By the shore, Ouyang heard Sade out and went stone-still, like surf freezing into glass. All the way here, Aililes had dragged him, sand whispering underfoot. He even knocked Ouyang’s head with his fist, like hail tapping a statue, and still there was no response.

Aililes lifted his foot for a lineage-ending kick, shadow sharp as a guillotine. Xi saw it, her voice slicing the air like a cold blade. “Hey, redhead—what’re you trying to do to my Ouyang?”

Maybe it was a trick of light, but Aililes saw her sunset-red eyes turn deep violet, like dusk falling in a blink. A threat brushed him, a winter draft across the back of his neck, then melted—the violet washed back to dusk-red.

An ordinary man would’ve called it a mirage. Aililes wasn’t ordinary; in rank, he stood shoulder to shoulder with Ouyang. He tossed the doubt away and forced a crooked grin. “Haha… I… I was just bonding with him. What you saw? An illusion, just a trick of the light…”

“What illusion?”

Right then, Ouyang surfaced from his trance, confusion rippling across his face like wind over water. Seeing him steady, Xi swallowed her fury, embers damped by the tide; if Ouyang was awake, he never took a loss lying down.

“N… nothing!”

Aililes tilted his head forty-five degrees toward the sky, a painter squinting at clouds. A stone fell straight down at ninety degrees, a plumb line cutting the air. “Who? Which brat tossed that rock?” It thumped his crown with no pain, like a pebble on an anvil, but a bona fide god getting beaned by a rock? That stung his pride like nettles.

No sooner had he grumbled than a woman with three pairs of dragonfly wings strode over, sunlight flickering across translucent veils, a girl of eleven or twelve in tow.

“Redhead-uncle, you got a problem with me?” The girl’s voice chimed, bright as a bell. “I threw the stone. You gonna hit me?”

The winged woman was Heaven’s Sovereign, Unoia, wings humming like summer ponds. The girl was a stranger to Ouyang—ink-black straight hair fell down her back, a perfect black long-straight. She wore a black princess dress; white straps wrapped her legs like moonlight ribbon. Her pearl-dark eyes gleamed with mischief, a porcelain doll carved from night.

Facing the little terror, Aililes’ swagger crumpled into awkwardness, like paper in rain. Fine, he’d chalk it up to bad luck—brats were storms in small shoes. He didn’t know the girl well, but the girl acted like she’d known him forever.

First meeting, she had called him “redhead-uncle,” a nickname only the close would dare. Thinking it through, that “redhead” sounded like someone else’s coinage.

He slanted a look at Ouyang, suspicion curling like smoke.

The girl’s attention slid from Aililes to Ouyang, a needle drawn to lodestone. Her long black lashes trembled, her small frame quivered like a sparrow on a twig. As if a dam broke, she lunged at him like a wave.

“Papa… waaoo~ I finally found you!”

Aililes stared at Ouyang, disbelief flaring like lightning, then eased, a puzzle clicking into place. Of course. Ouyang was the first who called him “redhead.” The girl calling him “redhead-uncle” at first sight? Only a father like Ouyang would forge a daughter like that.

Held tight by the girl, Ouyang kept a calm face, but inside, his heart knocked like a struck gong. “Kiddo, you’ve got the wrong person. I don’t have a daughter… No, wait, I do have a daughter, but…”

“I know.” The girl’s grin flashed, impish as fireflies. “You mean Sister Klafias. I know everything about Papa. That lady with the stormy face is Aunt Aurora. I know all that!”

Her words dropped Ouyang into a short stupor, like falling through fog.

Xi’s anger sparked, wildfire licking dry grass. A daughter out of nowhere—was she Ouyang’s secret child from outside?

“Ouyang, explain. What’s with this so-called daughter?”

“Um… give me a second… Honestly, I’m just as baffled.” Whether Xi believed him or not, he believed himself; his confusion rang clear as glass.

The one who reacted hardest was Glorious Moon. “Xinxue, why are you here? And you… that…” The rest stuck in her throat like thorns. Xinxue was her daughter in name, yet she was calling Ouyang “Papa.”

Glorious Moon flushed with awkwardness; Ouyang blinked in a fog; Xi’s eyes burned like banked coals; Aililes watched, amused, like a theatergoer with snacks. The culprit of it all, Xinxue, hugged Ouyang’s arm and beamed, sunlight in a child’s smile. “Mama, he’s my Papa. I know you don’t believe it yet… How to say it… I came from the future back to the past!”

“So… you’re my daughter from the future?”

“Yep! As expected of Papa—the universe’s smartest!” Her praise popped like fireworks, small and bright.

