After palming the three brats off on a burly lug, Ouyang glanced left and right like a wary fox at the field’s edge, then slipped away from this hornet’s nest.

If those brats couldn’t see him, they’d buzz around that lug longer, like moths drunk on lamplight.

If he stayed put, they’d peek, remember their original target, and in ten minutes come clinging back like seaweed on a tide.

He shouldered his lounge chair, raised a sun‑umbrella like a portable cloud, and tiptoed off like a crab with its shell.

Snap—someone swatted his shoulder from behind, and he spun around like a startled sparrow.

“Brother Book, want me to lace you into shoes two sizes too small?” He eyed the Little Yellow Book’s greasy grin, itching to seal it and pitch it into a latrine for ten thousand winters.

These days, every familiar face felt like a thorn bush; yesterday still stung, and now this cheeky book came like a bad wind.

The Little Yellow Book kept smirking, then a newspaper slid from its pages like a dead leaf from a tree.

Ouyang picked it up, skimmed it, and his face went steel‑blue like stormwater.

The worry he’d caged flew free—some paparazzi chief had spun a big headline from that photo Kanofia had secretly snapped.

He didn’t even think; a tongue of fire licked the paper, and ash snowed down in a heartbeat.

“Brother Book, what’s the play here? You brought that rag just to sour my stomach?” His gaze cut toward the book like a knife across silk.

From the moment he’d made his choice, the river of time had begun to ripple with phantoms.

Maybe the Book of Epochs couldn’t see it clear, but the Flowing Light Wheel—one of the Eternal Three—surely felt the current.

The mouthy Little Yellow Book went shut like a door at dusk.

“Quiet? That’s not the you I know,” Ouyang said, voice light as a drifting reed. “Did the Wheel whisper something, so you went silent?”

He shrugged like a man shaking off rain. “The ending isn’t perfect, but aside from us few, everyone gets a ‘happy end.’ The village lights will glow warm.”

After a long hush, the Little Yellow Book finally spoke, its tone like embers under ash. “True. For you, it’s just a long sleep. Rest easy—I’ll wake you from that winter.”

“We’ll meet in that far future horizon, and together we’ll wreak merry havoc on other universes like two comets.”

“That’s more like it. That’s the Book of Epochs I know,” Ouyang said, his smile a thin moon.

He watched the book’s retreating spine drift away like a leaf on a slow stream, and fell silent.

He’d considered other paths, but against that higher‑dimension sky pressing down, they had no room to breathe.

Maybe Jiling of the last cosmic epoch could have stood like a mountain, but the Jiling of now didn’t have that iron in his blood.

So there was only one knife‑edge bridge to cross...

He shook his head like a man brushing off dust. He didn’t want to think. He wanted rest, a last patch of sunshine.

The sense of having planted another flag fluttered in him like a pennant in fickle wind, and then—thud—a sandball smacked him, showering his hair with grit like desert rain.

“Ah—Great Scholar? Sorry, didn’t see you...” The thrower looked stricken, a kid caught with a slingshot under a peach tree.

That title tugged old threads in Ouyang’s memory like a loom coming alive.

Only a few ever called him that. He patted the sand from his face like brushing off frost and looked up—familiar faces everywhere, like lanterns returning at New Year.

Which was obvious; the whole Sunlit Coast was their rented harbor now. Strangers wouldn’t slip in past these nets.

He stared blankly at Jelinka, then forced a smile that rose like a weak dawn. “Long time no see, everyone…”

Jelinka and her sister Sheila were here, and Anseist the knight, Sholazos the bald ox, and Quyas the muscle‑mountain.

The whole team that once explored the Kooson palace stood gathered like old chess pieces set back on the board.

And a certain old man still breathed, stubborn as a pine on a cliff.

Yes, that king—the unlucky one Ouyang and Lagu of the Night Clan had pushed into the water like a clumsy carp.

Later, because Ouyang and Lagu stole his lunch, they ate the poisoned meal instead, and the king ducked death like a fish slipping the net.

The poor old king had been storm‑tossed back then, and still he stood.

Ouyang’s brow lifted when he saw Leticia and Snow, their talk weaving like threads on a quiet loom.

“Leticia? What, did that old skeleton give you a holiday?” He meant the Demon Lord Safix, who ruled the Abyss like a shadowed throne.

Leticia belonged to Ancient Memory Town—right now, only Xi and her sister, the maid Snow, and Leticia, who also worked part‑time for the Glachidor Clan, still stayed there.

If you counted closely, you’d add Moer like a bright bead.

Thinking of Moer, Ouyang realized he hadn’t seen her or Little Night for ages. Those two sprites drifted around Ancient Memory Town like fireflies in a grove.

They didn’t love crowds; only a handful now had leave to enter that place.

