodged with its own will, shrinking away like a skittish firefly, as if it feared him.

Mo Rain felt emotion in the watch’s tremble. She cupped it tight, like warming a fledgling, shielding it from Ouyang’s paw.

“Give that watch back to me…”

The black cat spoke like it was only natural. If Mo Rain were an outsider, she’d already believe he was the owner; his look carried that easy entitlement.

“Hold on. It’s mine. Since when did it become yours?”

She couldn’t catch the cat’s leaping logic—origins one second, “I bought a watch last year” the next.

Bought a watch last year? Coincidence… it had to be coincidence.

“Nonsense. I braved the blasted Gobi steppe, life and death, and snatched that watch from a stampede of alpacas!”

Mo Rain stared at the cat, speechless, like watching a cloud claim the mountain.

“Um… are you an earth‑cat?” That line she spoke in a tongue almost forgotten, like old incense smoke.

More meows rose, layering like drumbeats.

“Ha! Ouyang, you’re done. The great me found you. Watch me sort you out!”

A fat gray tomcat dropped from the sky. Thump—the marble floor spider‑webbed with cracks under the landing.

After him, a cat striped with red strolled in, elegant as drifting reed plumes. It seemed far away, yet every step folded space; in two or three strides, it stood at their feet.

“Meow, finally found the main troop!”

A pure white cat sprinted over, paws tapping like hailstones.

Lastly, the ground shivered; a marble slab burst up. A calico climbed out. “Meow~ This lady finally found you…”

As expected, once Ouyang leaked power, the swarm came like bees to honey.

But now wasn’t the time to explain; first, they needed to handle that fatty, Dufei.

“Meow, in front of the great me you dare call yourself the great me? Tired of living? Itching for a beating? Forgot who’s boss?”

Ouyang didn’t flinch. The phantom throne vanished; a pitch‑black shell wrapped him like night glass. Dufei floated too, sealed in a gray shell like storm cloud.

Zzz‑zz—

The two cats slammed through the air again and again. Their bodies never touched; it was shield on shield, grinding into sparks. Black lightning and gray lightning flared with each impact, and space kinked hard where they collided.

“They’re strong… but the fight feels watered down,” Mo Rain murmured, like tasting thin tea.

The big calico—Hell Lord Christo—flicked his tail. “Meow~ They’re fighting this way so they don’t break this fragile world. If they fought like usual, this world’s too brittle.”

A world… too fragile…

Mo Rain looked at the calico, then the other two. They spoke human words, yet even with them right there, she couldn’t sense them—like wind without scent.

The sky‑brawl rattled the city. To avoid hurting ordinary people, Dufei and Ouyang climbed higher, like hawks riding thermals.

“Will they be okay like this?”

“It’s fine. A‑Yang and the fatty are just roughhousing, not going all in. Even if they did, the fatty can’t beat A‑Yang. No mutual destruction.”

Saya answered the worry in Mo Rain’s eyes; she feared two terrors evenly matched, anger sparked, real blades drawn—city wiped clean like chalk from slate.

————————

In the Duke of Weihai’s manor, in the room Yulithilis arranged for Saya, five cats and two girls gathered like a small storm.

“Ouyang… senior… can you tell me why you know about me?”

“Easy. I’m Yangfuls; I see through your past at a glance.” Ouyang slipped into dead‑serious nonsense. Dufei, Devila, and the White Cat each smacked him upside the head.

In perfect chorus: “Cut it out. Stop spouting nonsense like it’s gospel!”

Mo Rain: “Uh…”

Rubbing his head, Ouyang glared at the lot. A certain Hell Lord lifted a paw, ready to thump him. “Cat‑eared maid, what do you think you’re doing?”

Ouyang’s sudden turn made the Hell Lord shrink behind Saya, majesty scattered like leaves.

He didn’t call Hell Lord Christo a cat‑eared maid to tease him. One, Ouyang had forgotten his name. Two, the clearest image he had was that cat‑eared maid form. In Ouyang’s world, cat‑eared maid equals Hell Lord.

Putting Hell Lord Christo’s inner grumbles aside—

“Alright. As for how I know your origin… hard to explain. Better you lay it out in detail. I’ve got a guess, but I need proof.”

Mo Rain looked at Ouyang and nodded. She’d long wanted to speak; only no one had let her pour it all out like rain after drought.