I’ve seen through it, and I’m tired—eyes rubbed raw like river stones under forgotten currents.
Words with that kind of weathered weight feel like driftwood burned smooth by tides; only it could speak them.
It’s lived too long, so the Ancient Turtle won’t ask an Administrator’s leave to slip past this starry sea; it wants the helm itself, and its next words nail that truth like iron spikes in frozen wood.
“My greatest wish is to challenge that kind of being. Even in defeat, I’d wear honor like a battle-scarred banner.”
That loneliness was a cold moon Ouyang couldn’t read; not yet. Maybe years from now, he’d recall today and sigh at the frost. Living, for ancient beings with no ties, is a winter that never thaws.
Bickering inside bonds, laughing and crying while you grow—that way of living keeps the color in your leaves.
“In each starry sky, there will never be a second Administrator. When one appears, the rest will never birth another. It’s an iron law, etched in the heavens.”
The news hit Ouyang like sleet. He’d never known, and it sliced off that thin hope like a thread. He’d dreamed everyone could be Administrators together—two boats sharing the same harbor—but the sea wasn’t that kind. One only. Under the same stars, no second throne. The Ancient Turtle’s resolve was granite, and it wouldn’t budge.
He let out a long breath, a wind skimming a cold lake, not sure if he grieved the helplessness or something else.
“Can you do me a favor? Sure, next time we meet we’ll be enemies, but right now we’re still talking over calm tea. Help me before it’s you-or-me.”
Ouyang slid over with a grin like sunlight on wet stone. The Ancient Turtle flicked him a look, then turned away, old-shell disdain lifting like smoke.
“Brat, spare me. We’re enemies.”
“Who knows… but we’re not enemies yet. That’s for next time. You count as a teacher to everyone on the Other Shore. By that title, helping me’s only fair.”
The Ancient Turtle stood quiet, silence piling up like snow.
After a while, it lifted its head. Those eyes had watched ages flow like silted rivers; they settled on Ouyang with a deep, wry glint. “Back then, those brats were the same. You and they share the same shameless spine.”
Its gaze seemed to look through the river of time.
“Back then they found me and pestered me, day after day, to help them raise the Other Shore.”
The Third Epoch stepping into the Fourth was marked when the Master of Radiance struck the world’s hymn and founded the Other Shore. Late in the Third, the hymn had sounded, but the Other Shore wasn’t built. Three figures came to the Ancient Turtle and begged it to return to the stage.
At first, it refused, granite unmoved. But three noisy rogues chirped at its ear like sparrows on a winter branch.
In the end, they handed it a pretext solid as a painted mask: become the new Administrator.
Truth was, the Ancient Turtle trained people from the Other Shore because it saw sparks in them, and it meant to yank them from their altars the moment they reached Administrator. That story? A neat excuse those three stitched for the Turtle.
Later, bored to the bone, the Ancient Turtle took that excuse as oath. At least its current plan against Ouyang was real as flint.
Ouyang almost swore out loud. So this old monster was set against them because those three ran their mouths. Maybe they’d tossed out a reason just to lure the Turtle from its lair. But the Turtle believed it.
Worst of all, at the end of the Eighth Epoch, they dusted their hands and left, and the wreck they made landed in Ouyang’s lap like a cracked bell.
“With teammates like that, do I call it luck or a curse?” He laughed at himself, wanting to wade back through time and wring those rogues’ necks. No wonder in the First Epoch the First Cult worshiped them and called them the Three Rogues; that title wasn’t hollow.
That’s the truth, though the official tale claims the Ancient Turtle came on its own and helped them build the Other Shore.
Only four knew the secret: those three and the Ancient Turtle. Not even the First Princess or the rest among the Seven Watchers heard it. Now there was one more—Ouyang—and with those three gone, only the Ancient Turtle and Ouyang hold this ember under the same sky.
“They said when they became Administrators, I’d be welcome to challenge them… and then those shameless ones left.” The bleakness pressed Ouyang’s chest like deep water.
He knew their temper. They’d been joking, a trick to bring the Turtle out. But the Turtle took it as vow. After such long years, with that breadth of sight, how could it not know? And still—it chose to believe.
It believed and fooled itself, the way mist pretends to be rain.
It hoped, so it tasted disappointment. Yet it didn’t hate them. In its eyes, that was only three children pulling a prank, chalk on a temple step.
“So now, knowing we stand opposed, you still ask my help. Shameless, same as those kids.”
The Ancient Turtle shook its head like a patient elder with a stubborn child. It tapped Ouyang’s forehead with a blunt claw. The world fell away like ink washed from paper; in Ouyang’s sight, everything returned to the first empty hush.
He drifted outside time, swam the clean void like a silent lake. Ahead, hazy and close, a new era glowed like dawn beyond reeds. One step, and he could cross.
He stopped. He didn’t take it.
If he were alone—no ties, no names tugging at him—he might have leapt free of this river of time, free of this net of cause.
But bonds held like warm threads. Someone still waited; someone still hoped.
Lines stretched toward him from every side like silver vines, and when they neared, he saw: chains. A storm of chains spilled from the unknown, all aimed at one place—his heart, the end and the beginning in the same throb.
Causality—different from fate. Causality is seed and harvest; without seed, no harvest. Do nothing, and causality sleeps.
Fate is different. Fate is a film already cut together; even if you sit still, the credits roll to the same end.
In a way, parallel worlds braid with causality like twin rivers. Some once argued their existence by cause and effect. From one point, different choices fork like paths, and worlds split.
Choice is the cause; worlds born are the fruit.
The world shivered back to dead sky and bare earth. In Ouyang’s hand lay a greatsword two meters long, forged from countless chains—links of causality threaded into a blade that pierces cause and harvest.
Blue flickered through Ouyang’s eyes, a cold spark like millennia crushed into a heartbeat.
“Thanks.”
His face held neither grief nor joy. The glove on his right hand unfurled into a small boy. Youwen blinked, lost as a fawn. Ouyang patted his shoulder. “Thank you for walking with me all these years. Your task is done. From here… this part is mine.”
He didn’t say whether that thanks was for the Ancient Turtle cutting his causal knots, or for Youwen’s quiet company.
“But…” Youwen started. Ouyang shook his head. “In the fight ahead, I’m prepared to return to void. You don’t need to. If you can, carry my will. Live bravely.”
He cleaved space with one stroke, a seam opening like moonlight in silk, and stepped through without looking back. Youwen stared a moment, then followed Ouyang into the cut.
