Because we fool around, we stay young—like sparks skipping off a hot wok. Because we act childish, we stay young—like spring shoots after rain.

Why did those few from the Other Shore rise so fast, like kites in a sudden wind? Because they stayed young.

Because they were young, they dared to charge, like waves battering a cliff. Because they were young, they burned to carve a road where no footprints lay, like a blade parting reeds. Because they were young, their wild daydreams never stopped, like clouds spinning new shapes across the sky.

Is Ouyang a clown? Yes—sometimes he is, like a bright feather tucked in a warrior’s helm. He refuses to let time gnaw his heart like rust; he does the reckless things only the young would do, and he makes the mistakes only the young would make, like slipping on dew.

Glorious Moon frowned, the way frost tightens on a window. Ouyang’s words struck deep, like a bell in an empty hall. As he’d said, when you grow old, you lose heat; faced with “impossible,” you shrink back, like a candle before a gale. Everyone says the far end of that sea of fire is a forbidden land that burns all things, like a kiln that knows no mercy. Yet the young, hot-blooded and impulsive, dare imagine the opposite, like swallows eyeing the far shore. Maybe, beyond that fire, there’s a world as gentle as a garden after rain.

On hot blood and sudden impulse, the young run headlong, cracking heads and skin, like deer through thorns. When they stagger through that fire with bodies scored and smoking, they find the far edge opens into a new world, like dawn behind ash.

Because of age, because of “maturity,” the mind fills with hedges, like vines choking a gate.

Glorious Moon didn’t approve of Ouyang’s stunt, yet his words rang true, like stones clicking in a stream. Look with a young heart, and the picture changes, like turning a lantern slide.

Just as Glorious Moon sank into his words, someone burst in like a startled bird through paper.

Ouyang was curious, like a cat at a closed jar. What gave that person the guts to rush into his palace? Hours ago it was Qihe’s hall; now he’d thrashed Qihe and taken it. Who dared ignore that, like walking past a tiger to pluck a flower?

He narrowed his eyes, killing intent coiling like cold mist, and stared at the intruder.

Mm. A girl—a splash of color against the stone. But is Ouyang the type to spare a girl? Hardly. Plenty of girls in this book have already died like petals on a hard road.

Or… was this girl racing in to attend his bed, like a moth seeking lamp-warmth? Fine. If she came to warm his bed, he’d forgive the stunt like a king forgiving a jester.

She rushed in, breath ragged like wind through bamboo. She glanced at Ouyang and Glorious Moon, didn’t even offer a greeting, and locked on the fruit platter like a hawk on a mouse. Seeing only pits, her face went chalk pale, like moonlight on bone.

At that, Ouyang bristled, like a rooster fluffing feathers. The most handsome man in the cosmos stood right here, and she focused on a fruit plate? She saw no fruit and made that face, like rain over sour wine. How petty. So he ate a few fruits. This country is his private property now; not just a few fruits—he could finish a whole orchard and no one would dare chirp, like birds in a hunter’s shadow.

Noticing his dark look, the girl trembled, like a willow in a sudden gust.

“F-First… Lord Demon King… are… are you all right?” Her expression was that of someone with a guilty heart, like a child hiding a broken vase. Ouyang half-closed one eye, mind flicking through possibilities like cards.

First clue, most crucial: the fruit, like bait on a hook. Ever since she came in, her eyes stuck to the platter.

“L-Lord… th-that fruit… i-it was poisoned…” The words came in bits, like beads slipped from a string. Saying it took real courage. Then she squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for death, like a rabbit under a hawk’s shadow. If you didn’t know the story, you’d think Ouyang was forcing her to do something unspeakable, like a villain from a street play.

Glorious Moon snorted, the sound cold as sleet. “Scum,” she said, her voice a blade laid flat.

“Huh?” Ouyang almost snapped at her, like flint striking steel. He hadn’t done anything. Why “scum”? Outsiders might not know, but Glorious Moon—who’d been watching—did. Then he caught the smile tugging at her lip, like dawn prying at night. He understood. She was doing it on purpose.

Inside the Gate of Truth, she’d always been icily distant, like a statue in a shrine. Jokes like that had been unthinkable. Which meant she was changing, thawing like river ice in spring.

He came back to himself, stooped, and picked up the fruit pits he’d tossed, like a magpie collecting shiny bits. He held one under the girl’s nose. “You’re saying this is poisoned?” She opened her eyes and saw the pit so close it brushed her lip like a gnat; she yelped and stumbled back, knocking over a stack of things like dominoes.

“Y-Yes.”

Under Ouyang’s brief questioning, her story spilled out like grain from a cracked sack.