The air turned strange, threads pulling tight between Glorious Moon and Xi. They’d always been close, two moons sharing a sky, but Xinxue’s words made the orbit wobble.

“Besides, Papa, you could confirm it from my full name.” She lifted her chin, proud as a cat. “My full name is Ou Xinxue—because I’m Papa’s heart-blood, his labor of love. Papa, you chose this back on Earth: if you had kids, a boy would be Ou Xinyu, a girl would be Ou Xinxue. The boy’s name was yours; the girl’s name Aunt Jiling helped you choose.”

Ouyang tipped his face toward the sky at forty-five degrees, chasing answers in blue. How did he and Glorious Moon end up walking together in time?

He believed Xinxue now. What she said were secrets buried in his mind, like letters in a chest; no one knew except Jiling. It was Earth-days—far and misty—and her reminder pulled the drawer open with a soft click.

Sensing the air souring between Xi and Glorious Moon, Ouyang shifted the current with a question, a stone tossed to ripple the pond. “Right, Xinxue—how did you come from the future to now? And why here? Changing the past can be terrifying. Your arrival might erase your own birth.”

With that, Xi and Glorious Moon let the oddness rest like leaves on water and focused on Ouyang’s words.

On the beach, Ouyang strung a hammock between two coconut palms, canvas sagging like a smile. Xi and Glorious Moon fetched two chairs from a nearby shop, wood smelling of sun. At Xinxue’s request, Ouyang poured juice, cold as a stream.

Aililes and Sade tried to drift over, curious gulls, but Ouyang shooed them like sparrows. Family talk, not a street show. Even Glorious Moon asked Heaven’s Sovereign, Unoia, to step away, wings folding like petals.

To Xinxue, everyone left was family, so she laid out what she knew, beads on a string. She was only eleven; her world was small, her knowledge like a young tree’s rings.

Speaking of that far future, her face dimmed, a lantern cupped against wind. “In that distant future, Papa… you died. Not just you. Everyone died. The whole universe folded back to its first ‘point,’ like everything sucked into a black seed.”

“In truth, Papa fell first, a star going dark. Then people from Miracle City fell, one by one, like candles blown out. At the end, Aunt Jiling burned everything, using a mutual-destruction to return the universe to the first ‘point.’ Before that, she told me she’d use her last strength to send me back. If I could change history, everyone could be saved.”

“But changing history…” Ouyang exhaled, the breeze heavy. “Kiddo, did you think about this? Because you’re here, your mother and I might never come together. In the future, you might never exist.”

He wasn’t wrong. Fate might’ve carried Ouyang and Glorious Moon together like two currents merging. Xinxue’s arrival cut that braid. Glorious Moon and Xi were close friends; knowing her future would put her in a bind. Unable to explain to Xi, she might step away from Ouyang, and the two would drift apart, forever.

Then there’d be no Xinxue.

Ouyang’s words made Xinxue go pale, like frost on blossom. “Papa, Mama’s feelings… I don’t really understand. But if changing history keeps everyone from dying, then even if I disappear, it’s okay. I just want to see Papa and Mama living well.”

It’s hard to imagine an eleven-year-old speaking that, iron in a child’s voice. Xinxue wasn’t Loyin’s kind of millennia-old loli; she was truly eleven, not a monster masquerading as a child. For a child to choose like that, she must’ve walked through grief, seen loved ones fade like smoke.

They watched Xinxue’s steady face and fell silent, shore-wind filling the gaps.

Cradling the girl, Ouyang stroked her hair, gentle as rain on leaves. Slowly, Xinxue drifted to sleep, breath even like tides. From her, Ouyang had gained little hard intel; the enemy was a shadow she couldn’t name. She was a child; her world was bounded by small hands.

He kissed her cheek, a whisper of warmth, and wore a wry smile like a thin blade. “What do you think? For a child like this, do we let her touch the bloody truth? Or keep her in a gentle lie, a little elf living carefree under a green canopy?”

Xi and Glorious Moon didn’t fully grasp his angle, mist still in the air. But if they had to choose…

“For a child like this, blood-soaked reality is too cruel.” Xi’s voice dropped, soft as dusk. “I’d rather let her keep that sweet dream, held by a gentle lie.” Ouyang didn’t see it—their sunset-red eyes flickered deep violet for a heartbeat, then slid back to dusk-red, like a cloud crossing the moon.

Glorious Moon agreed, but her gaze pressed on Ouyang, like rain seeking root. “Then next—explain. What is this bloody reality? You know something.” She felt it; when Xinxue appeared, she and Xi had stumbled. Ouyang had paused, then seemed to understand, as if he’d seen a map no one else had.