Even Jue, a Tiered Being, needed Xi’s nod to step across that gate like crossing a moonlit stream.

And they couldn’t bear to leave; sprites have hearts like old gardens—full of roots.

Ancient Memory Town was a true hidden haven, a peach‑blossom valley tucked behind mist.

Leticia’s blood carried demon fire, a flame traced straight to the Demon Lord.

Put plainly, the Demon Lord was her ancestor, the mountain behind her shadow.

That’s why she became the Abyss’s ambassador to the “Origin” world; by blood, she wore a crown of the Abyss, and by ties, she stood beside Ouyang and Xi like a friend at the hearth.

“Mm, Lord Ouyang, long time,” Leticia said, voice soft as warm tea. “Ancestor meant to send me to other worlds to temper myself, but for some reason he sent me back, told me to catch up with everyone.”

She didn’t know why, but Safix, being a Tiered Being, probably saw something in the turbulent river of time, like dark fish twisting under waves.

It was fine. Old friends gathered like stars in a single sky—regrets could finally go quiet.

Ouyang looked at Leticia, brow furrowing like plowed earth.

She went tense under his gaze, a deer under arrows. “Lord Ouyang… did I do something wrong?”

“Ah? No… well,” he said, voice drifting like incense. “Leticia, remember our first meeting? I miss you in a maid outfit, honestly.”

He pointed at Snow beside her, cool as winter. “Like Snow’s outfit.”

Leticia’s eyes widened like twin full moons.

“How about this,” Ouyang said, snapping his fingers like flint sparking. “Leticia, change into a maid outfit like Snow’s, and you two ferry food around for the gathering.”

Snow’s face stayed icy, a lake under frost, but she asked, “Is that an order?”

He glanced at the maid of iron snow; she never did extra work unless a command came from Ouyang or Xi like a seal pressed in wax.

“It’s not an order. It’s a favor,” he said, voice gentle as rain on bamboo.

Hearing that, soft‑hearted Leticia couldn’t refuse; it was rope on silk. “So unfair. Since it’s Lord Ouyang’s request, I can’t say no.”

Back in Ancient Memory Town, if Ouyang hadn’t stepped in, her end would have been a blood curse turning inward like a snake eating its tail.

She’d have become a madwoman with no kin nor name, like others in the Dika Family.

Her father had been devoured by demon blood, mind broken like cracked glass; he killed his wife, Leticia’s mother, as if winter wiped blossoms.

A high‑seated Demon Lord wouldn’t notice a faint blood‑thread so thin it barely breathed.

Because Ouyang existed like a lantern in fog, Leticia was later trusted by the Demon Lord like a chosen blade.

Compared to those past debts, his request now was a feather against a mountain.

Leticia had no reason to refuse, and no strength to.

Leticia was set, but Snow was another mountain.

Snow huffed at Ouyang like a tiny gust, then said, “If not for the young mistress’s face, I wouldn’t agree to your favor.”

“Right, right… then I’m in your hands,” Ouyang said, smile bright as sun on waves, surprised to see this icy maid’s tsundere thorn peek out like a redbud.

Soon, Leticia stepped out in a maid outfit, that familiar silhouette stirring Ouyang’s memory like yesterday’s dew still clinging to grass.

He almost saw that girl who used to call him “Chef, sir” at his side like a bell in a warm kitchen.

He saw the girl who took the blame alone after his dark‑cuisine disaster, never spilling his name, like a shield held in storm.

Quyas and Sholazos, a pair of best bros, noticed Ouyang staring, and grinned like wolves.

They shoved him, hoping to knock him into Leticia like a clumsy ox into a flower cart.

Dreams were lush as summer leaves; reality was lean as winter twigs.

He’d been unlucky these days, tangled by teammates like reeds snagged by river hooks.

So when Jelinka’s sandball hit him earlier, he kept an eye open like a cat in tall grass.

Sure enough, he snatched Quyas mid‑mischief, catching him like a hawk grabbing a rabbit.

“Muscle man, let’s talk about life,” Ouyang said, smile sharp as a blade.

“Great Scholar… th‑this isn’t right. I’m not into dudes,” Quyas stammered, face flushing like boiled shrimp.

You walk near cinnabar, you glow red; sit by ink, you go dark—proximity stains like wine on silk.

Years with Ouyang had dyed Quyas’s speech; even “not into dudes” rolled off like practiced slang.

“Into dudes? Who said I’m into dudes? Don’t smear me,” Ouyang snapped, words cracking like dry bamboo.

He hauled Quyas and Sholazos by left and right like sacks of rice, anger flaring like a bonfire at dusk.

Clearly, they needed a lesson to remind them of the fear once ruled by Ouyang the Demon King, a shadow that fell like night over the field.

Only then would they remember who held the mountain peak.