In any world, where there’s pressure, there’s pushback, like steam against a lid. Qihe fell, finally. Then a man claiming to be the First Demon King rose, like a new banner in the wind. Some thought his rule would be better than Qihe’s; at least he looked harmless as a lamb, while Qihe’s very face had slipped from the human track, like a mask warped by fire. Others disagreed. They thought they should resist. In the fight between the First Demon King and Qihe, they’d seen nothing clear—Qihe swung, swung, and somehow ended up exhausted, like a bull charging shadows.

No show of overwhelming power, so that faction decided to kill the First Demon King, like plotting to fell a tall tree with ants.

How to kill him? That’s an art, like brewing poison in a moonlit jar.

Brute force wouldn’t cut it. Qihe could shatter worlds and still wound himself half to death, while the First Demon King stood lively as a spring, like bamboo after snow. If brawn won’t do, use something else.

The crowd’s cleverness is a strong river. Soon someone suggested poison, like ink in clear water. Ordinary venom wouldn’t do, but there was one worth a try. Before Qihe’s birth, the Anyao royal house had close ties with the Envoy to the Realms. From that envoy, they’d gotten a drug said to kill even gods, like frost that bites bone. They hadn’t used it on Qihe because he never ate. Having deemed himself invincible, Qihe didn’t need food; to eat was to be like common folk, and he had to be unlike them, like a statue refusing rain.

So that poison was saved for Ouyang, like a knife under a sleeve.

Angela was a princess of Anyao… one of them—the weakest branch, like the runt of a litter. That’s why, when the royals chose a hand to slip the dose, they chose Angela.

After the deed, Angela’s conscience gnawed like mice. Another thing: if it blew up, she’d be first to burn, like straw on a spark. If they were ruthless, she could be unrighteous. She ran to warn him. But she was late. The First Demon King had already eaten, like a fox licking the trap clean.

“Poison, really?” Ouyang looked doubtful, like a tiger eyeing a rope. Then he told her, “Kid, fetch me a live animal… wait. No. Go drag in one of those who decided to poison me. Anyone from that little nest will do, like any fish from the same net.”

Angela didn’t know what he meant to do, but she went, like a runner sent at dawn.

Before long, a handsome man was brought in by Angela, slick as oil. At the door, he even gestured “ladies first,” like a peacock fluffing his tail. Ouyang shook his head. Normally he loved to make trouble for pretentious types like that, like poking a bubble. But thinking of the man’s tragic next minutes, he let him preen a little longer, like a judge letting the bell toll.

Once inside, the handsome man locked on Glorious Moon and never blinked, like a moth pinned by a candle.

“May I dig his eyes out?” Glorious Moon’s cold voice rolled through the room like winter wind. In that instant, both the handsome man and Angela felt death close as a knife at the throat.

“No rush…” Ouyang said calmly, his tone flat as still water. Then he grabbed the man’s hair, like yanking weeds. “Open up.”

The man clenched his teeth. Ouyang drove a fist into his gut, like a hammer to a drum. Pain ripped a scream from him. In that instant of open mouth, Ouyang stuffed the pit between his teeth, like a seed into soil.

One second. In one second, purple crawled from his scalp over his skin, like ink blotting paper, and raced down his body. In one second, he croaked. Black, reeking blood leaked from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, like tar from cracked wood.

“Vicious stuff,” Ouyang said, slapping his palms once, like dusting chalk. “But are these idiots brain-dead? Didn’t I say it already? I’m invincible. A little poison, and you’d kill me?” His grin flashed like steel.

Angela kept silent and watched him show off, like a student at a master’s street trick. She realized not only her royal brothers and sisters were wrong; she was, too. This guy had stood still and let Qihe hit him. Qihe wore himself out and couldn’t move, while this one stood fine as a bell tower. Poison killing him? That’s a joke thin as mist.

“Uh… what’s-your-name again?”

“Angela.”

“All right, kid. For coming to warn me, I won’t sentence you to death,” he said, and the glove on his right hand flowed into a black longsword, like night poured into a blade. It carried a wicked allure, like a smile in the dark; one look, and Angela felt her soul tugged toward it, like a moth to ink-black water.

“Kid, take this sword. I’ll spare your life, but not the reckoning. Take it and butcher the ones who poisoned me,” he said, voice cool as a mountain spring.

The obsidian blade drifted to Angela’s side like a fallen crescent. She still didn’t get it. Was the First Demon King an idiot, handing a divine artifact to her like a gift? Wasn’t he afraid she’d stab him with it, like a snake turning on its handler? Or run with it, like a thief into fog?

Very soon, Angela learned she’d been overthinking, like counting clouds with a sieve.