He went home alone, dusk settling on his shoulders like ash.

He eased the pocket-sized girl out, careful as setting a sparrow back in its nest.

He tucked the quilt up to her chin. On the pale-yellow, soft little bed, Little Ash slept like a moonlit lake, still and untroubled. Ye Weibai rolled on the couch and stared at the ceiling, eyes open, thoughts unreadable.

No one knew what he was thinking. Truth was, nothing at all—his mind went blank, like winter fields under new snow. For him, that emptied hush was the best kind of rest.

Better than sleep.

You know that feeling, right? You drag yourself to bed, sleep a whole night, and wake more tired, like a cart stuck in mud. It’s not your body failing—it’s your spirit on strike.

The reason’s simple. You dreamed all night. Dreams can be beautiful, but they’re still your cortex grinding its gears. Work burns energy. A night of dreaming is a night of thinking; exhaustion follows like rain after thunder.

Good sleep isn’t a “good dream.” It’s a night with no dreams at all.

Some people are born to dream in torrents. Some dream in serials, episode after episode. Some know inside the dream that it is a dream—lucid and heavier than lead.

Ye Weibai was one of those.

For him, sleep wasn’t much of a break. In his dreams, his mind ran feral, like vines overtaking a wall. A lively spirit gave him wit and empathy beyond most, and took other things away.

The scales of life stay cruelly fair.

…

…

But this time, he still fell asleep.

Not just asleep—well asleep, a long-missed, dreamless night. He woke clear as spring water. He’d walked two Worlds without pause and died nine times straight. Flesh can be remade a thousand times; spirit wears its scars like wind-chapped stone. Yet now, every shred of weariness, body and soul, had flown off like startled birds.

He felt light, mind and body. As if some hidden grit and black motes were sifted out from the depths, leaving him float-ready, easy as a kite in morning wind.

He pulled himself free of that near-numbing bliss in a heartbeat.

Unflinching when Mount Tai falls before your eyes—that kept him alive through death’s jaws again and again. Wit beyond most isn’t enough. When crisis hits, when life hangs by a thread, you still need to bring at least seventy percent of your power to bear. That’s a real strong one.

“Wei,” he said under his breath.

“Here.” A quartz clock etched with tangled runes drifted out of the Void.

“Let’s go. The next World.”

“…Are you ready?”

“Never better.”

“As you wish. Then—”

“Wait.” Ye Weibai’s gaze sharpened. “One question.”

“What?”

“That day. The one who dragged me into that white room—which Deity was it?”

“…” Wei held her tongue.

“What? Like It—you won’t let me hear her name?”

“She? Far from that tier. Do you know why she came?”

“Nothing much. I just want…”

He tipped his chin. His mouth curved. In sunlight, his pupils glittered like ink-polished obsidian. Light pooled there, but no warmth at all—cold as winter stars.

The smile was mild, but murder steamed off it. Word by deliberate word, he said, “—to kill her eighteen times.”

She killed me nine. I’ll kill her eighteen. Double it back. Ye Weibai was never the forgiving type.

Back then, a game’s boss trashed him by script, no mercy. He braved a blowout of his whole build, pushed against the tide, climbed to the peak, and ripped her engagement ring straight off.

Says plenty.

Wei met his eyes. “She ranks near the top among the myriad Deities.”

“Really?”

“And by the rules of Trade, I can’t strike her directly.”

“Oh? So it’s on me?” Ye Weibai’s eyes widened a fraction. Not fear, not shock—delight.

“That just makes it even more interesting,” the boy said.

Far away in nowhere-space, watching Bai’s smile through the clock—an uncommon smile on this black-haired youth, all edge and killing frost. Wei, the black-haired, black-eyed girl, let her own mouth lift slightly. She remembered long ago, time spent with Bai.

He always wore this very smile.

“Doll,” Wei breathed the Deity’s name. “Doll—Alice.”

…

…

“Hmm?”

A palace blazed gold and jade. The grand dome steamed light like morning mist. Golden currents flowed down thick red pillars, poured into lanterns carved from crystal-jade disks. Pearls hung like curtains; light broke and leapt, veiling the vast hall.

No matter how Lustrous the glass burned, no matter how the jade disks flashed, the most striking thing was still the blonde girl, seated alone upon a white-jade throne.

She crossed her legs with quiet grace. From black sleeves edged in gold, a pale wrist curved out. Two fingers, white as carved bone, pinched the tea handle. Her neck arched swan-smooth. Her lips were red and glistening. She sipped her black tea, elegant and aloof, like a queen drinking dawn.

She was one of the Deities—Doll Alice.

Her fluid motions snagged mid-stream. A small hitch, but it broke the rhythm.

“Who?”

The girl, looking only eleven or twelve, frowned a shade. Her chin lifted. Her eyes looked down on all. In a breath, a monarch’s chill majesty surged off her like a storm breaking.

Boom—!

Gold raged in her crystal irises, as if golden fire had been lit. Her hair and black robes flared with no wind. From her center, a golden surge roared out like a sea in spate. It swept the hall in a blink, burst past the colossal palace, didn’t slow at all—like a landslide, like a tsunami, like the sky cracking—kept going.

That was her mind-force made tangible. In a single breath, it swept her whole World, tore the world-walls, and spilled into nearby Worlds.

—And yet, she sensed nothing.

“Who dares—peep at me?”

In that instant, she felt cold.

For a Deity to feel cold—that’s no weather. That’s the sixth sense of godhood. In the river of Time, out in the future’s flow, a vast crisis, a terror with a blood-red maw, waited in the dark current for her to arrive—

—and then to swallow her whole.

What a joke. Who was she? She was the one even Deities found intractable, even feared—Doll Alice.

“Laughable.” Her child-soft voice filled with murder and scorn.

“And you even dare to set your calculus on me.” She rose in a long line. Gold burned in her gaze. She scanned the cosmos. Her robes and hair thrummed in chorus.

“Truly—courting death.”

…

…

“Then, let’s go.”

“Oh—Wei, one more thing—”

“…Move.”

“Uh, hold on, the Misfortune Crystal, don’t—”

Whoosh—

The sound cut clean.

“Idiot Bai… Next World—stay alive for me!”