At the threshold of the Void Castle, Ouyang stepped in, and a rabbit sprang at him like a white blur cutting from shadow.

“Your Majesty Ouyang, I missed you to death!”

He snagged the rabbit with one hand and tossed it to Glorious Moon, like flicking a snowflake into moonlight. Glorious Moon glanced at it, then lobbed it to Qihe, quick as a star skipping a stone. Qihe meant to fling the odd creature away, but the force under its fur felt like a storm packed into a pebble, so he ended up cradling it like a lord holding an idol.

Inside the castle, the rabbit’s voice rang like a bell, and a woman in a maid’s dress rushed over, yanking its ear as if plucking a weed from frost. “Stupid rabbit, how many times have I told you—don’t be disrespectful to His Majesty!”

Only the head maid, Nabelia, dared bully the rabbit, that “house steward” in a fur coat. Even Liuli, the Void’s mouthpiece, or Snow, Xi’s maid, wouldn’t treat it so roughly, as if aware of lightning under cotton.

Don’t be fooled because the head maid flings it by the ear like a twig. In Eternal Slumber, besides Tiered Beings atop that pyramid and the Demon Kings—those Primordial Deities—few dare stir this rabbit’s whiskers. Even a genius like Augustine, ancient godhood humming around him like dusk cicadas, bows to the rabbit with both hands.

“Your Majesty, you’re back… Azure Bird already told me. Just now… just now… the room’s a bit messy, so…” Nabelia’s voice fluttered like paper in the wind. Ouyang felt the weight of her worry first, then caught her meaning before she finished.

He pictured Nabelia scrubbing as if chasing dust like foxfire, even with the room already spotless, and missing the first greeting because she was after one more speck of ash.

This time, his guess missed the mark like an arrow in rain.

“Your Majesty… um… inside… there’s… that…” Nabelia’s face knotted like tangled thread. Ouyang tasted the oddness first—then decided to look.

Then.

Inside, everything was flung to the floor like leaves after a gale. The sofas were gouged with hole after hole, cotton flying like drifted snow. Paper shreds carpeted the ground, each scrap a torn feather. Vases and cups lay in shards like broken ice, and tables and chairs were dismantled into lonely bones. Fruit and vegetables splattered everywhere like a harvest hurled by storm hands.

Hearing footsteps, two little lolis paused their war like sparrows freezing mid-flight.

“Brother!” Loyin soared over, joy bright as sunrise, pressing her head to Ouyang’s chest, rubbing like a kitten finding a warm fire. “Brother, brother, brother… I missed you so much!”

Ouyang hugged Loyin, her hair salted with paper snow, cotton fluff, and odd sticky colors, and his heart eased like a knot loosening. Relief first, then he saw the problem—across from him stood another wild loli, a mirror made a little wrong.

Loyin wore long, straight black hair like night water; the wild one had a shoulder-length cut, and her eyes were blood-red, like pomegranate seeds under moonlight.

“Brother, Little Sin is the worst! She trashed the house like this, and she bullied me…” Loyin pointed at the splats on her—tomato on her crown like sunset pulp, egg on her cheek like pale moon.

Little Sin?

Ouyang blinked, and the realization fell like a stone into a still pond. The only one who looked exactly like Loyin was Sin, one shard of the Original Sin. He’d seen Sin long ago, an echo from an old corridor. He took one stroll past the Gate of Truth, and this dangerous girl drifted home like a storm blown in?

From the mess, the two brats had painted one battlefield. Their fight felt rowdy as spring thunder, and yet it showed a strange closeness, like twin streams clashing and laughing. When did “Origin” and “Sin” become so friendly?

Across the room, the small Sin watched Ouyang with cold eyes, winter bright and unfamiliar. She knew him, yet not enough to press into his arms like Loyin and melt into his warmth.

Ouyang’s words stuck, feeling first the tilt of the moment, then choosing silence. He stroked Loyin’s hair like smoothing wind over grass, and told the rabbit, “Rabbit, go to the city wardens and bring out those speedsters. I invited them to the castle as guests.”

“Understood!”

The rabbit’s long ears twitched like reeds in a sudden gust, and the “playing dead” it had adopted after Nabelia tossed it vanished, life flaring back like a match.

Seeing Qihe and Glorious Moon, two outsiders perched like distant stars, Nabelia quickly cleared a space as tidy as a swept courtyard. “Honored guests, I’m truly sorry. I’ll bring tea right away.” Her voice tried to be calm, ripples over deep water.

Glorious Moon nodded, cool as frost, her fingers pinching her hem without noticing, a quiet tell of tide under ice. If even Glorious Moon stayed silent, Qihe had no room to speak, his breath held like a hunter in thicket.

Ouyang sat with Loyin on the newly cleared sofa, and he told Sin, “Come sit.” He pointed to the open spot snug against him, like inviting a stray ember to the hearth.

