About this “bargain daughter” Ouxinxue, Ouyang felt no Law of Time clinging to her, like a clock with no hands under a cold sky.

That meant she hadn’t come back from some “future,” because true time-walkers carry time’s current like mist around their shoulders, as steady as a river at night.

He’d seen it before—on himself back on the First Continent, and on Augustine and the others when they returned to the Mythic Era, their steps trailing sparks like comets.

But Ouxinxue bore none of that glow; what coiled around her was another force, a shard of Law that felt like flint against silk, strange as frost in summer.

That Law didn’t fit the Laws of this world, like an odd feather in a flock of crows, and Ouyang had sensed that dissonance before, a key that wouldn’t turn in a familiar lock.

He remembered a certain crow—no true body, only a projection—yet even that shadow carried a mismatch that grated like sand in the wind.

He wasn’t saying Ouxinxue’s Law was the crow’s; still, the taste was similar, like two storms born from different seas.

“Someone once mentioned the parallel-world theory,” he murmured, voice low as dusk over water.

“Every choice, every fork, births a new worldline, and each line is a separate universe, with Laws that don’t rhyme like snow and flame.”

If it were only a guess, it would be smoke in moonlight, pretty and useless.

But he remembered that unbidden sigh, and the pain that tore at his chest like talons, raw as winter wind.

It had to tie into Ouxinxue’s ‘mutual destruction,’ two candles burning to ash in a single breath.

And her name—Ouxinxue—came from a secret buried in Ouyang’s heart, a memory sealed like amber for ages.

From the future… if that were true, there was only one path across this river.

Her future wasn’t this worldline’s future; it was a future from another line, another sky with another moon.

“So even if she fought to rewrite the past,” he thought, throat tight like a bowstring, “even if she spent herself like rain into sand, what happened still happened, solid as stone.”

In the end, nothing here would change; she’d only change another parallel world, a mirror pond.

In her original world, everything would collapse back to the first ‘Point,’ the universe folding like a fan in the dark.

He had met a parallel-world knot in a ‘closed world’ once, like a sealed snow globe shaken again and again.

There was a girl who tried to bend the ending through countless cycles, in a world already shattered at the start, like glass under heel.

But that parallel world was only a closed loop; now Ouxinxue’s tangle was cosmic, a second universe under a second sky.

Glorious Moon stroked Ouxinxue’s cheek, gentle as moonlight on water.

“So her parents—the world she knew—are gone like lanterns after a storm.

We aren’t the ‘parents from a past timeline’ she hoped to find, no matter how far she reaches.”

The two girls at the scene mourned in silence, grief a thin rain across their faces.

Hope looked close, a lantern across the street, yet the road stretched away like a bridge lost in fog.

Ouxinxue’s plan—‘change the tragedy of the past’—sounded simple, as simple as turning back a clock with one finger.

She had come to the ‘past,’ so she only needed to tell her parents what would come, and the disaster would vanish like mist.

But the truth was cruel, a blade in velvet; her dream would never bloom in this garden.

“By the way… Ouyang, who is Aunt Jiling, the one Xinxue mentioned?” Xi narrowed her eyes, deep violet like twilight over ice.

“Someone who helped you pick a future child’s name—she must matter to you like an old song.”

Heat prickled first; embarrassment crawled like ants, then he forced a smile.

To be honest, he’d never mentioned that girl in front of Xi; it’s rough to bring up one girl in front of another, let alone your wife, like striking flint over dry straw.

“Well… Jiling… she’s basically my childhood friend, my bamboo horse,” he said, voice steady as a held breath.

“We grew up in the same orphanage, under the same leaky roof, and you should’ve heard of her—the discipline head of the Starry Citadel.

The chair of the council. That’s her.”

“And… wife, welcome back.”

The deep-violet irises were Aurora’s mark, bright as amethyst in night sea, and when he saw them, Ouyang knew Xi’s soul had begun to return.

But suddenly Xi clutched her head, pain crossing her face like lightning behind clouds.

“What’s wrong? Did you get hurt coming back?” Panic struck first, sharp as a dropped blade, and his hands shook as he pulled her close.

She kept pressing her temples, breath ragged like wind through reeds.

“Don’t worry… just some rejection,” she said through her teeth, fighting something unseen like a swimmer against a riptide.

“Rejection?” Ouyang’s heart thudded like a drum. “What’s going on?”

He took Xi away at once, urgency chasing him like wolves, leaving Ouxinxue in Glorious Moon’s care.

Right now, nothing mattered more than settling Xi’s turmoil, steadying her like a ship in heavy rain.

Carrying Xi, Ouyang returned to his castle, halls empty as a husk, the air dead and cold.

Xi’s expression kept shifting, faces changing like clouds—helpless one moment, frost-cold the next—two tides in the same sea.

Seeing that, guilt hit him first, heavy as wet earth.

He finally remembered the knot he’d ignored, a weed left to grow in a quiet garden.

To Ouyang, Xi was Aurora—one moon in one sky.

In order not to leave him, Aurora had exiled her own soul once, leaving her body behind like a lamp without oil.

That empty shell, memory erased like chalk in rain, had grown thoughts with Ouyang beside her, sprouting like green after a storm.

Back in the Ling World, Xi had told him straight: she’s herself; Aurora is Aurora.

She didn’t want to be a stand-in, a shadow on another’s wall, and she’d sulked for it like a cat with its back up.

He’d thought it was nothing then, a phase that the returning soul would smooth out, like two rivers joining.

Looking back, he’d been too naive, a moth drawn to the warm light of his own easy answer.

Because Xi didn’t want to be assimilated by Aurora’s soul, she resisted like a tree against a gale.

That clash birthed rejection, and two minds pulled apart like splitting ice.

In essence they were one person, a single flame; but when thoughts and will wouldn’t align, they cracked into two sparks.

Trouble, and no easy medicine; helping either would hurt the other, a choice like cleaving water with a blade.

All he could do was wait at her side, anxious as a watchman under a long night.

Time passed like sand, grain by grain, and Xi slowly stilled, her storm settling like silt.

The struggle ended; he couldn’t tell who’d won, only that she had fallen into sleep, quiet as snow.

While he had the moment, Ouyang climbed to the second floor, steps heavy as stones.

He pushed open the door to the Void Illusion Realm, and a familiar wild laugh burst out like fireworks in a dark field.

“Ahahaha… yours truly is finally back!”

In that space, besides Saya, a book had appeared, hovering like a hawk.

“Yo, smutty little book, long time no—uh—Diary Bro, don’t hit me, I misspoke!”

The one spelled as Book of Epochs but read by everyone as “smutty little book” bristled like a cat.

The whole book darted forward and smacked Ouyang on the head, thump like a thrown brick.

The Book of Epochs didn’t truly mean to kill him; it was horseplay, like rain tapping a roof.

To Ouyang, it barely stung, more noise than pain.

“Diary Bro, since you’re back, where are the others?”

His brow creased like folded paper, because the Void Illusion Realm had three guardians—the Three Eternal Artifacts.

But now only this preening book was showing off, and there was no sign of that adorable streak-of-light girl, nor the strongest, Li.

“Them? Probably still on the road,” the Book said, words swaggering like boots on stone.

“We followed the lighthouse’s glow and found the road home, but other things spotted it too, eyes like wolves.”

“We fought countless times along the way, storms upon storms, and yours truly chose the wise path—ran back first.”

By “other things,” the Book meant the hostile Tiered Beings they’d once exiled, shadows with teeth.

“So you deserted mid-battle?” Ouyang asked, eyes sharp as a blade.

“Bullshit! You think I’m that kind of book?” the Book snapped, pages flaring like wings.

“Fair. You’re not human at all,” Ouyang said, grinning like a fox.

Man and book bickered until sparks flew, words clashing like sticks.

Thankfully Ouyang caught himself; he hadn’t come to quarrel with a smug tome.

He shut the door on the banter and walked toward Saya, calm returning like ebbing tide.

“Saya, help me pull Jiling’s file,” he said, voice low as a candle flame.

Jiling had stayed in the Starry Citadel; she arrived here in the Eighth Epoch, footsteps crossing years like stepping-stones.

Anyone who had lived on the Other Shore would be recorded by the Azure Bird, the network’s hub, feathers bright as code.

Truth was, Jiling was a puzzle that itched like grit in his eye.

Back in the Starry Citadel, she’d only been at Realm God level, a step above him, like one stair in a dark stairwell.

A full epoch later, Ouyang could sound the World’s Anthem—but that had special reasons, tides and winds pushing his sail.

He was the product of many unusual factors, angles lining like stars.

Jiling was different.

She didn’t have his strange luck, yet within one epoch she gained power that matched his, thunder for thunder.

To sound the World’s Anthem in a single epoch—across eight epochs of the Other Shore’s history—was rare as a phoenix feather.

The most famous example was the Sovereign, who appeared in the Seventh Epoch and, by the Eighth, sang the Anthem, high as a mountain bell.

But as far as Ouyang knew, that came with outside support, scaffolding under the sky.

In the Ninth Epoch, after the Other Shore’s curtain fell and stable resources dried up like a riverbed, someone still sounding the World’s Anthem was unbelievable, a green shoot in winter.

To him, she felt both familiar and strange, like a known road in new snow.

Saya closed her eyes, calm as a lake at dawn, and numbers bloomed in the air like fireflies—endless 0s and 1s.

After a long moment, she opened her eyes and shook her head, slow as falling ash.

“Sorry. The file was deleted—shredded beyond recovery,” she said, voice flat as iron.

Shredded deletion meant erasure at the level of concept, scrubbed like chalk from the blackboard of time.

Even if you peered along the river of time, you’d find nothing, only ripples fading.

For an Azure Bird record to be concept-shredded, at least three Crowned Ones had to agree, their seals like thunderbolts.

What could be so important that they wiped it at the concept level, outside the timeline like a star beyond the dome?

What gaze were they warding off, what eyes peering through curtains?

They wouldn’t erase for no reason; they erased to keep someone from seeing, the way a city douses lights before a raid.

What kind of being were they guarding against, to strike the record from the world’s idea of itself?

“Diary Bro, you know something, don’t you?” Ouyang asked, words careful as stepping on thin ice.

But the so-called Book of Epochs, the book rumored to hold epoch secrets, just rustled like leaves.

It didn’t know either, or pretended not to, shadow quiet under a brighter moon.

“Not enough info to confirm my guess,” Ouyang muttered, rubbing his temples, the pressure like a vise.

Knowing too much made living heavier, like armor you couldn’t take off.

“Then… Diary Bro, do you have a channel to learn what that deleted file was?”

“You’re dense. Ask the person involved,” the Book said, whacking Ouyang’s head again, whap like a fan.

Light dawned in Ouyang’s mind, bright as sudden sun through cloud.

Right—he’d been dull lately, missing easier paths like a blind archer.

“Great idea, Diary Bro. Without your reminder, I’d almost forgotten. I’ll treat you to a deluxe massage sometime.”

“Get lost!” the Book snapped, pages snapping shut like a slapped door.