Sin blinked—curious, sharp—and sat without ceremony, like a blade finding its sheath.

“Little Sin, how did you get here?” Ouyang asked while picking paper snow and cotton fluff from Loyin’s hair, his movements gentle as dusk wind.

Sin stared at Ouyang, held the quiet like a cup, then spoke. “Sister Ling sent me.” Her voice was level, like a flat lake.

“Sister Ling… Jiling?” Ouyang’s thought struck like lightning behind clouds.

“Mm.” Sin’s nod was small, a petal falling.

Fine. Warmth first—then he lifted his hand and patted Sin’s head. At first she resisted like a cat arching under a new touch, then something loosened, and she closed her eyes, letting him stroke her like a small animal basking by fire.

Watching, Loyin’s face soured like rain on embers. She hugged Ouyang’s arm, guarding it like a jealous swallow, stopping his hand from reaching Sin’s hair.

“Loyin, be good. Don’t make trouble…” His voice came soft, a low river.

Sin opened her eyes at his sound, and saw Loyin pull Ouyang away as if dragging the moon from her. Anger sparked red, and her gaze pinned Loyin like hawk to field. Then she lunged, a flash like a struck match.

Within seconds, the hall rang with things thudding and skittering again, a storm of clatter. The sofa Nabelia had just cleared filled up with debris as fast as autumn leaves flooding a path.

When Nabelia returned with tea, steam drifting like pale mist, Ouyang held both brats, one in each hand, like lifting two scruff-necked sprites from a river. Nabelia almost cried on the spot, relief breaking over her like rain after drought. Too hard, it’s been too hard! Aside from Jiling and Xi, only Ouyang could freeze these two little disasters. With Jiling gone who knows where and Xi inside the Void Illusion Realm refusing to come out, Nabelia had been tormented by the two until her nerves twanged like overstretched strings.

After Nabelia set the hall right, neat as a combed garden, Ouyang put Loyin and Sin down. They couldn’t share space, so he set them left and right, himself in the middle like a calm bridge, and he gripped both their hands firmly, his palms steady as stone.

“Nabelia, give me a brief of what happened while I was away.” His tone settled like night over roofs.

On his order, Nabelia gathered her words like sheaves and began. Loyin, seeing Ouyang’s hands occupied by two little storms, noticed he couldn't drink the tea Nabelia had poured. She reached out with her right hand and picked up the cup, careful as a crane lifting dew.

“Brother, tea.” Her left hand was locked in Ouyang’s right, so she used her right to bring the cup to his lips, the gesture shy as moonlight by a window. Ouyang blinked at the oddness, felt the care first, then accepted, drinking one warm sip like swallowing calm. Loyin’s body might still be that of a loli, but she wasn’t a child lost in fog.

She’d just rather turn the hall into a flock of scattered chickens with Little Sin. Maybe this was how pieces of Original Sin traded feelings—sparks and scuffles. Even after the tussle, he hadn’t seen a shred of killing intent in their eyes, only heat like summer rain.

As Nabelia spoke, Ouyang caught the thread of these years like reading knots in old rope.

Back then, his “death” didn’t ripple the world too much, because a certain woman said he wouldn’t truly die. That woman was Jiling. Nabelia still wondered why Xi believed her so easily, but such things belong to high halls, and she wasn’t meant to know, like mist kept from the mountain’s secret paths.

The woman also brought another person—Little Sin—and left her behind like placing a blade on a table. Then she was gone, her trail thin as smoke. As for the Star Era turning into the Age of Sailing… Ouyang hadn’t been away long. Nabelia wasn’t sure exactly, but it felt about the length of the war years, a shadow matching a shadow.

Snow and Xian led their armies into the Stellar Courtyard, crashing in like thunderheads. They pacified the chaos there and secured many world coordinates, dots like stars pinned on a map. Because of those coordinates, the Panworld Alliance grew and grew, swelling like a tide under a bigger moon. Later the growth hit a bottleneck, the wave meeting a cliff, and Dufei offered a thought—since the Alliance had stalled, why not sail farther to explore unknown starfields?

That single thought sparked an age, a fever like spring fire in dry grass. The Adventurers’ Association, founded by the dark elf Feges, became a place to share charts and stories, an exchange of maps like trading lanterns. The Association set a rule: whoever discovered a new starfield could name it after themselves, letting their name float forever like a buoy in the sea of stars. The craze climbed higher than ever, a flock of sails over a bright ocean.

As the one who proposed it, Dufei felt the new era should carry his name—the Dufei Era. He had thrown the first stone into the lake, and the ripples ran to every shore, so he wanted the age to bear his mark like a seal in wax.

Of course, almost no one agreed. The Demon Kings tore at each other for hundreds of years, like storms colliding beyond a horizon, and finally they reached a compromise. Since it was an age of exploration, call it the Age of Sailing. Everyone was sailing the sea of stars, crossing black water and silver wind, forever chasing the unknown.